Please Help Me Decipher A Specific Mistake Made By The United States Postal Service

When I send away for pictorial postmarks, I send my covers in a bubble mailer, and enclose a smaller bubble mailer for their return. Today, one of my return mailers came back with a postage due handstamp and a handwritten indication of postage due.

So, I weighed it. As you can see from the photo of my scale (which is calibrated and quite accurate), my return mailer weighs 2.59 ounces (73g), with my label designating it as a First Class Parcel. The price for the three-ounce weight for this service is $2.45. For postage, I used one $2.00 Inverted Jenny reprint and one "Forever" stamp (with a postage value of $0.47), so there was $2.47 postage affixed: 2¢ more than required.

So, two questions:

1. Why was no attempt made to collect the $0.87 from me, if the Post Office thought it was required?

2. And more to the point, where did did that figure of $0.87 come from? I cannot make sense of the error that would have led to them coming up with that specific wrong answer. This is the really baffling one. I can understand making a mistake, I just cannot figure out what mistake they actually made!

The USPS probably thought that your "Forever" stamp was some sort of charity sticker!

Perhaps, GeoffHa — and it certainly does not look like a traditional stamp! — but $2.87 is not a valid rate for postage either. It jumps from $2.83 to $3.02 for this service.

Actually, continuing on GeoffHa's train of thought: if they didn't think the "Forever" stamp was valid postage, and they assessed postage due at 2x the deficit, then we're now off by a penny three cents, which is much closer than I had gotten before!

The 87 cents will be deducted from your first/next social security payment. (Wink.)

If nothing else, you now have a very cool modern cover with markings worth well more than the 87 cents they wanted from you!

We are of like mind, centerstage98!

I'm thinking of sending the scan to Linn's (an American stamp publication, for those who don't know).

I don't know where they get 87 cents, but one thing I see is that it is nonmachinable which according to the DMM is 21 cents additional:

Letters that meet one or more of the nonmachinable characteristics in DMM 101.1.2 are subject to the $0.21 nonmachinable surcharge.

Outside of that, I don't know what else is an issue.

You are correct that a 21¢ nonmachinable surcharge exists, 1typesetter, but this was marked as (and paid for as) a parcel. The nonmachinable surcharge only applies to letter mail.

Mcgeesorg, did you ever ask the good folks at the post office?

Peter

Petert4522, my self-addressed stamped envelope (which I paid for at parcel rates) was delivered to me, successfully, bearing a "Return for Postage" stamp that should have gotten it rerouted to the source post office (which is in a different state). It either should not have gotten to me at all, or (I would think) there should be some kind of separate annotation along the lines of "Nah, it's all good, deliver it to him, he paid enough postage."

I don't know whom to ask. I guess I could write a letter to the post office from which I requested the pictorial postmark. I don't know what happened to it in the mailstream: was it bounced back to the originating post office at all? If not, why not? If so, what did they do?

I'm quite confused.

Only the clerk who rated the postage due knows for sure, so at best we are second-guessing. I agree, the $2.45 for a 3 ounce parcel seems fully correct.
However two thoughts come to mind:
1. Ignoring the "First Class Parcel" label, the clerk rated it as a normal 3 ounce letter, which would cost 0.89, then being totally unfamiliar with current US stamps, gave 2 cents credit for the $2 stamp and took the other as a label of no postal value. Thus 0.87 due. Though why the clerk would then cancel the label is beyond me. No doubt this clerk will soon be promoted to a managerial position.
2. The original envelope was somehow due and the clerk transferred the due amount to the return envelope (I admit I don't buy into this reasoning).

For the non-collection, your carrier is lazy.

Here's another theory. The under 3 ounce rate for a large envelope or flat, machinable, is $1.36. If the soda stamp was recognized at $0.47, and the Jenny was mistaken for 2 cents, then 1.36 - 0.49 = 0.87. Remember that the USPS generally does not recognize unofficial etiquette such as your First Class Parcel label. They ignore all such labels and make their own judgment about what the piece is and what rate applies. They saw it as large but floppy and picked the $1.36 rate while also erring on the Jenny.

Either this or John Beckers story is what happened and then the clerk noticed the Dollars on the Jenny and said, there must be enough on there, or recalculated and passed it on. That also could have happened at the receiving office when someone had to judge whether to collect the due amount. They rechecked and passed it.

Chris

John Becker, I wouldn't say the carrier is lazy, I use to leave postage due all the time, when I knew the patron. They would make it right the next time I saw them. In other cases I knew that the patron was not financially well off and I would pick up the cost for them.

For what little it cost me in postage due, I would make it up at Christmas time.

As a carrier, you get to know your customers.

I would go with Chris's theory. Go to the Post Office and demand a $1.11 refund. (Wink.)

I don't think that postmen in the UK ordinarily collect postage due anymore. I think they leave a card with the customer, who then collects and pays from the local sorting office. Not sure what happens out in the sticks.