And a huge thank you to the USPS...

[anghara]

... for simply declaring that it will no longer carry cheap(er) postage rates for overseas. A book I just sent overseas cost me close to $20 - because the only options left are First Class or Priority Mail. My nieces are going to be awfully short on birthday or Christmas presents from now on, seeing as it will probably cost me more to mail them than it did to obtain them.

Might someone inquire of the USPS whether they thought this out properly? They are a SERVICE ORGANISATION. They exist - or should exist - in order to fulfill the needs of the public in the arena of mail. They do NOT exist - or should not exist - simply and solely to make a profit, especially if that profit is earned by cutting out services for which there WAS a need, seeing as the US is traditionally a country full of people with friends and family overseas to whom occasional parcels might be sent. Just what was so damned difficult about getting together a container-full of sea-mail to ship off overseas every so often? I mean, come on!

Oh, and while I'm at it...? This whole new thang they've got, with postage rates now depending on the item's size, and shape, and weight - this is just a form of holding the public at ransom. Now you have no way of knowing how much postage should go on any given item, you HAVE to go queue in the post office if you have anything remotely unusual and non-standard to send (like a bunch of bookmarks, for instance) - and even if you have a plain and simple envelope, if it has a couple of sheets of paper folded inside it and suddenly weighs more than a certain amount you have to pay not one, not two, not five, but SEVENTEEN cents extra postage for every additional ounce. And God help you if you wanted to send an unusually shaped large birthday card to a five-year-old, for instance.

Feh. Not happy.

Comments

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I remember those airmail letterwriting pads - onionskin paper and all. But that's not my beef - I am perfectly happy for international AIRMAIL to cost more if you send heavier stuff. But you used to have a choice - if it didn't matter when the thing got to where it was going, or if you were foresighted enough to send a parcel six to eight weeks ahead of time, you used to have the option of sea mail - parcel stuffed into container, container stuffed onto ship, like that. As far as I know, container ships still ply the seas as we speak. What bums me out is that the postal service folks have unilaterally decided that such options are now beneath them, or too much work, or something - because your choices of sending anything heavier than a simple letter-sized envelope overseas are now First Class (airmail, thus expensive) or Priority (gets it there airmail AND expedited, so twice as expensive).

The only reason I can see for cutting the sea-mail option is profit margins. And it annoys me that a good service is being sacrificed to pad the bottom line.