United States Postal Service Review

I am starting to get paranoid about sending things in the mail. I have these random stamps that do not have the postage marked on them. I start to second guess on them and end up putting two on the envelopes, so they don't get returned or lost.

I know prices increase, but the USPS has such a random approach to stamp hikes. It seems like I just bought stamps. Then I discover (not sure how) that they went up again. It couldn't be in January, and they couldn't drop me a note on that. It's a one cent hike in mid-May. Here it is June, and I'm scratching my head.

I did go check the USPS web site. The information is there after a good number of clicks. My cracked bell stamps are FOREVER stamps. They do not go out of date. Well, that's good. Could they perhaps write FOREVER on them? OOPS! They did. It's in fine print up the side. Good thing someone around here has better eyesite than I do.

They do sell postage at the USPS site, but I like to get my stamps at the grocery store. That's just much easier. Or it seems so until I find out prices went up - and don't know if my stamps are good or not.

We ran out of mailboxes in town, so the mail comes to boxes out at the street. This is convenient on some levels. The mail is right there. There aren't any locks though, and some of the neighbor kids like to take the mail out and throw it in the ditch or cram it in a neighbors box. I don't guess the USPS can help that, but it is a pain.

Today I got two business letters that had to be mailed back at my expense saying I still live here. Seems that two pieces of business mail were returned to sender saying my address was not valid. It has been valid for years. I am wondering why USPS told the bank that the address is bad. I hope the bank gets my return mail saying I live here, because the bank will give my money over to the government for unfound claims if not. Probably need to follow up on that with a call. Sigh. Life should not be that complicated.

The USPS folks are friendly here when I do go in. The web site does have a lot of information on the services and rates. I'm just not sure I want to do mail online. But I really do hate having to set aside time to figure out how much stamps are valued and also having to send mail to say I do, in fact, live here still. If it's that confusing in person, I hate to think about trying to deal with it online.

Guess who is cranky today?