Tag: ups - Vintage Fountain Pens: Sheaffer, Parker, Inkwells, Buy Sell Trade at The Pen Market

We love the United States Postal Service. It is cheaper and faster at sending pens across the country and around the world than any of its rivals. After the early pandemic problem with international mail, everything is going great! (It also is one of the only governmental services mentioned and mandated by the U.S. Constitution.)

BUT!

Fight the huge postal rate hike and intentionally slowed service of USPS by its own Postmaster General Louis DeJoy by writing him and President Joe Biden to stop this shameful mismanagement of USPS resources to enrich DeJoy who is heavily invested in the USPS’ biggest delivery rivals.

The USPS just announced it will be — just for the holidays! — RAISING its RATES annnnnnd SLOWING SERVICE! This new policy goes in effect October 3.

We are sorry, but we likely will have to raise our shipping charges to keep from losing money.

Why is the USPS spiking rates and slowing service for the holidays? As a former journalist, I can tell you the old rule of “Follow the money” is never more true than now.

Look no further than Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Prior to becoming Postmaster General, DeJoy had a political axe to grind against the USPS and wanted it privatized. Why? U.S.A. Today points out that he has between $30 million and $70 million dollars invested in 3 delivery corporations in direct competition with the United States Postal Service. Those corporations are United Parcel Service (UPS), XPO Logistics and J.B. Hunt (Freight).

I don’t think it matters what your politics are, that looks a lot like hiring the fox to watch the hen house.

No. Maybe it doesn’t matter if a pen takes 2 or 3 days longer to get to you. BUT, what about critical medication to the elderly and sick? What about vital real estate, tax and business records where a lot of money is changing hands or peoples’ lives are put on hold as these items, for legal reasons, must be sent via the mail?

And why raise rates and slow service just before the holidays? Could it have anything to do with bringing the USPS down to the overpriced, slow service levels of UPS and DeJoy’s other corporate interests to help bolster their sales at the expense of the USPS? He’ll say no, but I’m not convinced when he has $30M to $70M at stake to make his investments do better.

I have already written DeJoy and President Joe Biden, demanding the service disruption be stopped and preferably to have DeJoy sacked. Yet, my two lonely letters won’t get much attention. Please write to both men and demand better of the United States Postal Service. The more letters they get, the more results we might get.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
United States Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, S.W.
Room 4012
Washington, D.C. 20260

President Joe Biden
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC
20500

Due to clever internet criminals figuring out a loop hole in transaction policies, we are forced to change the way we ship overseas.

For more than 7 years we proudly offered $15 uninsured global shipping. Everybody knew there was some small risk that the pen would go missing, but it wasn’t a problem. We have shipped pens to nearly 100 different countries, and the postal service only lost one of those pens! Luckily, it was a $15 Lamy.

I formed good internet friendships with people all over the world whom I’d have never met if it wasn’t for this website. And nearly everybody I dealt with was honest and a pleasure.

Well, sadly, it appears clever thieves have found a loop hole in the various international policies that govern our transactions. For the past four months, what first seemed to have started as a fluke, has now formed a pattern. Who’d have thought you could steal from an internet company without hacking their bank account?!

Unfortunately, for all of my wonderful international customers, it has forced a change in shipping policy. We can no longer offer $15 uninsured international shipping. We are now forced to charge $45 for global priority insured shipping by the United States Postal Service. It protects you and me, which is good, but it also costs $30 more than the majority good and honest pen collectors of the world used to pay.

CANADIAN SHOPPERS, priority mail costs less for you, but the program I use cannot yet differentiate between countries. Priority shipping for our northern neighbors typically costs $25 to $30 but the shopping cart still has to charge the $45. PLEASE REST ASSURED, we will REFUND any overage in shipping price.

EVERYBODY, I have investigated UPS and FedEx. They cost a solid $20 to $40 more per package than the United States Postal Service to ship overseas. Furthermore, it is well known in the U.S. that both of these alternative carriers use USPS trucks and planes to carry their mail. Thus, you are often paying extra for the same service you would have gotten from USPS. If you would still rather use UPS or FedEx because you have a shipping account with them, please feel free to contact us to use this shipping option. We will need your account number to assign the charges to you, but we will refund any money you were charged for shipping, if you ordered straight off of our website.

Again, I’m terribly sorry for the necessity of this change. It is such a shame a few dishonest people ruin a good thing for everybody.

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Tag Archives: ups

Changes at The United States Postal Service

Changes to International Shipping