Christmas Card W/Postage Due

[Rustward]

Have a niece and nephew-in-law who spend a bundle every year on custom made Christmas cards. They hire a photographer to capture images of them and their three children and have cards printed. Guess they can afford it. This year's card is a tri-fold on heavy paper with a photo of the three kids on the front; when the tri-fold is completely opened, each kid has his/her own page. There is an extra of the new one born in November, and yet another photo of all five on the back. It is very nicely done.

Does seem a little heavy and thick, though. It arrived with a first class Forever stamp, and the Postage Due _____ c stamped in red. The place where the due amount is supposed to be written in is still blank; I guess some postal worker was in the holiday spirit. Never had this happen before.

 

[Nords]

... and the Postage Due _____ c stamped in red. The place where the due amount is supposed to be written in is still blank; I guess some postal worker was in the holiday spirit.

I think the USPS is rightfully gunshy of the negative publicity that would ensue from enforcing the postage rules on Christmas cards.

But it'll make a great story to share with your niece! In a snail-mail letter with a postage-due stamp, of course...

 

[ronin]

We got an unsealed Christmas envelope with no card and no stamp delivered by the USPS. Somebody was hitting the eggnog.

 

[Koolau]

We took our cards to the PO because some of them were fairly thick. The clerk dropped them through a template and those that got stuck required significantly more postage. I could see how it would be easy to get mixed up on this and not get enough postage. It was kind of a fine line what would fit and what wouldn't. Also, I think the lady "helped" a little by pushing on several of them. Since she put the meter postage on them, I assumed they would all go OK. Nothing came back.

 

[Rustward]

We got an unsealed Christmas envelope with no card and no stamp delivered by the USPS. Somebody was hitting the eggnog.

Uh, Ron, that might've been from us. Anyway, Merry Christmas.

 

[Nova]

We sent presents to both grandkids...same things (not Christmas). Took them to the post office and paid the required postage. One g-kid got the package right away. Two weeks later the other g-kid got at postage due notice from the post office...when you pick up the package at the post office, pay the postage due. Seems that her post office charged for irregular size packages. Each package was about the size of a toy football and the packages were sent to addresses within 50 miles of each other. Go figure!

 

[mickeyd]

Postage Due _____ c stamped in red.

I didn't know that they still did this. Seems that I heard/read/imagined that, due to USPS changes, if your postage was not enough, that they would return it to you. We so seldom mail stuff that the rules on this are now very vague.

 

[Koolau]

We sent presents to both grandkids...same things (not Christmas). Took them to the post office and paid the required postage. One g-kid got the package right away. Two weeks later the other g-kid got at postage due notice from the post office...when you pick up the package at the post office, pay the postage due. Seems that her post office charged for irregular size packages. Each package was about the size of a toy football and the packages were sent to addresses within 50 miles of each other. Go figure!

I would think the PO worker who rejected the pkg. would notice that their "brother" PO worker had handled the actual postage - you paid, but they weighed (and measured). I'm guessing you could complain and be compensated (obviously not worth the effort) but the point is that it's not like you slapped a stamp on an oversized letter and then dropped it in a mail slot. You took the bother to hand carry it to the PO and trusted them to put the right postage on it (at your cost.) No wonder our postage rates continue to rise out of control.