[Boatanchors] Medial Mail

[W8ZV]

On 7/16/2011 2:12 PM, mac wrote:
> Bill, et-al,
>
> Interesting and makes sense but the manager's statement may or may not
> reflect official USPO policy. I regularly mail out DVDs in the
> standard DVD/CD cardboard mailers but every time it's a crapshoot as
> to whether it's a small package, letter, oversize letter or something
> else.  The definition varies PO to PO and window to window within
> POs.  I've been asked "what did you pay last time?" by some clerks,
> but whatever I had been told before by somebody else is usually
> dismissed out of hand.  Don't know if going back to USPO headquarters
> for an authoritative judgement would do any good or not.  :^(
>
> Dennis D.  W7QHO
> Glendale, CA

    Hi All!

     I work for USPS.  They have changed the rules regarding certain 
mail classes and such, but media mail has never been allowed to carry 
anything with advertising.  It's been that way for years.  WHEN you find 
a clerk (or anybody else that answers the above question different that 
what I sited above), they do not know or understand the regs on media 
mail.  This usually happens in a small office where that person isn't 
used to dealing with this stuff.  I usually ask those questions of the 
people in the Business Mail Entry Unit located in any large post 
office.  They know this stuff inside out and backwards.   Yup, it's a 
pain, but you don't want the grief of dealing with the Inspection 
Service either.  You can find the regs for yourself at USPS.com and look 
up the type of mail you want to send.  Drill down through the menus and 
you'll find the portion of the manual (approved by congress and the 
postal board of gov's) and it is pretty plain.
> ******************
> On Jul 16, 2011, at 10:31 AM, Bill Cotter wrote:
>
>> I just returned from our local Post Office. The manager stated that
>> "The intent of the Media Mail restriction on advertisements refers
>> strictly to the bulk shipping of flyers, handbills, printed
>> advertisements, catalogs, graphic art advertising and other
>> print-shop jobs." In other words, media to be used to promote
>> selling (present tense).
>>
>> He also said "Magazines, manuals, CD's, DVD's, publications,
>> journals, digests, etc are considered books or bound materials, and
>> are shippable as media mail." He went on to say ".....The fact that
>> a historical document contains an advertisement does not make it
>> the dominant characteristic of the material......" It is a
>> magazine, not a catalog.
>>
>> He suggested printing on the package "Media Mail - Bound matter."
>>
>> With respect to Pete's cry of "lying", it is clearly wrong to call
>> a radio in a box "media mail", and truthful to call a bunch of QSTs
>> a "books or bound matter."
>>
>> 73 Bill N4LG
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-- 
Kim Herron W8ZV
1-616-677-3706