[Milsurplus] Media Mail again!

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

Delivery Confirmation is another one of those gray areas in the minds of 
the million USPS employees.  The book says that to put it on First Class Mail 
the "mail piece" must be in a "rigid container" at least 3/4" thick.  My 
Post Office used to inforce the rule with a piece of (I think) 1 by 4 with a 
3/4" by about 15" slot cut in it.  If they could pull you package through the 
slot, it didn't get DelCnfm.  But I routinely receive mail in padded 
envelopes less than half an inch thick with the bar code printed on them.  Since we 
started printing our own postage, we just ignore the rule if we want to use 
it.  Maybe in ten or fifteen years, they'll get around to revising the 
book.

In a message dated 2011-07-18 23:35:21 PM Central Daylight Time, 
kargo_cult at msn.com writes: 
> I got a reply years ago by just writing to the "Postmaster General, 
> Washington D.C."
> Perhaps naïve, but it worked.
> It would not work, of course, for "Joe Schmoe, Washington D.C."
> It is harder for them to toss or delete a paper letter.
> It just occurred to me, I could send it "Delivery Confirmation  Required."
> -Hue
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: gl4d21a at juno.com
> Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 12:55 PM
> To: kargo_cult at msn.com
> Cc: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Media Mail again!
> 
> Hue wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> This whole issue reminds me that I was going to write, as in "write
> on actual paper", to the Postmaster General to urge for a clear and
> definitive ruling on this, and one that is applied uniformly.  Maybe i
> will even finally get on this now that I've been reminded. I was thinking
> paper, because hopefully, it would be less easy for some underling to
> intercept and delete.
> <snip>
> 
> OK, what is the Postmaster General's address?  Look it up.  I mean besides 
> 
> Washington, D. C.?  Zip code??  Not specified anywhere I could find about 
> 15 
> years ago when we were stuck wth these 911 address changes.  I did find an 
> 
> internal USPS publication posted online which led me finally to the 
> "Address 
> Quality Unit", and some lady in D. C. at an 1-800 number.  When I read the 
> 
> 911 district letter, cosigned by the local USPS main office by the way, 
> she 
> laughed when I gave her my assigned address, and said to me, "That is not 
> a 
> legitimate address.  No wonder your mail doesn't come".  I'll stop there, 
> but I have an inch thick stack of correspondence on the issue of whether 
> 160 
> CR 375 is or is not a legitimate address.  It is now, likely because of 
> all 
> the nasty letters I wrote.  But at the time, 32 of the 32 makers of mail 
> sorting software interpreted CR as Circle, and I lost about $10,000 in 
> checks, materials and potential business before it got settled.
> 
> 73,
> George
> W5VPQ
> 

Robert & Susan Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480