Shipping Easy Postage Adjustment Alert!!!
I went to ship some orders today and discovered that my account had a negative balance of almost $20. I was concerned, but unable to talk to anyone at Shipping Easy. They simply told me I needed to "upgrade" my account, if I wanted to talk to someone. I just have the free account. I then called Stamps.com and talked with someone who was quite nice. She told me they have had several people complain about negative balances resulting from the USPS "adjusting" the weight of the shipments. I could possibly see an adjustment of an oz, but not 3 lbs 5 oz. I don't know two many single stamps that way that much! She said they couldn't reimburse me, but sent me a form to file with the USPS requesting a refund. She sent me a link and I filed it, but need to wait 2-5 days for a response. I then checked my last 30 day history and found one other stamp the USPS adjusted to weigh 15 oz. Again this was a single stamp. I also filed a refund request on this. Don't know if this will do me any good, but hopefully it will. I don't know how I can "prove" the envelop didn't weigh 3 lbs 6 oz or 15 oz.
It certainly surprised me that the USPS has access to your Stamps.com account and can charge whatever they want to it. The lady I spoke to said she had one complaint of over $300 charged to an account. I just wanted to let others know to be on the outlook for "adjustments" to your Stamps.com account.
It certainly surprised me that the USPS has access to your Stamps.com account and can charge whatever they want to it. The lady I spoke to said she had one complaint of over $300 charged to an account. I just wanted to let others know to be on the outlook for "adjustments" to your Stamps.com account.
Comments
The problem may not be on USPS. It could as well be on Shippingeasy's end as it could be an accounting problem. It's highly unlikely that the USPS is messing up the weight by that much,what is more likely is that you are getting charged for someone else's package and it's somewhere in how the accounting for those shortfalls are being accounted for. If shippingeasy is having to key in the information for the shortfalls,it could be something as simple as someone keying in the WRONG customer number.
This is my 2nd go with international sales using ShippingEasy, after having eliminated them once before. If my money is going to mysteriously disappear with no explanation, it looks as if I will have to, once again, eliminate international sales.
CURSE the UPU !#@%*!!!
The USPS responded telling me to either contact my shipper, my local PO or call a number which was a real waste of my time. My local PO couldn't help me. So I then upgraded my account with Shipping Easy so I could talk to a person. That also proved to be a waste of my time. Fortunately I can cancel my upgrade as it was free for 30 days. They simply told me they only provided the software that assisted me with my shipments and didn't get paid anything, so I would need to talk again to Stamps.com.
I did and was told they would get back to me. Within the past hour Stamps.com sent me the following email:
You can contact Global Post about disputing the adjustments.
Phone: 888-899-1255 Email: info@goglobalpost.com
I will follow up with this on Monday. Hopefully I can get some satisfaction at that time. In the meantime I added more money to my stamps.com account, including the over $40 I have been wrongly charged to date, in order to process my 3 new international orders.
I was able to determine that someone in Newark made the 3lb 6 oz adjustment to my 1 oz shipment. The other adjustment to 15 oz from 1 oz was made by someone in Germany, so Michael, you were right that at least one of the problems was not by someone in the USPS.
A lot of this is now automated and most likely it wasn't even a person making the adjustment. It's also possible with very small packages that 2 slipped through at the same time and yours happened to be the one that the bar code was read and you may be being charged for 2 parcels at the same time. (Without seeing the actual equipment they are using it's at best a guess.) Welcome to the machine age.
https://www.shippingschool.com/what-is-usps-automated-package-verification-apv/
If you use shipping software to ship packages with the Postal Service, you may have noticed some differences in the past couple of years. Maybe you received an email with the subject line saying something along the lines of: “USPS Has Made Adjustments to Your Account,” and maybe you were charged an extra few dollars here and there after you shipped a package. This is all due to a new system the Postal Service implemented in 2017 called Automated Package Verification.
How the Automated Package Verification System Works
Here’s the basic premise behind the APV. Let’s say you measure your box’s dimensions as 12x8x4, and the total weight at 5 lbs. USPS will check the package in their facilities to make sure these measurements are correct. If they aren’t, they will charge you for any extra amount of postage required.
Every USPS facility has new equipment that automatically checks each package for:
Weight
Dimensions
Mail Class
Packaging
Origin and Destination Zip Codes
Amount of postage paid
The Automated Package Verification only applies to domestic packages with a built-in tracking barcode, such as parcels sent Priority Mail, Priority Mail Cubic, or First Class Package. Letters, large envelopes, and certified mail are all exempt from APV.
Keep in mind that USPS can take up to 30 days after a package is shipped to issue any adjustments. However, the vast majority of APV adjustments occur just a few days after a package gets scanned into their system and shipped.
You Can a File a Dispute with USPS if They Made a Mistake
The only time APV ever comes into play is when shippers purchase the incorrect amount of postage. So, if you’re shipping correctly, there’s a chance APV will never affect you or your business! However, the Automated Package Verification system isn’t perfect, and sometimes USPS does makes mistakes.
If you get charged extra on your package and you’d like to dispute it, you can always contact your shipping software solution to file the dispute on your behalf. Be sure to include the following info:
Your package’s tracking number
Your reason or explanation for the dispute (the more details and evidence you can provide the better, such as photos, invoices, etc)
They may have added international services since they first implemented it.
Just a guess but part of it may be the way you are packaging it. It's unlikely those machines are geared to deal with with a large non rigid envelope. A first class international parcel should either be 3/4 of an inch thick or it needs to be rigid. As a rigid envelope by size of about 6 x 9 ins that should be by weight should be at 2 ozs or more. (A 6 x 9 with 2 pieces of cardboard to stiffen the envelope weighs over 1 oz to begin with and that is without anything else in the envelope. No merchandise,invoice or labeling on the envelope. Even a 6 x 6 rigid CD mailer is 1 oz without anything added.)
Per your post: .... The Automated Package Verification only applies to domestic packages with a built-in tracking barcode, such as parcels sent Priority Mail, Priority Mail Cubic, or First Class Package. Letters, large envelopes, and certified mail are all exempt from APV. .... a large envelop would be exempt. I have been told that a small envelop that is rigid is classified as a large envelop for mailing purposes. Is this not correct?
And if you're sending those via large envelope rate,don't do it anymore because you will continue to get charged for the
postage due. They are parcels and you should be using the parcel rate. on those.
As far as the difference that is a different issue. But you do have postage due to begin with and how the USPS will handle that I don't know.
Do you have a free ShippingEasy account? I cannot find an account number anywhere on the ShippingEasy site for my free account, and Stamps.com does not recognize my ShippingEasy email login.
Those places are not really geared for dealing with lower volume sellers. (Even though I am a larger seller it's not really geared even for me.) They are geared for those that have a larger volume but do not have enough volume to qualify for the discounts going directly through USPS.
My local postmaster told me to make the envelop rigid, so that it could be scanned and mailed. Shipping Easy has a classification called Large Envelope/Flat with merchandise. Mark is the one that suggested Shipping Easy as a less expensive alternative. If you used their parcel rate, it would be more expensive than the USPS. Mark charges $6.99 for international shipping, so I assume he uses the same Large envelope rate, as Shipping Easy parcel rate would be $13.54 and I don't think he would want to loose money.
I also had the free account to which I will downgrade to before my 30 day free trail upgrade ends. If you still want to identify the overcharge parcel, simply call Stamps.com and give them your phone number. When you do, make sure you are at a computer because they provided me my account number and sent me a temp password and then walked me through the review process.
First and foremost it would have been nice if you had given that information to begin with as that is NOT a rate that you can get at the post office. People who do not use shippingeasy or any of the other shipping services wouldn't know that either.
Now as I told you about that post mentioning the APV it was 2 years old. Now one thing they don't mention is international OR large envelopes with merchandise. (An international large envelope with merchandise would be HANDLED as a PARCEL as they both would go through the same machine) The reason being is a large envelope as they call it on the USPS site HAS TO BE FLEXIBLE not rigid through the machine for that purpose. And as that post is from over 2 years does not mean they haven't upgraded the equipment to include those 2 methods now.
I will check with shipping easy to determine if the large envelop with merchandise should be flexible or rigid when using their postal rates. It would save me money if they are to be flexible.
As previously stated it was my local postmaster that told me to make it rigid. Perhaps she gave me bad information. Recently she told me that postage stamps couldn't be mailed to the UK. Her reasoning is based on the following prohibition listed under the UK.
....
Counterfeit currency, bank notes, and postage stamps. ...
I believe "counterfeit" also applies to bank notes and postage stamps and not just to currency. She believes it only applies to currency. It would be so nice if the regulations could be written with more clarity.
When mailing Merchandise:
Find out what items qualify as merchandise.
From the Packaging menu, select Large Envelope/Flat - Merchandise.
Verify that shipment is not time-sensitive as this service does not include tracking.
Then there is a little that says it's only tracked in the US.
https://support.shippingeasy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000098543
That should be good with dealing with a Paypal dispute of non-delivery. (Remember you have a trackable service that shows delivery to be covered under Paypals sellers protection.) I am so glad I didn't use that with an $80 order a guy tried to claim that he didn't get it. (The USPS tracking showed delivery Yeah.)
Hopefully my package will show up next week, because I don't know what I can due if it doesn't. As you said, PayPal will probably ignore any claim I might make because the "paperwork" shows it was delivered even though it wasn't. I also doubt that Ihobb would believe me either.
Based on my experience, perhaps your buyer was telling the "truth" when he claimed not to have received your $80 order.
They still have not located my package that was scanned as being delivered Friday, but wasn't. Today's theory is it might be in one of their lockers for delivery of packages that won't fit in a standard size PO box; however they can't locate a key to open two of those lockers. My postmaster is on vacation and the sub doesn't know if any duplicate keys exist. I notified the seller of the problem and they told me keep them posted. Perhaps there is still a chance I might not need to eat the $400, if the priority package is not found.
The adjustments are exclusively on international packages, and it happens with both large envelope/flats and packages. The adjustments aren't logical. Just today, I had a package that was 7 ounces adjusted to 18 ounces with a $9.50 adjustment fee.
When I contact Global Post/Stamps.com, they just tell me to check my scale. Well, I've had many of these packages weighed by USPS when dropping off and my scale is consistent with theirs. Certainly not 11 ounces off.
As you noted, APV is irrelevant to me as these are all international packages. It happens to about 15% of my international shipments, but I have enough that it really adds up. I tend to get a few of these each month.
Also, all of my large envelope/flat labels have tracking.