Hi,
Has anyone else received their Super Scienctific Tachyon promo card for filling out the Sentinels of the Multiverse Survery through STEAM with Postage Due? I received a notice that a package was being held for me at my post office. Turns out it was my promo card and it owed $1.34 in extra postage. Image attached.
While, I'm happy I got my promo and would gladly pay $1.34 for another promo, it was still kind of annoying. You might want to make sure your shipping company is doing this right. The postal worker said the issue was you paid the postage for large envelope yet it needed package rates. Unless, of course, I misunderstood and it was known that the receipient would be paying for postage.
Wow - that's insane. Unfortunately, GTG is at PAX East right now, so they won't be able to respond until next week (at the earliest). I think they definitely need to know this, though! You could send a message to Paul directly at - he'll probably be more likely to get it.
"See, this is another sign of your tragic space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Breaks the heart." - Mal
Unicode U+24BD gets us Ⓗ. (Thanks, Godai!)
Got mine, Didn't have to pay anything, came stright through the mail
jon.d.pio,
You may not know me. I'm the warehouse manager at Greater Than Games. All shipping, storage, and receiving for the company goes through me. Your post office seems to be in error. The method we use to ship single cards, such as the Super Scientific Tachyon promo, is to ship them First Class Mail in an envelope to take advantage of the fact that "Flats" (basically big envelopes) ship cheaper than parcels (boxes or other bulky objects). It sounds like your postal workers want to charge a parcel rate for this shipment when it should be a Flat. I'm sorry they've charged you for this. Because of the nature of the shipment, there is no tracking number; and I'm unable to follow up with them on the matter.
If you'd like to address the issue with your local post office, I reccomend citing these guidelines from the USPS website: http://pe.usps.com/text/qsg300/Q201c.htm#1009536 and http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/mailcharacteristics/flats.htm. Both links basically contain the same information. Our envelopes are greater than 1/4" and less than 3/4" thick and do not exceed the other dimension maximums which squarely puts them in this category.
If there's anything else I can do for you, feel free to ask via e-mail.
Jodie :-)
Warehouse Manager
jodie@greaterthangames.com
That sounds REALLY shady. Why would the burden be on the recipient for postage? And in any case, wouldn't it bounce back to the deliverer right away if there was insufficient postage?
Steam Username: General Specific
You gotta know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em,
Know when to hold fast
And when to turn loose!
This is an issue with the postal service. It is cheaper for them when it is going to a person and not a business to have the recipient pay the rest of the package than send it back to the deliverer. This is due to the fact that most of the time they dont decide its insufficient postage till the item is already at the post office. This is what I was told at the post office when this has happen to me in the past with birthday cards and such anyways.
The sad part is they know a business won't pay this extra fine so if the recipient is a business they just send it back or eat the cost and deliever it.
The post office needs more money. Make this into a card!!!
My wife thinks Sentinels is ruining our marriage. I think she doesnt know what shes talking about because she wont sit down to play it
I work in a law office that ships all sort of envelopes. A lot of the time, it is not until the package arrives at the local post office (IE the orginal poster local) that postage is checked. We have had on several times mailed something from the our post office (weighed and postage done at Post Office) only to have it returned for insufficent postage because the post office on the recieving end weighed it differently. The problem is at the local post office and not with what Grater Tham Games did, or the post office on their end.
I hope I wasn't insinuating that GTG was to blame. I just wonder why the prices could be off on another end of the shipment. But if it was incorrectly weighed, that makes sense.
Steam Username: General Specific
You gotta know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em,
Know when to hold fast
And when to turn loose!
Could be their scale wasn't properly aligned.
Seriously. If a single card in an envelope weighs more than an ounce, I'm Mickey Mouse. If that's the case, we've been sending out thousands of things wrong.
Twitter: imprimis5. Follow away!
Maybie the postal worker needed some lunch money, People make mistakes, I would raise it weith the local post office they might have some imbelzeling going on, $1 per package could add up to some nice dough by the end of the day.
Just because they've got a finger pressing down the scale when they weigh stuff doesn't mean they're doing it wrong.
I work at the post office as a window clerk so I can actually shed some light on this topic.
I can't tell from the picture if the envelope was a bubble mailer or not. If it is, that's probably the issue. Even if the thickness is within the guidelines, if the material, a bubble mailer in this case, isn't machinable, then the parcel rate applies.
Basically, there is a fine line between what is a large envelope that can be run through the machines for processing (needs to be flexible and not rigid so it can go around the curves of the machine but also a material that won't bind up in the machine) and what isn't.
It's really at the discretion of local post office workers what is and isn't. Just because some pieces get through without needing extra postage doesn't mean they should. It just means that they weren't caught. We handle an insane amount of mail that honestly you can't imagine unless you've worked for the post office. Some things slip through.
As for why it goes on to the receiver, if it has any postage on it at all, we're supposed to send it on. Occasionally, if the same person keeps sending things incorrectly, we return them to that person so they'll start sending them correctly.
Also, the listed postage due amount is correctly. The least expensive large envelope is 98 cents, parcels start at $2.32. $1.34 is the difference.