Postal Service to Impose Its First-Ever Fuel Surcharge on Packages (cnbc.com) 66

The U.S. Postal Service plans to impose its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages (source paywalled; alternative source), adding an 8% fee starting in April as it struggles with rising fuel costs and ongoing financial pressure. The surcharge will not apply to letter mail and is currently expected to remain in place until January 2027. The Wall Street Journal reports: Other parcel carriers, including FedEx and United Parcel Service, have imposed fuel surcharges, as well as a basket of other surcharges and fees, for years. Both FedEx and UPS have dramatically raised their fuel surcharges in recent weeks as the price of oil has increased amid the turmoil in the Middle East. [...] The post office has been trying to increase the volume of packages it delivers. It previously differentiated itself from commercial carriers by saying that it doesn't apply residential, Saturday delivery or fuel or remote-delivery surcharges.

Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

Re: (Score:2)

Amazon has free shipping options.

Only if you meet the order minimum or have a paid Prime membership (and even then, there's still some limitations). Packages don't just ship themselves, you know.

Re: (Score:2)

Packages don't just ship themselves, you know.

Two words: Robot packages. :-)

(Not package robots, which Amazon already has.)

Re: (Score:2)

Because Amazon is frequently more expensive than other retailers.

Is packet delivery really a good idea? (Score:2)

Re: (Score:3, Funny)

Packet delivery is really important. That is why we use TCP. Lost or delayed packets are resent to insure data integrity.

Re: (Score:2)

I tried to save money once by having a laptop delivered via UDP... let's just say it didn't end well.

Re: (Score:2)

Wouldn't I be better off having the package delivered to an Amazon Lockbox right next to or even inside of the post office, and then not pay any fuel surcharge?

You realize this is already a thing the post office does [usps.com], right?

You can also have items shipped to, say, a UPS store or have it held at a FedEx shipping hub for pickup.

=Smidge=

Re: (Score:2)

Re: (Score:1)

This is illegal in Germany.

The article as about the United States Postal Service.

The last time they delivered anything to Germany was in 1945.

Re: (Score:2)

it's often difficult in big cities too.

i've long had similar difficulties with getting deliveries during business hours and had to opt for weekend pickups but for a long time the carriers facilities were in the suburbs and I don't own a car.

Re: (Score:2)

Do you not already have this? Amazon has local lockers here in drug stores, gas stations and convenience stores, most of which are open 24 hours. Most of the postal locations are also in drug stores.

Re: (Score:2)

I had something delivered to the local CVS by UPS once. It wasn't in a locker, it was just left on an unattended shelf near the front of the store. If I order something high value, I prefer to either have it delivered directly to my door when I know I'll be home. If I have to go out and pick up the damn thing myself, that kind of defeats the whole purpose of shipping.

Re: (Score:2)

If I get a $2000 laptop delivered to my home, they leave it outside the gate, a half mile from my home, in an unlocked box.

So what you're saying is that if I figure out where you live, I can score a free laptop?

Re: (Score:1)

Re: (Score:3, Informative)

So for you, the ends justify the means no matter what the means are?

He has killed thousands of Iranians, cost the global economy trillions of dollars, cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, ruined the US's reputation as a dependable and reliable partner, and effectively made the rule of law meaningless... but the exact same regime that does horrible things to Iranians is still in power so... winning?

Would you apply the same asinine justifications if Biden or Obama would have done the same thing

Re: (Score:2)

Re: (Score:2)

So you're just a "regime change" warmonger chickenhawk.

And please tell me how I ever "portray[ed] Iran as the good guys here" because that's a straw man you piled up with your pathetic binary understanding of global affairs.

Hint: there is way more nuance to international relations than "good" and "bad" and you're a fucking idiot to try to reduce it to such triviality.

I never said that Iran didn't have it coming. My problem is that our President violated US law to deliver it.

He couldn't do it the right way

Re: (Score:2)

No he is not. He has no power to start wars. or kidnap people. he can make emergency defensive moves. that is why they are bending over backwards to make up imminent threat emergency excuses to give them legal cover that itself is pathetic. even bush had to work at it to do his war; this idiot just picks the worst option people give him -- just as John Bolton said he did previously.

Re: (Score:2)

The Iranians themselves killed tens of thousands.

So maybe you should talk to them about that, and how that violates their laws.

We're talking about violating our own laws here, and why post-facto justification doesn't cut it.

It's the Iranians costing the global economy all that money and disrupting all their neighbors and world trade.

It's been known by anyone with a pulse that this is exactly the leverage that Iran would use in an existential crisis. To cause an existential crisis and not figure that they would pull that lever is fucking stupid. Do not blame someone for the reaction to the stimulus that you provided - it makes you look like an idiot. Do you blam

Re: (Score:2)

Since when did the MAGA crowd care about the plights of brown people?

MAGAs care about what Trump and JD tell them to care about.

Remember when they were against child sex trafficking and pedos? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Re: (Score:2)

When they do the math on buying 30 gallons of gas for their F150 and see it will cost $150.

Re: (Score:2)

When they do the math on buying 30 gallons of gas for their F150 and see it will cost $150.

Actually, defending the Trump administration's decision to attack Iran also implies a condonation of the resulting jacked up gas prices. Perhaps it's the conservatives who don't have "I bought this before we knew Musk was crazy" bumper stickers on their Teslas. There's gotta be at least a few of 'em.

Re: (Score:2)

They're still in denial about that. Had one just a couple days ago saying that the gas price increases are just the regular price increase in the spring.

Re: (Score:2)

Re: (Score:2)

Another good metaphor is like trying to talk a toddler out of a loaded gun.

Re: (Score:2)

As long as Israel is pleased what else matters?

Re: (Score:2)

Funny. Here's video of an orange turd saying he won't start any wars and will in fact stop them. https://www.c-span.org/clip/ca [c-span.org]

Re: (Score:2)

It's not a war

https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]

also America has been utterly peaceful since the end of WW2 and have not ever declared war since.

Winning! (Score:3)

Tired of all the winning yet?

We were promised that we were going to be crying about how we couldn't take all the winning. I'm just wondering if we're there yet.

Re: (Score:2)

Are you crying? There's certainly some starting, but probably a ways to go yet.

Re: (Score:2)

I'm just wondering if we're there yet.

We've made it to the crying part.

Re: (Score:2)

The families of the dead servicemen and servicewomen are certainly crying, although if you asked them I don't know that they'd mention "winning" as a reason for it.

Perhaps they need electric vehicles (Score:5, Funny)

US postal service should invest in electric vehicles.

Oh, wait. â¦

Republicans are trying to privatize it (Score:5, Insightful)

And you can bet your ass that if or when they kill the postal service the private alternatives will shoot up in cost like you wouldn't believe.

Rising fuel costs (Score:2)

Gee, what ever could the reason for rising fuel costs be?

Duh. Hunter Biden's laptop!

"ongoing financial pressure" (Score:5, Informative)

Do you know about the USPS 75-year pre-funding mandate?

In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.

https://ips-dc.org/how-congres [ips-dc.org]

No other government agency or any corporation has to deal with such a mandate, but now the USPS can make money but republicans can claim the lazy bureaucrats are wasting the taxpayers money.

Re: (Score:2)

Trump put crooks in charge and maybe you've noticed a huge increase in small delivery companies you never heard about bringing your packages when it used to be the USPS? Also the time delays of having your neighborhood letters being sent 1000 miles away to be sorted only to arrive later down the street...

Plus they hired a military contractor to waste money making stupid ugly delivery vans that are way way behind schedule; also they use plenty of gas. The EV company that bid for the contract would never be

Govt has limited amount of money (Score:2)

Providing services to citizens is currently not a priority.

Repeat 2007-2008 (Score:3)

This supercharged the crisis of 2007-2008. not sure there was many articles written about it, but the patterns are the same.

First person tax 8% on the seller bumps their price by 8% to offset it. If there is an intermediary, they tack on 8% and so on and so forth until the costs outweigh the benefits.

Nail people have to make hard decisions as to what they want to purchase and of course cry about their V8 single driver vehicle costing so much to fill up.

The shit is about to come off the rails. Once one person does it a.k.a. USPS it's gonna greenlight everybody else.

Same day delivery from Amazon (Score:2)

Amazon will deliver to my door. Same day. I live outside city limits. Great service.

USPS uses a Contract Delivery Service. They only deliver to the parcel boxes. Never to my door. If it doesn't fit in the box, it's a 16 minute drive and 16 minutes back to the post office without traffic to fetch my package. I avoid USPS.