dpd1 - 12:46 am on Aug 31, 2010 (gmt 0)

What length of items are you shipping? Parcel Post charges the same rate for any package up to 130 inches in length + girth, which is a huge advantage over UPS. I ship 4x4 tubes that are 74 inches long for regular Parcel post rates all the time. You have to have a seriously-long package to get charged balloon rates.

I'm doing the triangle boxes, Priority. Theirs are 5x5x6, then whatever length I make them. I usually do 60" to 74". What the actual people will often do is just assume it's over the 108" just by looking at it. Which it's not. Either that or they will fudge the measurements. You're supposed to lay it on it's largest side and take that (width), then measure up (height) nearest inch, then length, then you take a fourth measurement all the way around the narrow part for the girth. This is how the site shows to measure it with illustrations and everything. When the people in the office measure it, they will measure it as if it's a square. Which obviously adds on way more. I've more than once caught them saying the height is 6". Well, if you measure from the bottom to the tip of the triangle, it's under 5". So even if you round it off, it should be 5". I've seen them say it's 6". When I ask how they get that, they say it's the nearest inch... I'm like.. OK, it's actually about 4 3/4, so that's 5", not 6". They just kind of don't say anything and put it as 5" then, as if they knew they were doing it wrong but just figured I would be too stupid to know.

I think what it comes down to is that they see these long things and they put it in, and when it comes back as only $15 or something, they just think that must be wrong... that it's too cheap. So they just keep manipulating it until it goes over the 84". Some of them DO go over the 84", like the 74" long one, and that's fine. But I've told them... Hey, I'm just going by your own rules... If you think it's too cheap, that's not my fault.

But I drop most of the stuff with postage already on, and they don't seem to care about that. I've never had anything returned in 10 years. It's only when I have to bring something in... Sometimes the site won't take certain addresses. If other sites will allow you to force it to take an address, then I should change.


The FedEx ground guys are just your average messenger type guys now. They don't get paid a lot and I doubt they have any real benefits. So their motivation isn't great.