On January 3 of this year, postal activist Douglas Carlson filed a complaint alleging that the USPS had improperly stopped offering Bound Printed Matter rate to retail customers. On February 4, the Postal Service filed a motion requesting that the PRC suspend action on the complaint, saying that it was preparing “classification changes intended to resolve the substance of the instant Complaint”. If the changes were to be approved by the Board of Governors, the USPS would then “file a further pleading in this docket explaining how the action resolves this Complaint”. If that arrangement wasn’t acceptable to the PRC, the USPS requested an additional two months to prepare a statement on the Carlson complaint.

Yesterday the PRC denied the USPS motion, pointing out that under the law, the Commission must either dismiss or take action on complaints within 90 days. Since that time period will expire on April 2, the USPS’s suggested deadline of April 4 for its statement on the complaint was not acceptable. The PRC denied the USPS motion, and ordered it to issue a statement on the complaint no later than March 7.

Douglas Carlson, who has been a frequent intervenor in Postal Rate/Regulatory Commission proceedings, has filed a complaint with the PRC alleging that the Postal Service has illegally made it difficult, if not impossible, for individual customers to mail packages at the bound printed matter rate, which is lower than the standard media mail rate. Carlson cites instances where he attempted to mail a dictionary, only to be told by window clerks that the rate was no longer available, that the book did not qualify for the rate, or, bizarrely, that it could only be accepted if it already had postage on it when he brought it to the window.

Carlson also notes that the USPS web site’s rate calculator no longer mentions the rate, and that it is not available from the Automated Postal Centers in post office lobbies.

Carlson’s complaint alleges that “When a customer presents items for mailing at a retail window and asks for the least-expensive shipping method and the window clerk knows or should know that the item would qualify for a Bound Printed Matter rate, Postal Service policy prohibits the window clerk from offering or suggesting Bound Printed Matter service to the customer, even if Bound Printed Matter service might or would fulfill the customer’s shipping needs at the lowest price of any service.”

He says this policy “unduly and unreasonably discriminates against individual and small business mailers, in a manner not specifically authorized by title 39. Compared to large mailers, individual and small-business mailers are less likely to know about services that window clerks do not offer, that Automated Postal Centers do not offer, and that the Postage Rate Calculator at www.usps.gov does not mention.”