The End of the U.S. Post Office, Part 2 of 3

The Adventures of Mail Forwarding

In Part 1 of my rant on the USPS, I raised a few examples of horrendous customer service.  One could easily argue that the USPS is not a customer-oriented or hospitality-based service.  Understood, but if not, they better be able to execute their services adequately.

During the 2 years I lived in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, I consistently received mail from the past half dozen residents of my house.  This was despite having a laminated card inside the mailbox stating the names of the current residents.  The mis-delivered mail I was receiving was “real” mail: tax notices, legal summons, collection demands, etc.  What are you supposed to do with this mail?  It doesn’t make sense to throw away, and I’m sure it’s illegal to open.  So whenever I went out to check the mail, I got in the habit of taking a pen and circling the recipients, writing DOES NOT LIVE HERE, and putting them back in the mailbox with the flag up.  Perhaps those pieces of mail were forwarded or returned to sender; regardless, I continued to receive mis-delivered mail.

So when it came time for me to move, I wanted to be prepared and not suffer the fate of my residential predecessors.   I purchased “premium” address forwarding, I attached a notice of my new address inside the mailbox, and I filed notices both online and in person at the local branch.

After moving to California and living here for 6 weeks, I still hadn’t received any mail.  I called the main Post Office number, and the customer service agent I spoke to sounded surprised and concerned.  He said that I would receive a call from the postmaster of that branch within 2-3 days, and he even provided me a case number.

After 5 days and not hearing anything , I called, provided the case number, and was told that my case was being investigated and that I'd receive a call within 2-3 days.

After a few more days, I tried again, and was literally told the same thing.  My mail finally started getting forwarded a couple months later; however, about half continued going to my North Carolina address (the people who moved in after us kindly forwarded us our mail).

I used to think that the branch in North Carolina was bad, but it seems that the former tenants in my apartment building in San Francisco are suffering the same fate.  Below is a picture of undeliverable mail in our mail room.  The postman apparently just leaves it for anyone's taking.

Just some pieces of mail on one of the nooks in one of the mail rooms in my apartment complex.

What I find ironic is that most banks and other companies concerned about privacy refuse to fax or email documents.  Instead they insist on mailing documents through the USPS.  I'm genuinely curious where they get that false sense of security.

Next, in Part 3: The Post Office’s Very Own Ponzi Scheme

The End of the U.S. Post Office, Part 1 of 3

I’m grateful that nowadays I rarely have to step foot into a Post Office.  With email and social networking, the only things I mail are packages and any official correspondence.  I have a great FedEx business discount, so nearly all parcel and express deliveries are cheaper than the USPS.  Even when I need to mail a letter or if the recipient has only a PO Box, I tend to use a Pitney Bowes machine or print out my own postage.

But every now and then, I do indeed have to step foot into a post office.  It’s not the worst thing (for that, we have the DMV), and it’s probably not even the next worst thing (which would probably be Navy PSD; for civilians who cannot relate to a PSD, imagine that your HR department was run like the DMV).  But all said, the USPS is pretty bad.

I had to mail a letter via “Certified Mail” last week, so I stepped foot into the local Brannan Street post office (2 stars on Yelp).  Despite it being the middle of the day, the counter windows were closed, and taped to the metal curtain was a sign that said, “Computer broke, try again tomorow.”

I want to be surprised, but how can I?  Everyone knows the US Post Office is a poorly run organization.  Surely, they can’t be blamed for all their problems; after all, everything they do requires an act of Congress.  But “Computer broke, try again tomorow”? 

I’m not sure when my disgust for the Post Office started, but it may have been as early as the 90's.  Around 1997 or 1998, I was mailing a large package via the USPS.  Everything was nicely packed, except I needed one piece of packing tape to secure it.  After waiting in line to purchase the postage, I asked the agent if she could tape it, and she said, “We don’t have tape here.”  (This is no surprise today, but at the time this was a huge shock.)  I asked, “What do you mean you don’t have tape – you’re the post office.”  She not so kindly said I could buy tape, and pointed me to the retail shelves.

Being the activist/complainer I am, I called the 800 number to file a suggestion/complaint that the Post Office wasn’t giving its customers tape.  The customer service agent I spoke to sounded surprised and concerned, and said that I would receive a call from the postmaster of that branch.

I actually did receive a call later that same day, but the conversation went nowhere: the call was from the SAME agent who refused me tape to begin with.

Again, let me emphasize that getting “free” tape at the Post Office is no surprise today.  Hell, you can’t even find a pen nowadays.

Next, in Part 2: The Adventures of Mail Forwarding

Don't worry, eBay Buyer Protection will protect you

If you've ever used eBay or PayPal, you're probably familiar with their heavily advertised buyer protection.  If not, here's the graphic advertisement which effectively sums it up:

It's easy to make things FREE when they don't actually exist.

The only problem is that, if you've ever tried to use this so-called buyer protection, you find out that there's really no buyer protection at all.  This post will be short because it's as simple as that: there is simply no buyer protection.  (By the way, same goes for sellers: there is no seller protection.  The only one protected is eBay.)  If you don't believe me, Google it.

As an informed consumer, one way to protect yourself is to always pay with a credit card instead of PayPal's e-check or ACH transfer.  All the major credit card companies are pretty good with protecting you from online purchases gone wrong.  Best part, it's free.

During the checkout process, PayPal can often be misleading, letting you think that you're paying with a credit card.  For example, it may say something like "AMEX *******1234 will be used if your bank account has insufficient funds."  So look out for the small font.

Doubt of Business: 1, USA Jobs: 0

You have to celebrate the small wins, and I'll take credit for one this month.  I wrote a post in April about the federal government's official jobs website, calling out a major error in their applicant eligibility questionnaire.  Just this month, I'm happy to report a new release of the USA Jobs website.  Why it's taken so long and why they had to completely redesign the website for a simple change in list items is beyond me, but hey, it makes sense now:

Well, the wording is still confusing as hell, but at least the bullet points are structured correctly!

In case you were confused about how to vote in San Fran ...

... this should pretty much clear it all up

Bank of America: Every little bailout helps

After banking with Bank of America for 16 years, I finally just couldn't handle it anymore and waved goodbye.  An article in today's Wall Street Journal prompted me to write this post today.

About a month ago I made a mistake while paying a credit card bill online.  I accidentally selected the wrong account, and unfortunately that account's balance was too low to pay the bill.  I immediately called both Bank of America and American Express and informed them of my mistake.  American Express was understanding, cancelled the transaction, and informed me they would reimburse me if I would be charged any fees on their end.

Bank of America told me it was too late, the amount had already been overdrawn, would be returned, and I would be charged a $35 non-sufficient funds fee.  Fair enough, I thought.  After all, this was my mistake. 

A few days later I get another email from Bank of America alerting me to a non-sufficient funds transaction and corresponding $35 fee.  Then this happened again 2 days later.  I called Bank of America, and after being transferred around the globe a handful of times, I was informed that they kept trying to pay the American Express bill on my behalf!  Certainly this was a mistake on their part, right?  Certainly they would refund me all or some of the $105 non-sufficient fund fees I've racked up.  Nope!

In that same phone call I asked to close all my accounts.  They seemed a little too efficient in this process, and the agent informed me I would receive a check within a couple weeks.  Perhaps as a final "f- you" from Bank of America, I received yet a fourth notice in the mail just a few days ago:

As an interesting side note, take a look at the customer feedback survey on the top. 
Have you ever seen a survey require the customer to pay for postage?

Yes, apparently my account was overdrawn by 1 penny when they closed it.  You can't make this stuff up!

Realtors Run Amok, Part 1 of a Series on Realtors

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but rest assured that I've been thinking a lot about DoB issues. One thing that I keep reflecting on is the idea of obsolete industries. One such industry, IMHO, is residential real estate. I have so much to say about this issue that I've decided to start a series, and this is just part 1.

Home sellers and buyers pay too much and receive too little for realtors’ services. This is mainly due to a complete misalignment of incentives among the four primary stakeholders: sellers, buyers, sellers’agents, and buyers’ agents. Furthermore, home buyers are even more unique because they do not always share the one common aim of the other three stakeholders: to broker the sale of property.

Home Sellers

A home seller’s objective is to sell their home at the highest price possible. Accomplishing this requires a lot of “traffic” (legitimate and qualified buyers viewing the home) and a lot of dedicated and specific work on the part of the realtor. Specifically, the realtor would need to actively market the home through specialized channels and differentiate it from the other homes on the market. For example, a home with a large, fenced backyard is going to be more valuable to a buyer with a dog; therefore, target marketing the home to buyers with dogs would provide more value to both the buyer and seller.

Seller Agents

Unfortunately, the incentives of seller agents are not usually aligned with the sellers they represent. For a sizable and steady income, seller agents (also referred to as listing agents) focus on volume – they simply want to sell as many homes as possible and thereby have no time to market via specialized channels, as exemplified with the home with the large, fenced yard. Experts and novices alike agree that low-priced homes are more likely to sell than comparable, higher priced homes. Accordingly, it is in the seller agents’best interests to price their homes low. Furthermore, because a typical seller agent’s commission is only 3%, he or she would be more willing to budge on price negotiations than the seller. For example, a $10,000 price change may represent a significant loss of capital gains for the seller; for the realtor, however, it’s a loss of only $300. This $300 is neglibile when compared to the overall commission (i.e., assuming the house lists for $210,000 and sells for $200,000, the realtor makes $6,000 and the owner loses $10,000). Generally speaking, sellers are much more susceptible to downside than seller agents. For those finacial practitioners out there, this is equivalent to a negatively skewed investment paradigm.

Buyer Agents

Buyer agents have entirely different incentives from seller agents. While they do care about volume for the same reasons as seller agents, the pace at which they broker purchases is almost entirely based on their buyers’ motivation to purchase a home. With nearly 100% of buyers having access to the internet -- and specifically www.realtor.com -- many do their own research prior to contacting a realtor. Consequently, a selection bias may exist where buyer agents are more likely to take on clients who know what they want. In reality, the true added value of a buyer agent is helping find the client a good home. Therefore, even if a buyer agent selects a client who needs an above average level of assistance, the agent will be incented to find the easiest homes to market (e.g., those that are well priced.) Once again to reference financial terms, buyer agents do not possess a fiduciary responsibility toward their client.

Home Buyers

Home buyers may be described as the “innocent bystander” in this debacle of an industry. Buyers can be summarized into two groups: those who don’t need realtors and those who do. The buyers who don’t need realtors do their own research and know what they’re looking for. However, since 90%of homes are sold via realtors, these buyers will need to pay a realtor anyway. (Note that buyers typically do not pay their realtor’s fees. The fees are usually paid by the seller and are based on a commission of the final selling price. However, since the seller knows this, he or she will typically “embed” the cost for the buyer’s agent into the selling price.) The buyers who do need realtors have ready access to them, but as mentioned above, their realtor’s incentives may not be aligned with the buyer.

In the next part of this series, I'll provide a pretty interesting historical context about why the situation is as bad as it is.