Gamefly Complains of Poor Treatment From USPS 269
Gamefly, the popular video game rental service that operates through the mail, has filed a complaint with the Postal Regulatory Commission about the high number of games that are lost or stolen in the mail. The complaint (PDF) asserts that the postal service's automated sorting machines have a tendency to break a small percentage of discs, and that preferential treatment is given to DVD rental services like Netflix and Blockbuster.
"According to Gamefly's numbers, it mails out 590,000 games and receives 510,000 games back from subscribers a month. The company sees, depending on the mailer, between one and two percent of its games broken in transit. ... Even if you assume the number is one percent, and a game costs $50 to replace, that's an astounding $295,000 a month in lost merchandise. ... That's not the only issue — games are also stolen in transit, which has lead to the arrest of 19 Postal Service employees."
That's why I quit Zip.ca (Score:5, Interesting)
eureka (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I finally understand what Netflix meant when they said it would "cost us too much to switch to machinable envelopes." (That's from memory, so it may be paraphrased.)
Re:That's why I quit Zip.ca (Score:4, Interesting)
At least with NetFlix if you get tired of the Postal problems and broken/scratched discs, you can look for something to stream. If it wasn't for the streaming stuff, I'd have canceled by now. The last disc I ordered a month ago is sitting waiting for me to do something with it while I have more fun streaming old Doctor Who and Red Dwarf episodes on demand.
Unfortunately, there's no real equivalent for streaming NetFlix style games... yet.
So that explains it (Score:5, Interesting)
I just started using GameFly a few months ago instead of getting raped by Blockbuster when I didn't return the games on time. I rented every few months but would keep games 3 or 4 games for far too long. So I switched to GameFly after the girlfriend pointed out it would be far cheaper overall.
One of the things I found rather annoying is the constant emails like 'have you got XXX yet?' or 'When did you send back XXX?'. I figured they were just trying to establish the average time it takes to get the game to me and back from various distribution centers or something.
After reading this I'm inclined to believe they are just trying to figure out which shipper is shafting them on a regular basis.
What I've worried about is what happens when I put it in the mailbox to go back and some neighborhood kid comes and steals it? I live in a good neighborhood and have no reason to assume any of the kids around would do it, but having been a kid once not to long ago it would seem to me to be a great target for some free games once you realize someone is doing it.
Anyone had any experience with GameFly not getting back a game or the game never arriving in your mailbox? How is their customer support in those situations I wonder?
Replacing broken disks should be discounted (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you assume the number is one percent, and a game costs $50 to replace
You'd think an outfit as large as GameFly would have a swap-for-flat-fee arrangement with vendors for broken media. After all, they are essentially buying a license that has rental rights.
If they are doing it right, it's more like $10-$20, assuming they pay for media only and get a full box. If they get just a disk, it's well under $5, probably very much well under.
If they are fortunate enough to be allowed to make their own replacement disks, it should be the cost of a blank DVD plus their labor costs if they can certify the original is destroyed.
USPS / USPO isn't bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Royal Mail (UK Postal Service) was made private and since then we've seen prices skyrocket, service diminish, and little or nothing of any actual benefit.
In fact the government is having to put more and more money into this private company each year to keep it afloat.
The USPO is SO cheap when you compare the two. And you all get first class mail with no additional charge!
You hate it so much and want private? Trade?
Re:Dying industry (Score:4, Interesting)
> when has the USPS stopped you from going to FedEx, UPS, DHL, ect.
For sending, never.
However, the primary customer of all those services is the sender. They couldn't care less about the recipient, except insofar as it might piss off the sender. And they're aimed primarily at the business market with their delivery times. And on the receiving end, USPS sometimes has special privileges.
Case in point: in Chicago, the USPS, unlike all the other entities you mention, has master keys to the front doors of many apartment buildings (NOT the individual apartment doors). They need these so that they can get to the mailboxes, which are inside the lobby area. This means they can also leave packages in the lobby area, instead of out on the street (or not at all, which is what all the other services will do). If a package actually requires a signature and they keep missing you, getting to the local post office in a city is a lot easier than getting to whatever boondocks location FedEx and company want you to go to for picking up the package (a 30 minute drive from where I was in the case of UPS; completely inaccessible without a car).
Totally agreed with your other point, though. I doubt UPS and FedEx deliver to the US territory which is the south pole station in Antarctica, for example.
wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Since 1973 they've been a state sponsored monopoly rather than an actual branch of the government.
"The United States Post Office (U.S.P.O.) was created in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin on July 26, 1775 by decree of the Second Continental Congress. Based on the Postal Clause in Article One of the United States Constitution, empowering Congress "To establish post offices and post roads," it became the Post Office Department (U.S.P.O.D.) in 1792. It was part of the Presidential cabinet and the Postmaster General was the last person in the United States presidential line of succession. In 1971, the department was reorganized as a quasi-independent agency of the federal government and acquired its present name. The Postmaster General is no longer in the presidential line of succession.[14]"
Wikipedia, fun for the whole family. PS: they're not 'sponsored'; they don't get any money from the feds. They're given the postal equivalent of common carrier status, but only to a mailbox marked "US Mail". If you want to make your own postal service, you can go right ahead- you just can't deliver to a US Mail mailbox. Given that almost nobody's mailbox is actually marked "US Mail", practically, you CAN run a competitive service.
I don't see it being too much longer that they're allowed sole right to transfer first class mail with both UPS and FedEx waiting in the wings to offer better more reliable service.
USPS has never, in my entire life, lost or damaged a package or letter of mine. UPS and Fedex have done one or both, repeatedly.
I once had a USPS delivery guy (working the holiday season) bang on the doorbells of the entire complex until someone let him in. I was in the shower and when I stuck my head out the window, he demanded to be let in. His response to "I'm in the shower" was a string of profanity demanding I let him in.
I called the USPS customer service number and spoke to a rep who was meticulous in taking down the particulars, and apologized profusely. I figured I'd never hear back from them about it, except then I received a phone call a week later saying the guy had been disciplined and re-trained on USPS practices for delivery to apartment buildings. A week or so after that, a customer survey card appeared in the mail, asking if my complaint had been handled to my satisfaction.
Go read the Journal of Improbable Research's article about shipping weird shit through the mail. It's astounding what they got through the mail, and they said that it is a miracle that they can do stuff like ship a balloon when in most countries, you can't even get reliable letter service.
I don't know what the fuck your personal beef is with the USPS, but the fact that they're a monopoly and run both efficiently and extremely competently is pretty amazing to me.
Re:GameFly compared to Blockbuster (Score:1, Interesting)
here's a novel idea: return your rentals on time.
i have never in my life had to pay a late fee on a movie or game rental.
Re:So that explains it (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember when I was a gamefly member, about 2 or 3 years ago, they started doing this thing where as soon as the post office received your game, gamefly would send out a new one.
The idea was that this would make the turnaround time shorter. Even then, it was put game in mailbox Monday after 2pm, receive a new game by Friday.
I think the best thing to do is buy a game, then either trade it on goozex, or sell it on Amazon and then use that money to buy another game.
Re:wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
USPS has never, in my entire life, lost or damaged a package or letter of mine. UPS and Fedex have done one or both, repeatedly.
I don't know what the fuck your personal beef is with the USPS, but the fact that they're a monopoly and run both efficiently and extremely competently is pretty amazing to me.
Are you or a relative a postal employee, by chance?
I've had numerous things lost or damaged in the US Mail in the last year. It has been a decade since UPS lost or damaged a single package of mine. I don't use Fedex as often as the US Mail or UPS, so I'll leave them out of it.
Also, different post offices have different levels of competency. Just because your post office & carrier does a good job doesn't mean most of them do. Of the 7 or so post offices I've had substantial experience with (as a resident of their zip code), I would 2 have been horrible, 2 were quite good, and the others average. Note that "average" is below where I would rank UPS.
No, I don't work for UPS, and I don't own their stock or have any other commercial interest in them.
mc1138 got it all wrong.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Heh heh.. riiight (Score:2, Interesting)
Posting anonymously as it's obvious current moderators are using mod points incorrectly.
Re:USPS / USPO isn't bad... (Score:1, Interesting)
The USPS *IS* private, in the same way that Royal is. They get bailed out by the government, have some oversight, etc., but are at least nominally private.
This has not gone well traditionally. Some other, similar companies? Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae. You may remember them from such wonderful hits as 'global economic downturn' and 'Death of Lehman Brothers.'
The problem with 1/2 privatizing is that you end up with a business that cannot fail, no matter how much it screws up. Which, from the sound of it, is Royal Mail. Freddie and Fannie were the same way - 'too big to fail' and well connected to the government. And as a result they could take on all sorts of predatory, speculative, totally insane risky loans, eh, the taxpayers would always bail them out, right?
Right?
Bad idea for them and bad idea with the package delivery services.
Re:Heh heh.. riiight (Score:1, Interesting)
FYI - Netflix makes no pretense at hiding what they are mailing. Their packaging is a bright red pseudo-envelope with large-print "Netflix" branding all over it.
The vast majority of postal employees would never even consider stealing mail of any kind, ever. And of the few that might, most recognize that losing their job over a $50 game CD isn't worth it.
There are of course immoral and IQ-challenged people everywhere, and a very few bad apples do occasionally make the rest look bad. This of course applies to any business, not just the USPS.
Re:Dying industry (Score:3, Interesting)
As a sender that shipped piles of packages via USPS, I recommend using either their online website or other 3rd party software that does an on-line check of the address and provides suggestions or corrections to incorrect shipping addresses. This saved a number of my customers hassles when they posted an invalid shipping address with their payment. Still can't fix an incorrect but valid address.
actually, you're wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
They're not a monopoly, and they are subsidized, horribly. They don't pay any property tax, personal property tax, inventory tax or employment tax. They do have some weird thing with paying VA benefits for veterans they hire, but still, don't say they aren't subsidized.
Re:wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
You must not order much through UPS. I was a supervisor at UPS right out of college, and I assure you, we broke a hell of a lot of things. The drivers are on a very strict schedule, there's lots of tossing, kicking and dropping going on. After two years of working there I'm almost surprised when a delivery is not damaged in some way.
I find it unfathomable that nothing has been damaged by UPS in "a decade" unless you order one package a year or are the luckiest man on Earth.
Reasons for that... (Score:5, Interesting)
That particular law isn't there for preserve a monopoly, its there to let them really put a dent in anyone foolish enough to steal mail. (mail related crimes are usually a federal offense.) My father was a postmaster, and mail theft is a very real problem. Postal Inspectors are the USPS equivalent of the FBI, and you do not want to get on their bad side.
Re:mc1138 got it all wrong.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dying industry (Score:3, Interesting)
There is nothing which prevents any person from installing a secondary mailbox similar to those used by us in more rural areas for newspapers.
The first problem is that this requires an action on behalf of the recipient who usually incurs no visible cost, while the (visible) benefit is to the sender.
The only reason for newspaper stations in rural areas is because in that scenario the recipients actually make things more convenient for themselves and protect their paper from wildlife, etc.
The second problem is that these "fake" mailboxes would not have the same legal protection. It would not be a felony to mess with them, or to steal the contents. Mail frequently contains confidential and financial items, and there is no way for corporations to punish their employees or individuals to seek restitution to a degree that would have the same level of deterrence.
Without the pressure of the USPS being able to provide affordable prices for shipping to more poorly covered or less easily accessed areas (such as Alaska and Hawaii) only the people in major metropolitan areas would receive reasonable parcel and letter services. As much as that may not affect you there are still many millions of other people who are equally as valuable and important to you who would be royally bunged if things happened the way you obviously wish.
Hawaii is already "bunged" by having to import everything. I would think the most important commodity price on the mind of the poor would be food, which isn't usually sent by USPS. Should we be subsidizing all of their clothing etc. too to make sure it doesn't cost any more to live in Hawaii than it does to live in Texas? They are kind of compensated by living in an island paradise. Why should we foot the cost for that?
It seems to me this is the sort of social service that would be best provided by the states: Hawaii from taxes on their high class resorts and tourism and Alaska from its profitable petroleum exports.
(Although I am still not convinced that the prices would substantially increase if the USPS was fundamentally replaced or fairly competed with.)
Re:Dying industry (Score:5, Interesting)
I have lived in the United States and of course in Canada. I can tell you from a completely unbiased view point that compared to Canada, the USPS is phenomenal, kicks ass, the greatest thing since sliced bread, the cat's ass, wunderbar, etc. etc. etc.
In Canada, if you live in a subdivision newer than something like 1978 (already getting pretty old), you will never get a letter delivered to your door. Instead they have a ridiculous setup called 'super mailboxes': think of an apartment mailbox but set up on select subdivision street corners. House owners have to go to their 'super mailbox' to pick up their letters; you don't get mail delivered to your door any more. The corollary of this is that you can't mail a letter from your home mailbox either (no home mailboxes any more).
In Canada, mail is only delivered five days a week, and only once per day. As opposed to six days a week in the U.S. We also don't have very many 'real' post offices. They contract the local post office duties to Shoppers Drugmart (Canada's equivalent to Walgreens or CVS). They have a little counter in the back of the stores. I suppose it works OK, but you aren't guaranteed that if you drop off a parcel or letter before the postal counter closes that it will be picked up by the post office for processing that night.
Postal employees are rabid union members. They make British coal miners of the 1970s look like pussies. They will go on strike at the drop of a hat. And they do as often as they can get away with, and they get away with a lot up here. Blocking mail from getting into facilities during a strike is routine, and the police sit back and watch it happen. They need a special court order to protect the ability to deliver the mail, so the first few days of a strike you aren't guaranteed that mail will move easily. Not that it does when there isn't a strike. And I don't know what these morons have to strike about. All postal office employees get paid a ridiculous wage ($40,000.00 to $60,000.00+) for a job that most high school drop out can do. Carriers get to go home early if they finish their routes before 8 hours are up. Most only have to work half days for full pay.
And as for delivery times, compare 3 days for a first class letter anywhere in the U.S.A. to 5 days in Canada... and in some places, 5 days 'if you're lucky'. And from my experience, 3 days in the U.S. is pretty much guaranteed... yes sometimes it is longer but not often. All in all, don't complain about the poor old USPS. Given what they have to do, they do it pretty well.
Here is a tip for USPS customers who don't like junk mail. It usually works. It worked for me when I was living in Saint Louis County in the great state of MO. (as opposed to the great states of Curly and Larry). There is a regulation that says that they have to not deliver items to you if you consider them offensive or obscene. The great part is that you get to say what is offensive or obscene. I forget the form number (it might be 2150), but you go to your local post office they should be able to tell you... you might have to ask the manager. Anyway, you can tell them to block certain senders from sending you obscene materials. So you can tell them to block mail from any of the major daily papers in your area (and sometimes the smaller ones) from sending you anything. In the U.S. almost all the big junk mail flyers come from the newspapers. It is called 'total market coverage'.... the papers have big databases on all the households in their area... usually more complete than the USPS ... they know who the deliver the Sunday paper to (with all those dead trees worth of advertising) and more important to this conversation, all those who don't get the Sunday paper. Then they mail the flyers to all of those households who don't get the paper that day. And anyone else you can think of
Re:That's why I quit Zip.ca (Score:5, Interesting)
Way back in the day, I used to be a netflix customer. About once a month, a movie would go missing. Always on the return, always a title like Breast Monsters from Jupiter. Not a single title went missing on its way to me and mainstream movies never went missing. First, Netflix tried to tell me that my mailbox was insecure. An asinine suggestion since the titles never went missing on their way TO me. And irrelevant as the mail dropped through a slot into a locked room. Then they suggested I could start paying for delivery confirmation or return my discs via UPS (both options at my expense). WTF?!?
I told them that it was pretty clear they had an internal theft problem because the pattern was obvious. Someone was grabbing "embarrassing" titles, hoping that the renter would be to flustered to make a fuss. "Absolutely not. There is no way our employees would be stealing movies. Blah, blah, blah."
Then they locked my account and sent me a bill - A BILL! - for the full retail value of the missing titles. Wrong f'ing move. But, before I worked up a righteous head of steam, I got an apology, my account was unlocked, and I was told to ignore the previous request for payment. A few days later, a story about the arrest of a bunch of Netflix employees hit the news. Surprise, surprise, surprise. They'd been stealing movies as they were returned by customers. Wish I could find an article about that incident. All I can find are the stories about various USPS employees being arrested for theft of Netflix discs.
As soon as I confirmed my account was in good standing, I closed it. Buncha tools.
Re:Heh heh.. riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Tampering with the mail is a felony, and they take it very seriously, which makes the USPS one of the safest systems in the world. It is one of the things that America does extremely well and even the European Post Systems are poor in comparison (especially after Germany privatized parts of their system).
I never used Gamefly, but if it's like Netflix, the entire problem of these things is that both the original and return envelope clearly mark the contents. Something like delivery confirmation, which a small business owner can get for $0.18 a package using endicia (small volume discount rate, nothing like size of gamefly), could probably track down the problem areas in a short time (USPS del. conf. get scanned at hops). However, regulations are such that del. conf. can only be used on "parcels", a bubble-mailer counts - which for DVD movies probably raise the cost significantly for both packaging and processing (hence mailing cost).
Discreet, otherwise unmarked envelopes with several return destinations that don't use "Gamefly Return Center" or whatever in the addressee's name probably would be the best way to go, Netflix, IIRC, used Tyvek envelopes. Or put it in an AOL wrapper, no postal employee would steal those ;) although that runs the risk of being trashed by the end user.
Makes me curious what the various XXX services see on stolen discs.
USPS money saving solution: They don't pay (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish I was joking!
My Semi-Relevant Anecdote. (Score:5, Interesting)
About six years ago I lived in an eastside suburb of Seattle and subscribed to Netflix. I cancelled after about four months because during that time four movies never reached me and I wound up paying Netflix for one of them (I probably could have avoided that if I'd made a stink, but as I figured it they'd already eaten the cost of several other movies.)
Around about that time a substantial check that I was expecting to receive disappeared in the mail, and I noticed that other items were disappearing in the mail, too. I called to cancel a magazine gift subscription a well-meaning relative had signed me up for and discovered that they'd been sending the magazine for six months, though I had only received one issue. Between the movies, the magazines, and the missing check it was clear that I had a problem with disappearing mail.
So I went down to the local post office and asked to speak with the local postmaster. I explained about the missing magazines, movies, and check, and told him that I suspected I was a victim of ongoing mail theft.
He assured me that he'd look into the situation and was turning to go back into the bowels of the post office when I interrupted. "You're lying," I said. He said something to the effect of "That's an awfully rude thing to say for no reason," but I knew he had no intention of seriously looking into my complaint and I told him why. During our entire conversation I hadn't mentioned my address and he never asked.
His body language led me to believe that he had a carrier on his staff (or possibly several) that he knew was stealing mail. I figured as soon as I told him I was losing mail he knew who the likely culprit was without even having to ask which route I was on but either couldn't or wouldn't stop them.
Shortly thereafter I moved to a small town in Alaska. The mail service here is reliable and the people at the post office are very nice. To the best of my knowledge none of my mail has ever gone missing here. I've talked to other people who have had mail problems and everything I've heard has lead me to believe that the reliability of your mail depends a great deal on the people working at the post office nearest you and in some places at the nearest big sorting center.
It's a shame, because if you live in a place where the service is good, the USPS is pretty nifty. You tend not to think of it because the mail is so ordinary, but the fact that I can drop a piece of paper in the box on the corner here on an island in southeast Alaska and for $0.42 someone will carry it to my family back in Michigan or even halfway around the world is really pretty remarkable.
Re:Dying industry (Score:3, Interesting)
FedEx and UPS would have to spend a LOT of money changing their systems to be able to handle the volume that USPS does.
Re:That's why I quit Zip.ca (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds more like you just don't really want a service like streaming Netflix for games, but that you want a service that is dramatically better than Netflix, and do not accept service levels similar to Netflix for your gaming.
** It is true that many of the older games download so fast that the whole thing gets downloaded faster than Netflix can start playing it's stream, so those games do get downloaded completely before play.