Another day, another package

A package came today (an order from WalMart) via FedEx to General Delivery at the Post Office. I was in hopes that since it was addressed to General Delivery, the shipper would have paid for USPS postage, but... no joy... it cost us $8.50 to pick up our "free shipping" package at the post office. Lesson learned, should have shipped to store (but there are no Walmarts near us until our next campground - next week).

The UPS order that I mentioned yesterday is still indicating that it is in Commerce City, CO. I guess it is happy there! I called the company who shipped it as UPS won't talk to me about the package. The company has opened an "incident" report and they are supposed to call me back in 24 hours with further information. At this point, I don't want them to ship it to the Post Office General Delivery (unless they have included the postal service delivery cost in their arrangement with UPS - that is possible if it was sent with "USPS last mile" delivery). I will check with them when/if they call me.

However, I also called UPS shipping locations thinking, I could have the package re-directed to them and not have to pay USPS handling... well, instead, I can pay UPS handling... the good news is, UPS locations seem to have a flat rate per box (the USPS charges by the weight of the package) - the bad news is that the flat rate varies by UPS shipping location - I've called 3 places - two of them charge $5/package, one charges $3/package. I can kind of understand when it is a commercial business that happens to handle UPS shipping, but The UPS Store also indicated that they charge $5/package. Of course, from what I've heard, "The UPS Store" is a commercial venture, maybe some kind of franchise... the one in Coppell used to charge me $2 to drop off a box with a pre-paid label (the mailing store in the strip mall across the street charged nothing).

Just something that I'll do some more research on... I had stopped having packages sent to the campground because many campgrounds don't allow it, and others have a per-package charge for handling. I haven't had to pay a fee at US Post Offices until we got to the coast of Washington (and now in Oregon). I questioned the guy pretty strongly this afternoon here in Oregon trying to determine if it is a new rule, but it didn't sound as if it was. If I'm going to have to pay a handling charge, I might as well pay it to the campground rather than having to drive into town and pay it to the Post Office or a shipping store.