Writing FRAGILE on boxes through USPS no longer free?

[Sensei Ryan]

Greetings fellow forumites!

 

Odd question for the crew, but I was at my local PO today dropping off some packages when the postal worker lady scanning them told me that we were no longer able to write:

 

FRAGILE

 

on our boxes without being subject to a $10 fee and getting a 'Fragile' sticker added to the box. She told me that it was a new thing that USPS was doing to encourage greater care to the boxes marked 'fragile' and that it was no longer a free service.

 

I asked if we could just not write 'fragile' on the package and still be covered with our insurance purchases (I was shipping via Priority Mail). She told me that it would still be covered and as long as we packed it well enough it should be good to go.

 

Needless to say, I was a bit puzzled by this as this was the first I heard of it (and if there's already a thread on this somewhere I apologize for being redundant).

 

Has anyone else heard about or seen this yet? Ironically, I was receiving a package today as well and it had 'FRAGILE' written on it - made me wonder if we're going to start being charged as recipients in the cases where the sellers weren't charged for the new special fragile label.

 

Is this legit or was the postal worker just trolling me super hardcore?

 

Sidenote - she had me mark out and cover up the 'fragile' notices written across my boxes...

 

Let me know your thoughts...thanks for reading. Osu!

 

- Sensei Ryan

[sterlingcomics]

IMHO, Fragile is a magnet for postal service abuse. Ask them what happens when you spend $10 for the word "FRAGILE" and it looks like it was delivered like this:

 

There's decades of actual evidence in these hallowed halls that it will actually encourage abuse. "encourage" they say? That doesn't sound like a guarantee.

 

[MediumLover]

Myth

[porcupine48]

Balogna

[MediumLover]

From February

[MediumLover]

Recipients have been charged the $10.00

[Broke as a Joke]

Even more reason to always pack it responsibly.

[s14roller]

So have people found that not writing anything at all is better? I've wondered about this myself.

[sterlingcomics]

So have people found that not writing anything at all is better? I've wondered about this myself.

 

Search this site. It's not a myth. But feel free to gamble with your shipments. It's must better (and cheaper, easier) to simply package it as if it's going into a war zone. Tis better to trust your packaging technique than to rely on "hope".

[lizards2]

So have people found that not writing anything at all is better? I've wondered about this myself.

I just try to pack it well in the first place.

[thehumantorch]

Myth

 

Agreed. I delivered for Canada Post for 37 years and I always respected parcels marked fragile. Pack it bulletproof, mark it 'Fragile Thanks' or 'Please handle with care' and I believe it has a better chance of arriving safely.

 

And I've certainly seen damage, most of it caused by machinery in the plant or heavy parcels falling on fragile parcels in a truck. Pack the out of it because bad stuff happens when millions of parcels of all different sizes and weights are moving around.

[lizards2]

Myth

 

Agreed. I delivered for Canada Post for 37 years and I always respected parcels marked fragile. Pack it bulletproof, mark it 'Fragile Thanks' or 'Please handle with care' and I believe it has a better chance of arriving safely.

 

And I've certainly seen damage, most of it caused by machinery in the plant or heavy parcels falling on fragile parcels in a truck. Pack the out of it because bad stuff happens when millions of parcels of all different sizes and weights are moving around.

I'm not sure what the "Myth" was in response to..., but the Torch has it right - the forces involved processing packages through the machinery are incredible - pack accordingly.

[porcupine48]

Dave is awesome

[lizards2]

Dave is awesome

 

With a cherry on top! :thumbsup:

[thehumantorch]

Myth

 

Agreed. I delivered for Canada Post for 37 years and I always respected parcels marked fragile. Pack it bulletproof, mark it 'Fragile Thanks' or 'Please handle with care' and I believe it has a better chance of arriving safely.

 

And I've certainly seen damage, most of it caused by machinery in the plant or heavy parcels falling on fragile parcels in a truck. Pack the out of it because bad stuff happens when millions of parcels of all different sizes and weights are moving around.

I'm not sure what the "Myth" was in response to..., but the Torch has it right - the forces involved processing packages through the machinery are incredible - pack accordingly.

 

My first job for Canada Post was Mail Handler. Takes on a much different slant if it's Male Handler but that's a different thread. One of my jobs was working under the large parcel sorting machine. Moving out carts that were getting full. Picking up parcels that missed a cart.

 

The sorting machine was about 30 feet high and a block long. Parcels would circle around at the top on a conveyor belt and large paddles would swing and hit the parcels to carts below. About a 20 ft drop onto a wood surface. If a fragile parcel dropped into a cart followed by a heavy parcel - perhaps corner first - it was game over. It was absolute carnage. Many years later the corporation spent big bucks to put in single mattresses in each cart to soften the blow but I'm sure it wasn't enough.

 

When you get a parcel with penetration damage --------V--------- (got one two weeks ago) or a crushed end its most likely from a heavy parcel falling from a height onto your parcel.

 

For raw books my favorite mailing method is a narrow package of cardboard in an envelope with "Please Do Not Bend" written on it. Very small packages are sorted and moved separately from large packages.

[lizards2]

I've noted that smaller, thinner parcels don't seem to get the damage larger ones do.

[MediumLover]

Myth

 

Agreed. I delivered for Canada Post for 37 years and I always respected parcels marked fragile. Pack it bulletproof, mark it 'Fragile Thanks' or 'Please handle with care' and I believe it has a better chance of arriving safely.

 

And I've certainly seen damage, most of it caused by machinery in the plant or heavy parcels falling on fragile parcels in a truck. Pack the out of it because bad stuff happens when millions of parcels of all different sizes and weights are moving around.

I'm not sure what the "Myth" was in response to..., but the Torch has it right - the forces involved processing packages through the machinery are incredible - pack accordingly.

 

"Myth" in that, I don't believe "fragile ," written on packages is a magnet for abuse.

[Gaard]

 

My first job for Canada Post was Mail Handler. Takes on a much different slant if it's Male Handler but that's a different thread. One of my jobs was working under the large parcel sorting machine. Moving out carts that were getting full. Picking up parcels that missed a cart.

 

The sorting machine was about 30 feet high and a block long. Parcels would circle around at the top on a conveyor belt and large paddles would swing and hit the parcels to carts below. About a 20 ft drop onto a wood surface. If a fragile parcel dropped into a cart followed by a heavy parcel - perhaps corner first - it was game over. It was absolute carnage. Many years later the corporation spent big bucks to put in single mattresses in each cart to soften the blow but I'm sure it wasn't enough.

 

When you get a parcel with penetration damage --------V--------- (got one two weeks ago) or a crushed end its most likely from a heavy parcel falling from a height onto your parcel.

 

For raw books my favorite mailing method is a narrow package of cardboard in an envelope with "Please Do Not Bend" written on it. Very small packages are sorted and moved separately from large packages.

So you're saying the word "fragile" on the package wouldn't prevent this damage? Being a postal worker, can you tell us all of the advantages marking a package as fragile would give us?

[Brother J]

From February

 

Thanks for retrieving this post, I was going to bring up my experience with this when I saw the new thread. I had ordered the Fragile stickers from the Post Office and was using them in addition to writing Please Do Not Bend on the package. I do pack to the point where a package is not easily bent, but I've seen packages forcibly bent in half by an overzealous postman who did not want to get out of his vehicle to deliver a package to the front door. When my eBay customer was charged because of the Fragile sticker, I gave him a partial refund and I stopped using them. I still write "Please DO NOT BEND" on the packages if there's any chance someone could attempt to bend it. No need to write it when shipping in a box.

[InvstmntComcSuply]

I've noted that smaller, thinner parcels don't seem to get the damage larger ones do.

Through USPS that mail stream is categorized as "Flats"

Not more than 15 inches long, or more than 12 inches high, or more than 3/4 inch thick.

Although the package is supposed to be flexible, I think most rigid comic packages this size still go through Flats

 

I think all flat Media Mail still goes with the rest of the monster Media Mail packages