Comments on: Postal service missing thousands of scanners

By: efergus3

efergus3 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:03:00 +0000

RANSOM!

By: Sean Grady

Sean Grady — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:24:00 +0000

Who uses mail? Not trolling – I seriously want to know. I have not received real mail in years – literally, multiple years. All I get is advertisements for credit cards and solicitations for donations.

By: James Coughee

James Coughee — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:01:00 +0000

what the heck?? How on earth did they lose these? These scanners aren’t just some little flimsy pieces of junk, they’re expensive. If they were loaning them out to private businesses….they should have kept a log of who and where!! Dumbass management at USPS.

By: Nathan Popham

Nathan Popham — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:59:00 +0000

And then when USPS is gone, Fedex and UPS will deliver a letter to my grandmother in a small town, or my family just outside of the boondocks, for a competitive price to what USPS offers — the same almost everywhere. Or wait, this is more probable: they won’t.

There’s a reason for not letting the market have a free hand everywhere, and it’s a damn good one.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:40:00 +0000

They need to be more responsible with the things they buy with the money they already get. The law blocking private companies from offering first class mail delivery should be abolished. Let them compete in a full area against Fed Ex and UPS. Then you’ll find out how much money they really need.

By: แอ็ะปปี้

แอ็ะปปี้ — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:49:00 +0000

See, THIS is why the Post Office is broke.

(Wait, no, it’s that 2006 law that mandates 70 years of retirement benefit pre-payment in a criplingly short timeframe which is the cause for most of USPS’s woes, so the entire “USPS is broke” meme is a manufactured crisis designed to force privatizing an embarrassingly successful governnment program (that is not funded by taxpayers).)

By: dculberson

dculberson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:41:00 +0000

1) Like any product or service, there’s a point at which the current customers will either change their habits and reduce or eliminate their dependence upon your business or move to a competitor. This would accelerate the loss of income and speed the decent into insolvency. “Problem solved,” since there would then be no more post office, I guess.

2) There didn’t seem to be any “poor post office” story here, other than one of a bit of ineptitude in keeping track of their scanners. You seem to be trying to fit it into a narrative it doesn’t conform to.

By: paroxysm

paroxysm — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Wait, are they really making people pay for postage to send them back?

By: Mike MacKenzie

Mike MacKenzie — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:06:00 +0000

Every time one of these scanners downloads its contents to the central server, it should report its ID. Just scan the logs for the last time a missing scanner checked in and who checked it in. Then ask them.

By: IamInnocent

IamInnocent — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:03:00 +0000

Refurbished, with GPS added.

By: Teller

Teller — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:59:00 +0000

“Postal service missing thousands of scanners”
They took jobs at TSA.

By: Ramone

Ramone — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:54:00 +0000

Wow, I remember when I worked retail that if a scanner went missing it was your a$$. If it was gone more than 24 hours it came out of your pay and you signed a written reprimand. If you lost it again you were fired on the spot.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:45:00 +0000

This is an internal document addressed to USPS employees and contractors, right?

By: mulveyr

mulveyr — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:39:00 +0000

Snark aside, it makes perfect sense to have them returned. They probably have a zillion existing customized charging stations/etc that would be expensive to replace as well. Refurbishing is almost always more economical that buying new, when it comes to gadgets like this.

By: JPW

JPW — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

I was so expecting “A prepaid FedEx or UPS mailer will be sent on request.” . . .

By: polossatik

polossatik — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:33:00 +0000

“Because these scanners are no longer manufactured and the current inventory is nearly depleted, the scanners must be collected and returned for refurbishment.”

so their system is depending on getting their hands on a no longer made model?
and it’s not possible to get something else that works?

lovely… :)

By: Rider

Rider — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Charge more for postage. So tired of these poor post office stories. Charge more for postage, problem solved.

By: nimic

nimic — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:21:00 +0000

This would explain why only 25% of the packages my business sends w/ Delivery Confirmation service actually get tracked. They should use the .19 cents they are collecting from each purchase of this service to buy new scanners.

By: breck witte

breck witte — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:08:00 +0000

Not even the USPS uses Zip+4

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:06:00 +0000

they would have had to have had that to have had a chance

By: Joe McNally

Joe McNally — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:03:00 +0000

They did – they lost it after the scanner scanner scanner scanner broke down, which meant they couldn’t locate the scanner scanner scanner.

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:57:00 +0000

“Let’s find them and get them back in inventory.”

Lets keep track of them in the first place?

If only they had had a scanner scanner