November 28, 2020

A Funny Birthday Gift Story

This is a funny story that played out over a few days, and I just wanted to share. 

I went to Dick's Sporting Goods a couple of weeks ago and bought a basketball and some basketball shorts (they were a gift for an 18-year old boy). I stopped at another store to buy a box to ship them in, and there were a couple of choices on sizes. I didn't have the ball with me, and I had no idea how tall a basketball would be in inches, so I sent a quick text to Jerry to ask if a box that was 15x15x16 would be big enough. 

He wasn't sure, but then said yes, he's pretty sure it'd be a good size. So, I bought it. When I got home, I put the box together to get it ready to ship and I nearly died when I saw the size of it in the box. I was WAY off in my guesstimate! Clearly, a 15x15x16 box is way too big. 


I didn't want to ship it in that box (because who wants a gift box that looks enormous and then the box is half empty?) so I waited to get another. I rarely go out these days because of COVID, so I didn't pick one up. We get a lot of boxes from Amazon, and one arrived that would be a good size to ship the ball.

On Wednesday, I FINALLY got it packaged and ready to ship. I was procrastinating going to the post office (it's very out-of-the-way), but I knew if I didn't go on Wednesday, it likely wouldn't ship until Monday because of the holiday weekend. 

In the eleventh hour before they closed, I bribed Noah with $5 to drive the package to the post office (actually there were two packages--the other was just a smaller envelope for my sister). He'd never had the experience of going inside and shipping a package on his own, so it would be good for him to go anyways. I told him to just let them know that he wanted to ship it as cheaply as possible. I figured it'd cost like $20, which is a lot, but it's fun to get gifts in the mail!

So Noah took the packages and when he got home, he handed me the receipt. I nearly shat myself when I saw that they charged me $43.55 to ship a box that weighed less than 3 pounds! (This wasn't going to Australia or anything! Just the west coast.)

I knew there HAD to be a mistake and I inwardly thought that this is what I get for not going to the post office myself. But when I looked at the receipt, I saw that I had been charged $35.20 for "Sesame Street" (I didn't know what that meant, and neither did Noah). I kept asking Noah if they offered him Sesame Street stamps or something, but he said no.

So I figured that they accidentally charged him for Sesame Street stamps in addition to the postage from the packages. The receipt was a little confusing:


It showed $43.55 minus $34.80, for a total of $8.75 on that package. And then the random charge for 4 Sesame Street items at $8.80 each. Noah had explanation.

I was ready to take the receipt to the post office to explain that Noah didn't buy Sesame Street anything, but to save myself the embarrassment, I wanted to fact check before I went. Thank goodness I did.

Using the online postage calculator, I discovered that it did, in fact, cost $43.55 to mail the package with those dimensions and weight. (Crazy, right?!) I figured that the woman had just charged the postage differently for whatever reason, and the actual cost of shipping was not a mistake. 

I couldn't get over the shock of how expensive shipping was--the cost of the ball and shorts, after sales tax, was $70. And then shipping was nearly $45! I felt like I should have just bought a gift card for $100 and sent that instead. But, it was already paid for and done, so I just made a mental note to start using UPS or FedEx or anything other than USPS now. 

So anyways, the box arrived today... and NOW I know what the Sesame Street charge was for. BAHAHAHA, the whole box was covered with Sesame Street stamps!


I burst out laughing when he sent me the photo. He thought it was stickers that I'd used to decorate the box (odd choice for an 18 year old) but then realized they were stamps. 

So, the post office, for whatever reason, had Noah buy 4 books of Sesame Street stamps and then they put them on the box after Noah left. Noah, Jerry, and I were cracking up. At least the Sesame Street mystery charge to my credit card was solved ;)

12 comments:

  1. That is bizarre the post office did that? They must have had those stamps sitting around forever and no one was buying them? Haha!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, this is true. The PO used the stamps to get rid of them. This is done a lot of times, especially in smaller offices.

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    2. I had no idea that the post office would do that!

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  2. I feel your pain. My mother in-law lives in Oregon. I make Christmas cookies to send to her. The cost to send those cookies is ridiculous! (I'm just outside of Chicago) I think I might look for a bakery out there to just buy some cookies and have them delivered or picked up. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! It's crazy. I'd like to send some care packages this Christmas to a couple of people in the military and the cost is probably going to be more than what I spend on the "goodies" in the box.

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  3. Wow. Surprised they are allowed to do that. Luckily it was not something that needed a professional presentation for a client or something. That would have been disappointing.

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    Replies
    1. Exactly! It was funny because of who I sent it to, but I'm glad it wasn't going to a professional for some reason. It's so odd!

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  4. I'm just a mail carrier, not a clerk. If you want a cheaper option at USPS, the best way is to use a Flat Rate Priority box. In this case, that ball may have been too big.

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    Replies
    1. I wish they had bigger boxes for flat rate! Unfortunately, the ones at my post office are very small (even for the largest size). By the way, I've always thought that being a mail carrier would be such a fun job!

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  5. The reason you were charged so much to ship the basketball is because of the large box you put it in. Even though it only weighed 2 lbs, you were "dimmed" for 11 lbs if you look on the receipt. All this means is you're charged for dimensional weight as the USPS, FedX and everyone else realized they were filling their trucks with huge packages that hardly weighed anything preventing them from delivering more and losing money. Pick up a bunch of flat rate boxes at your PO, they are free and you will know what it's going to cost before you get to the PO.

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  6. This is funny! As expensive as it is, I'd encourage you to stick w/ USPS for shipping items. UPS and FedEx will be just as expensive, and they don't need the funding like USPS does right now.

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