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Let start by saying now I HATE the USPS. Hate is such a strong word that I never use but this case- well they deserve it!
I stuffed my invitations, addressed them- took one to work with me and weighed it on our postal scale. Which told me one stamp- $.44 . My envelopes are not oversize/square- they are all stuffed exactly the same.
Today I found out that about half of our guest list received there invitations, some received a bill for $.17, some received a bill for $.36 - UGH!!!!!
The post office of course has no explanation for this!! Ladies go to the post office- make them weigh each individual envelope- just in case. I am soo embarrassed. Our family understands, our co-workers and friends understand.. My boss did too- but soooo embarrassing. Well the ones that paid the postage. People are getting a card from the great USPS that says an envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, from sender unknown (because thank you etiquette- for no return address) requires you to come to the post office pay the difference. If I received that, I doubt with my work schedule I would make much effort to go to our busy, wait in line for an hour post office.
To try and make lite of this, and let Mr. and Mrs. Smith know we are the "unknown senders" we are now going to send a little note to our entire guest list.. but still HOW EMBARRASING ...
hangs head in bridal shame :(
i'm sorry....everyone seems to be encountering this problem! never heard of them actually CHARGING the receiver though...i thought they just sent it back to the sender as undeliverable. and a friendly reminder- you might want to change that font- it is quite difficult to read. =)
I took one of my finished invites to the post office and had them weigh it for me. Then bought stamps after they provided me with the cost ($0.44). I'll be taking them to the same post office to mail them.
Of course, it didn't sound like mine were even close to qualifying for the next level stamp cost, so hopefully I won't have a similar problem.
And . . . I've never heard of the post office charging the sender for insufficient postage - but I suppose without a return address the post office had no idea who to return it to.
The first time I went to the post-office, they quoted me $0.98. When I went back to buy the stamps, they quoted me $1.05. I explained that this was a different number than what I was originally quoted. The post-lady was sweet and advised that to be on the safe side I put $1.22 (2x$0.61 wedding stamps) on each envelope just to ensure that none were returned.
If you have the extra money in your budget, definitely add a few cents extra on the postage.
I ordered something from Etsy and the seller didn't put enough postage on it and I had to pay the difference. It was less than a dollar, so it wasn't a big deal, but that was the first time I had ever heard of that either. They delivered to me (no note to pick it up) but left an envelope for the few cents I owed. Very odd.
OMG my friend(she is my co worker too) had the same problem just 2 weeks ago! it was a little different though. she received ALL (or what she thought was all) the invitations BACK with a big ole ugly stamp that said return to sender not enough postage. Now 2 weeks later about 10 households are telling her that they never received her invitation! To top it off she bought special stamps with wedding bands on it and PAID extra for them and took one of the invitation to the post office had it weigh and they said the same thing! SHAME on the post office!!!
@Mrs.MedinaJr: Just as an FYI - the special stamps with wedding bands don't cost any more than a regular stamp. I bought them for my STDs and for my RSVP envelopes.
The thing that confuses me the most with the whole situation is why some people were billed an extra 17 cents and some an extra 36 cents for envelopes that were exactly the same!
omg that is sooo frustrating!! good advise though.. i am def gonna do that!
USPS sucks. That is all I have to say about that. I had a whole issue with them.
Why is the post office so inconsistent? You'd think, by now, they would have created some sort of mailing policy for invitations or weddings or something. I'm afraid of what's going to happen when I get ready to get married. Sheesh.
Why the heck would they send bills to those people instead of sending them back to you?
We received a couple back that had wrong addresses. I had to redo the envelopes because the stupid post office wrote all over the envelope.
What if you used a forever stamp?
Oh and I have also been charged by the post office for someone not putting
enough postage on something... the mailman just collected it in change and
I didn't get a receipt or anything...
@Mrs.KMM: she had to pay to have them shipped that is where the extra came in. sent she ordered them online.
@Mrs.MedinaJr: Ah - tell her next time (or for your wedding) to just go ask for them at the post office - they have them there to buy. Save yourself the shipping!
I had my fiance bring one of our finished invitations all packed up. Well it was almost finished we just needed to print out two of the inserts but the actual paper size was included. It came to be a little under the wedding cake stamp amount (~$.61) and the guy said that it would sweak by when you add in the amount for the printing of the inserts and the stamp. I would never have thought that printing of two inserts and a stamp would push us up to the next stamp amount. Oye! We ended up just mailing it out of the same post office that he got the quote from.
We have already started receiving RSVPS online and they just started arriving at people's homes two days ago!!!
I'm totally with you on this one. I hate the post office. I went to 2 different post offices to have our invites weighed, they both told me .64 stamps. So I buy the stamps, but all the invites together, and bring them to post office number 3. There the lady tries to tell us we need to add ANOTHER .24. I told her no way. Mail them. So far, I'm fairly certain all our guests got the invites. We have received replys and no returned invites. Stupid USPS.
@Mrs.KMM: I think she tried that but they didnt have any and told her to go online which stinks! i am telling you our post office really sux!
My fiance wants to just dump our invitations into the closest mailbox and doesn't quite understand my insistence on taking them to the post office. Having worked my butt off on these darn things, NOTHING (especially too little postage) is going to prevent them from getting to our guests.
I have heard so many horror stories about mailing wedding invitations and how different post offices' quote different postage prices. I'm already worried about mailing mine and that's not for another 7 months!
Oh geez, I am hyperventilating reading this thread. Several of my guests haven't yet received their invites, several of them have.
They were all mailed out of the same post office. I had the lady there weigh it and tell me how much postage I needed: 61 cent wedding stamp she said. I stamped and sent them all right then and there. That was a week ago.
Some people in the SF Bay Area got theirs the next day. Others haven't gotten them at all yet.
I'm worried some of them are going to come back in the mail now.
Wooosaaaaahhhhh.
Wooooosaaaaaaahhhhh.
@eupenmalmody: same exact thing happened to me. weight it at one told me $.98, went to another and told me $1.22. my stamps were a cute senic stamp and a polar bear but whatever. Still 1 (and only 1 that I hear from) person got a letter in the mail saying they had to pay 36 cents extra. Funny part is that it was my MOH and my brother who lives 10 mins away got his no problem.
With the growth of Digital Mail, and competitors like UPS and FedEx, you'd think the USPS would try not to SUCK so badly. They make no apologies for their incompetant workers and complete lack of customer service.
I hope new technology puts them completely out of business in the very near future.
I'm scared now for when it comes time to mail mine! Geesh! I didnt know things like this were so common. :/
I don't trust the post office even.
According to the research I'd done on my envelopes (medium oversize - but this is in Canada) and their weight (50g), the postage should have been $1.22 (I know, it's ridiculous!) - and that is what I had been quoted at the post office when I brought in a sample invite to figure out the postage.
When I went back to actually mail my invites though the postal worker told me that, "they should get there with $1.00." I was like, "Um, yeah, there will be no 'should.'" And so I went with the $1.22.
So, no shame in your situation - it could have happened even if you had gone to the post office!
ETA - both times when I took them into the post office I took them to the SAME post office! So it's not like it was a matter of their scales being off...more like their employees didn't know what they were talking about.
I was in the same boat. My first set of invitations was apparently lighter (all exactly the same) and only cost $0.44. When I tried to mail more, the second post office wanted to bump it up. I fell for it because it was only two more envelopes, but I frantically tried to reach the people who had not yet RSVP'd to see if they'd actually received their invitations.
I think they need to calibrate their scales a little better.
This worries me. There goes my plan to DIY- my invites would probably weigh too much!
This is AWFUL. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. How awful. I guess we live and we learn.
2 weeks later... I know for a fact someone hasn't received their invitation (because they sit right across from me at work). Now I wonder how many others haven't made it.
I am terrified to send my invites out! (Needless to say, this post didn't help much, lol.) I had one weighed at one post office and they told me 44 cents. (I didn't have the RSVP stamp on there because it's a postcard stamp and they just came out with the new ones today, but I'm hoping that doesn't put me over the top.) I sent a sample to my dad and he got it, so hopefully it works fine for everyone else.
this will be one of those annoying things "Uncle Fred" will tease you about at family dinners for years to come. I'm sorry this happened at such a stressful time, but I am sure everyone will understand.
Jeez... this is scary... You're making me not trust myself because I only asked at one post office!
Did anyone try mailing one to themselves to see if it made it through the mail?
My story....I made luggage tag STD's (they turned out beautiful - I found the idea here on the bee).....used a small, lined envelope. Due to the thickness of the luggage tag, when I took my one envelope in, I was told 1.05 to mail. Two stamps since I didn't even think to order special. I went back home and started putting stamps on all of the envelopes before I stuffed them, as I wanted the envelope flat, so they went on nicely.
My FI took them all back to the post office the next day and was told that they made a mistake, didn't realize that the luggage tag was also very firm, not flexible. Now it cost 1.39...........the cents aren't the big deal by any means - the fact that now I have 5, yes 5 stamps on my small envelope is the big deal.
Had it been me, I would've paid a few more cents, just to have only one more stamp (men don't seem to think that way).........I didn't even see them as our post man (very small office) felt bad for mis-quoting, he agreed to put them on for us.
I now fear that my guest's will think I have invited them to join a stamp collecting club instead of saving the date for my wedding........I haven't had any feed back yet as most were mailed out of state - tomorrow should be the day. UGH!!! So yes, add a few cents to any postage that is "ir-regular".....
@sparkles_10: I did and it took like 2 weeks to get back to me, and the only reason it did was because I had listed my address as the return address, as well - it had a big yellow sticker on it to review by postmaster or something. I got impatient and sent one to my dad and it got to him in 2 days, so I'm blaming ours on our mail carrier - we tend to miss a lot of mail and I'm worried about not getting RSVPs back.
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