TomBecker.net

Postal Piracy

So I may be a little late to the whole buying things off the internet thing, I prefer to talk to people once in a while, especially when making a purchase. Call me old fashioned.

But today I had to buy something off line as the item isn't carried in stores, I also received a gift card to Amazon.com a while back (two posts in one day, both having something to do with Amazon....weird. I promise I really don't hate those guys) and I noticed something. The post office is making a killing.

For example today I had to order a little infrared sensor for a Tivo box. The little light attached to a wire cost me 6.99 pre tax. Not to shabby at all. So I go to the order page, and they are charging me 4.47 to ship the 4 oz item. So they are charging me ~63% of the cost of the item just to ship it. And it is just the basic shipping. It isn't like i chose to overnight the damn thing.

Is it me or is that a bit high. And that isn't even the worst one. I bought off of Amazon a set of guitar picks for $0.62, thats right less than a dollar. And those swindlers charged me 3 bucks for shipping and handling. Its not like they even packed it with care. The envelope came with the packing slip sloppily stuffed all wrinkled with the picks.

I dunno, the post office claims they are having hard times and they keep upping the cost of stamps in order to make ends meet and all that. But it seems to me that their coffers are pretty full if they are charging 206% of cost of item in order to ship.

I'm going back to buying everything at the store...

Labels: rant

posted by Tom Becker at 1/30/2008