USPS Being Tricky (Upselling)

I recently bought a few items from Summit Racing and after I received them I figured out that I can’t measure and ordered the incorrect sized items, which meant I had to return them. So off to the post office I go with my newly repackaged items to send back…no problem right?

I get to the post office and place my package on the table in front of Mrs. Post Lady and she asks me the obligatory questions which more or less consist of “Is this a bomb?” and “No gooey liquid is going to leak out of this, right?”. After that she asks if I want insurance and quickly says it’ll be ~$25.00 and will get to Summit Racing in 3 days.

Now at this point I’m wondering if she thinks I’m crazy or just a dumb kid. The shipping price she just quoted me is over 1/3 of the cost of what’s inside and the package weight almost nothing. It’s at this point that I remembered reading an article about how the post office will quote you these really expensive shipping options and keep their mouth shut unless you ask if there is a cheaper option.

After a quick Google search returned a different article with the same basic story I rememberd reading about: The USPS – How and Why of Upselling.

Unfortunately for me I didn’t get the post office down as far as No Cleaning Here did. Mainly because I wasn’t persistent enough I guess. My final total was $8.10 with insurance and I can live with that. Next time however I won’t be so naive about those tricky post office people.