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Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2543
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 12:04 pm: | 
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I saw an ad for this product on the aalbc home page. Has anyone ever used it? http://photo.stamps.com/Store/ |
Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 630
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 03:57 pm: |
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I've had a stamps.com account for about a year now. I've been using the regular stamps, not the custom photo stamps. But I took some great pix over the holidays, so I'm going to order a few sheets of custom photo stamps. If you do a lot of mailing from your home or if the post office is a good hike from your residence, then I would suggest a stamps.com account. I can mail off packages from home up to 25lbs (next day, priority, first class, media mail, etc) and just hand them to my mailman. I love the convenience and the time it saves me. IMO, no home office should be without this service. Just $15.99/month plus whatever postage you add to your account. All you need is a credit or debit card. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 11172
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 04:57 pm: |
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For sure.The mail must go through! Run right down to your local post office and purchase a sheet of these stamps. Anything to keep the Postal System in the black and my postal pension secure. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1057
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 10:58 pm: |
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Hey Yvettep, I use photo stamps (if that was not obvious). The stamp shown on the ad that you saw was an actual AALBC.com photo stamp.
I figured it was just one more way to help establish a brand. The stamps cost a little more than regular stamps.
I also I figured an author can put their book cover on a stamp.
I even made one with a family photo a couple of Xmases ago. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2547
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 08:02 am: |
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Thanks, Urban_Scribe and Troy. I think this is a cute idea. I may make some with my kids' pics and send them to family as gifts. Cynique, I still mail real letters so consider me a contributor to your continued quality of life! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 11182
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 03:58 pm: |
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The Postal Kid thanks all of you for your patronage!  |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1059
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 09:50 am: |
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I gave a mailman, in a truck, a single package when contained a book destined for a reviewer who lives in the same city about 5 miles away. The postal representaive gladly accepted the package and I was pleasantly pleased.
About a week later the very same package came back with a note saying that packages over 13 oz have to be taken to the post office.
I HATE the post office the lines are slow and the folks behind the counter are just nasty to the customer more times than not -- especially in offices in the hood.
I went to a post office in midtown . They had a fancy machine that prints out lables that include the posttage. I used it greatful I did not have to wait on the typically slow lines. A week later that package came back with a message saying the address was insuffient for delivery. The delivery address was on the label the USPS printed! I remailed the package it arrived the 2nd time.
The first time I used the machine I apparently did not properly complete the transaction. Now I'm no computer novice but I admit I could have made a mistake -- anyway someone apparently came behind me and purchased additional postage on my credti card. I went back to the post office the next day to dispute the changes -- I had no recourse and no one seemed to give a crap.
Once I broght a box of books to the post office to return to a publisher. The clerk chastized me for sealing the box, becase now she had no way to determining the contents of the box -- which I was forced to open and reseal.
And I can't tell you how much mail I get at home with the wrong address...
Despite the customized stamps I truly dislike the post office. I pay $400 a year for a UPS Store mailbox beause the UPS can not maintain decent hours or accept UPS deliveries.
The Post office's defficencies is why UPS, FEDEX and all the others thrive...
Cynique please don't get me started on our Post Office. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 11186
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 02:15 pm: |
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The Post Office is notoriously inefficient, Troy. Benjamin Franklin was our first Post Master and some of his methods are still being used to move the mail.
I hate to say it but the problem stems from poor management, and in the large urban areas Blacks run the post offices. Time and time again key staffers are promoted to their level of incompetency. Anybody can become a supervisor, and dependable services suffer because of this. This organization harbors a culture that's all about work-place politics, sexual liaisans, back biting and sabotage. Drug and alcohol use, high absentism and theft are also rampant among the clerks and carriers. Plus, the Unions are very powerful and it's difficult to fire people.
At the administrative level there is still ineffective leadership. Nobody can figure out how to do a good job of deliverinng the mail, so they concentrate on the frills and cosmetics of the postal system. Like offering personalized stamps.
I worked at a local office and things weren't quite as bad there. The Post Office was good to me and I was good to it, always trying to do my job well but I have no illusions about it. Whenever I run into any of my old co-workers, we shake our heads in dismay over how things there are getting worse than ever with the infusion of a calibre of younger people who are not interested in giving a day's work for a day's pay and who are clueless when it come to the simplest tasks. To an extent, I'm generalizing but too often this is the case.
That's why I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because when the post office falls, so will I. Good thing I'm old.  |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1060
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 08:34 pm: |
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Stealing don't even talk about that; if my wife sends a card to her mother it will never make it -- no exaggeration. Once she sent money, in a card, for a present, every single card is now stolen.
Cynique it is like check cashing places back in the day. In the hood we took our paychecks to a check cashing place, they took a good chuck for the service while treating you like shit behind their bullet proof glass, but you did not have a choice.
The post offices, at least the ones in the hood, are equivalent to check cashing places.
Todays there are large commerical banks all over Harlem now many offering free checking accounts.
Besides 75% of the stuff they do deliver to me is junk mail. I wonder what would happen if the USPS just went away. (Of course they have to continue meeting their pension obligations).
I wish they would go on strike so we could find out for real...
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