Ithaca Blog

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Please, Mr. Postman: Insufficient Postage on Monday's Mail?

The prices of stamps and other postal services go up on Monday, 14 May.

The price of a first class stamp will go from 39 to 41 cents.

The increase has been kept pretty quiet, it seems to us. The only reason we thought of it was because it is bill-paying time here today, and we were considering which we could put off until next week. Then we realized (and confirmed on the Internet) that the price goes up on Monday, and we don't have those supplemental 2-cent stamps around, so we better get everything out today.

Otherwise, I tell you, Chase Cardmember Services would have been the beneficiary, when the payment I owe them on the 18th would have come back to me for insufficient postage on the 16th, too late to get it there on time. Then, hello $30 late fee, goodbye, 12.99% rate. No kidding.

Maybe the post office will be benign and deliver everything in the boxes on Monday. After all, they were unmalicious enough not to raise the prices before Mother's Day, tomorrow.

And maybe the credit card companies will laugh everything off, too, and forgive late payments.

Yeah. What's the expression Wayne Campbell used to use?

Steve Burke
for Ithaca Blog

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