The Postal Rate Commission's Office of Consumer Advocate (OCA) tomorrow will attempt to broker an informal settlement in the Continuity Shippers Associations dispute with the U.S. Postal Service over the new Bulk Parcel Return Service (BPRS), which is scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 3.
Although no formal date for those hearings has been set, the PRC ordered informal settlement discussions saying it was "imperative that the parties utilize appropriate informal inquiry methods to define the issues, further the exchange of information and explanations.....and facilitate [a] settlement" as soon as possible before the Oct. 3 implementation date.
Officials of all three groups, the PRC, USPS and the CSA would not speculate on the expected results of their discussions.
The CSA is the trade association for hosiery, book, record, audio and video tape continuity mailers as well as other direct marketers who use the service. The association challenged the recent USPS action replacing a postage-plus 30-cent fee for undeliverable or unwanted machinable Standard A Mail parcels of less than one pound with a flat $1.75 fee.
The CSA contends that the flat fee, approved by the postal service's Board of Governors on Aug. 30 on the PRC's recommendation, allows the USPS to recover 188% of its costs when the actual per-piece attributable cost of handling each parcel is just 93 cents.
