The Postal Rate Commission order formal hearings on Friday into the Continuity Shippers Association’s (CSA) challenge to the new fee schedule for the Bulk Parcel Return Service (BPRS), which the U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors authorized several days earlier.
The service is primarily used by cosmetic, hosiery, book and record club mailers, but is also used by catalogers.
Postal governors, acting on the PRC’s recommendation, last Tuesday authorized the USPS last Tuesday to replace its previous fee schedule of postage plus a flat 30 cent fee with a flat fee of $1.75.
The CSA filed a challenge to the fee change in June while the PRC was considering the postal service’s plan. On Aug. 20 the PRC recommended that postal governors adopt the fee change.
The PRC ordered the hearings after rejecting a postal service motion to dismiss the CSA’s challenge. The USPS, it said “failed to provide adequate justification for dismissal” of the CSA challenge.
The CSA contends that the flat fee for machinable Standard A parcels weighing less than 16 ounces being returned as either undeliverable or unwanted by the recipient is too high.
Specifically it alleges that the postal service’s attributable cost per-piece is 93 cents, allowing the USPS to recover 188% of its costs. That, the CSA argues is unjustifiably higher than the current cost coverage of 106% for parcels being returned via Special Standard B Mail.
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