The following letter was sent to the PRC by the owner of two UPS stores.

7.27.12

Postal Regulatory Commission
901 New York Ave NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20268

Reference: PRC Docket # MC2012-26

Dear Commissioners,

I am the owner of two The UPS Stores in St. Paul and Roseville Minnesota, employing two full-time and 8 part-time people from our community. I am writing to ask that you disallow the United States Post Office’s “enhanced” services to Post Office Box customers, specifically:

1. Acceptance of third-party parcels and other items from UPS, FedEx, DHL and other non-USPS carriers, a practice that has been prohibited for many years.

2. The new ability to use the street address of the Post Office where the Post Office Box is located, rather than the conventional “PO Box 123, Anytown, MA 01234.”

3. The new ability of Post Office Box customers to use the “#123” designation instead of the conventional “PO Box 123” form of address.

4. E-mail / text message notification to PO Box customers of items received. (“Real Mail Notification”)

These new business practices place the United States Postal Service in direct and unequal competition with our businesses and thousands of other small businesses across the country. For most store owners like me, our businesses are privately owned and represent the sole source of our income. In many cases, we have financed the purchase of the business with loans secured by our homes. This new form of competition from the USPS will result in significant loss of revenue and damage to my business and those of others in our industry. This will impact my personal situation, but it will also have a negative impact upon people I employ.

As a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA), our business is regulated and inspected by the USPS. There is no other enterprise in our society where one competitor can regulate another, even to the point of requiring them to turn over their customer list on a quarterly basis.

As a CMRA, we operate under other unique rules, such as the ability of a postal customer to change his address from a PO Box to another address with a simple “Change of Address” form, while customers of a CMRA such as my store are prohibited from doing so. When a CMRA mailbox customer moves, we are required by the USPS to receive the customer’s mail for six months following termination and cannot re-mail it without paying for new postage.

As noted in PRC Order No. 1366, “the Postal Service has not submitted an appropriate filing that describes the nature and implementing rules for these enhanced services.” The USPS failed to follow the rules in rolling out these new services, and made a unilateral decision and executed it without the necessary filings. What the USPS is doing is fundamentally wrong. A financially viable Post Office is an important part of our business, but not at our expense. I cannot sit by and watch the USPS launch a series of products and services specifically designed and targeted to take our customers. A relationship with the USPS is a careful balance of competition and support, and in this instance they have tipped the scales.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Randy Jessup
Owner

The UPS Store #2158
2355 Fairview Avenue
Roseville, MN 55113

651-635-0636
651-635-0628
store2158@theupsstore.com

The UPS Store #6160
2038 Ford Parkway
St. Paul, MN 55116

651-698-1685
651-698-1690

store6160@theupsstore.com