{"id":26408,"date":"2019-05-16T08:10:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T13:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=26408"},"modified":"2019-05-16T08:10:22","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T13:10:22","slug":"how-much-does-the-usps-profit-when-they-lose-your-mail-and-its-sold-at-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2019\/05\/16\/how-much-does-the-usps-profit-when-they-lose-your-mail-and-its-sold-at-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"How much does the USPS profit when they lose your mail and it&#8217;s sold at auction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/sinclairstoryline.com\/resources\/embeds\/jw8-embed.html?client=googima&amp;file=https:\/\/content.uplynk.com\/8c2d43000db64bf3b3b54cbc51ac7b62.m3u8&amp;autostart=false\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Angela Erickson spent the better part of last year lovingly sewing two quilts. One, meant for her uncle, depicts Utah artifacts. The other, displaying a brilliantly-intricate elephant, was for her dad.<\/p>\n<p>She shipped them to Illinois just in time for Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>They didn&#8217;t make it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t remake these quilts,\u201d she said fighting back tears. \u201cThey don&#8217;t realize how much time goes into these, and to see that it&#8217;s lost and they may never see it is really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Erickson says her local postmaster gave her the devastating news that her package had been declared &#8220;dead.&#8221; The best-case scenario is that it&#8217;s on its way to a secretive facility known as the Mail Recovery Center (MRC).<\/p>\n<p>Think of the MRC as the lost and found of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 26px 0px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">It has a staff whose job it is to open packages and try to track down the owners. Anytime they don&#8217;t find the rightful owner, within a few months, the USPS gets to auction it off and pocket the profits.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 26px 0px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">Pressing the USPS for specifics on how much they auction and profit from the auctions, reporter Matt Gephardt of KUTV, WJLA\u2019s sister station, was stonewalled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 26px 0px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">A spokesperson stated that USPS doesn\u2019t want to give away &#8220;trade secrets,&#8221; saying:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"font-weight: 600; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: -0.5px; margin: 26px 80px 26px 0px; border-left: 5px solid #cccccc; padding-left: 20px; font-size: 20px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\"><p>The information requested is being withheld in its entirety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"margin: 26px 0px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">The USPS works with a private company called\u00a0<a class=\"themeColorForLinks\" title=\"https:\/\/www.govdeals.com\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.govdeals.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GovDeals<\/a>\u00a0to manage the auctions, which are conducted online. Online photos show large boxes stuffed with just about everything you can imagine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 26px 0px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">The photos allow bidders to see what is on the surface of the boxes but not what is beneath.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 26px 0px; color: #121212; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;\">GovDeals declined to answer questions about the auctions, referring Gephardt to USPS for comment. In addition to refusing to provide records, USPS refused an interview for this story. Read more<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-26409\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Lost-Mail-For-Sale.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"448\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Lost-Mail-For-Sale.jpg 448w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Lost-Mail-For-Sale-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Lost-Mail-For-Sale-122x74.jpg 122w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angela Erickson spent the better part of last year lovingly sewing two quilts. One, meant for her uncle, depicts Utah artifacts. The other, displaying a brilliantly-intricate elephant, was for her dad. She shipped them to Illinois just in time for Christmas. They didn&#8217;t make it. &#8220;I can&#8217;t remake these quilts,\u201d she said fighting back tears. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-video-gallery","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26410,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26408\/revisions\/26410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}