Silk Road forums

Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: dabdiego on June 09, 2013, 06:21 am

Title: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: dabdiego on June 09, 2013, 06:21 am
Hey guys,

I know a lot of you guys on here that are doing shipping, on SR or not, use printed labels. We do as well, and wanted to let you know about an experience we had this week. We had 4 packages, all of which were priority shipping, get returned to us for being posted past date, what USPS calls a "stale label" The basics of what happened are that we printed the labels on USPS with Click and Ship Postage in the afternoon. We took them all, THAT AFTERNOON, to the blue box(s) used to get the orders out. This was apparently about 20 minutes after the last pickup for the day. The packages were apparently retrieved form the Blue Box the following morning, thus them being dated 1 day off. Whoever was at the sorting center and found these must have been having a crappy day, because they decided to return them to sender with a notice of "stale" postage. Luckily our system of shipping allows for this to happen without a huge problem, and all of the product we had sent was recovered and is safe. The only repercussion to this is that a few customers will not be receiving their orders when they thought they would. This is more a problem for us as we are a new vendor and are not trusted yet as we have no reviews. Anyways we talked quite at length with both the postal worker that delivered them back and he was almost embarrassed. THIS IS WHERE THE ADVICE COMES IN: He cited that with the budget cuts that USPS is facing they have been told to be far more strict as to the dating on the USPS click and ship postage. This is because, he says, of the discount you receive for buying the postage online and not at the post office. So a huge heads up to anyone using this method of shipping... BE VERY CAREFUL. We were extremely lucky that our system has been in place long enough that it has been developed to withstand returned postage, but assume most peoples are not. We have been using this method for years and have NEVER had a problem even when sending packages out a day or even two after the listed postage, so we assume others may be under that impression to. Long story short pay close attention to when the latest pickup is for the boxes you are trying to use, because it seems as if there may not be any room for error any longer. Thanks for your time and let us know what you think. Has anyone else ran into this problem in the last month that previously had never had a problem with it?

Best,

Dabdiego / Purptree4me
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: railroadbill on June 09, 2013, 09:37 pm
oh shit i always send my stuff on time didnt know they were hardasses like that about the post date.
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: dabdiego on June 10, 2013, 04:20 am
oh shit i always send my stuff on time didnt know they were hardasses like that about the post date.

Hey railroadbill,

We agree! 90% of the time this isn't an issue but the thing is, they seem to be cracking down even to the difference of a pick up time. We missed the last pickup time because the mailman must have grabbed it early, we had no way of knowing! Just thought we'd share this heads up with everyone so that they be very, very careful especially when using the blue boxes. Not only did we waste tons of money on shipping labels we couldn't use, but if we hadn't done our homework ahead of time we would have lost the product too! Just something to keep in mind  ;)

Purptree4me / Dabdiego
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: tragicallyhip on June 10, 2013, 06:13 am
Why are you using click and ship labels? Can't this give away your IP address and if your blocking them from accessing that, how do you purchase online postage?

Also, why the fuck were you able to obtain the product after it went back to what should have been a FALSE return address.
To me the big warnings here are - you are not using enough protection to keep your identity secret.
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 10, 2013, 07:04 am
The ol' stale labels.  USPS has been doing this nonsense for three or four years now.  Pricks.  Anyone who has printed postage often knows about the ol' stale labels.  I actually mentioned stale labels in this thread that I made a week ago http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=166913.msg1189067#msg1189067

How the hell were you able to retrieve the packages when they were sent to the fake return address though?
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: dabdiego on June 10, 2013, 07:09 am
Hey tragic,

We appreciate your looking out, but assure you everything is just fine :) We obviously can't explain how we get things done or it wouldn't be a secret, but this has been developed over many years, long before SR even, and should not be alarming. We, along with quite a few other vendors, use click and ship, stamps.com, as well as others. These are all accessed from throwaway computers, on different public wifi's, with no cameras to record who did what. Furthermore they are purchased in a way that is totally anonymous at all levels and also checks back to the return address just fine. We think if you spend a little time on the shipping thread here you will be able to reasonably understand how we accomplish this :) We received our packages back to us because we happen to know someone involved in the process of delivering them back. We assume you can infer to an extent how this works :) Please refrain from jumping to conclusions as we have customers that look to our threads, and we don't want them scared off by misinformation posted by others. We DO appreciate you looking out for us though, it is a reassurance that people are here for the right reasons and not the wrong ones  :)
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: dabdiego on June 10, 2013, 07:13 am
The ol' stale labels.  USPS has been doing this nonsense for three or four years now.  Pricks.  Anyone who has printed postage often knows about the ol' stale labels.  I actually mentioned stale labels in a thread that I made a week ago.

yeah and good job redacting the link and posting THE ENTIRE FUCKIGN TEXT TO TEH SITE. JUST HAND IT OVER TO TEH COPS WHY DONT YA, fucking moron.

Are you dense?  This is nothing like TOR postage or anonymous or anything.  You are giving a STRANGER your CUSTOMER'S ADDRESSES so that he can print postage and mail them to you.  What the FUCK?  Do you know anything about STALE LABELS?  Get a clue Bill!

he doesnt fucking MAIL them to you moron, he EMAILS them to you, you know those things that you can ACCESS THROUGH FUCKING TOR. Like i said ive tried it a few times and never had a fucking problem with stale labels or whateverthefuck your so pissy about. I fail to see how THIS IN ANY WAY compromises my security, its one less camera i have to walk in front of to mail my shit.

It doesn't fucking matter.  Do you know what a stale label is?  You better get that shit posted the exact right day or it will be returned to the return address.  This whole reeks of bacon!

How the hell were you able to retrieve the packages when they were sent to the fake return address though? :o


Hey Jack,

Thanks for dropping in and giving your 2 cents. The stale labels are brutal! We've literally never had a problem with them until this last week. We think it has to do with the budget cuts USPS got slapped with, coupled with the fact that there is a decent discount given when one purchases the label online and not at the PO. Lesson learned I guess, lol.  Also thanks for the kind words the other day, you should know we appreciate it ;) Without getting into specifics for safety reasons, we are able to get our packages back by what we consider the biggest asset and blessing we have here working in our favor. It is not the case every time, unfortunately, but happened to work out this time. PM dabdiego or Purptree4me and we will fill you in, we owe you one anyways if I remember correct  :)

Best,

Dab
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: dabdiego on June 10, 2013, 07:17 am
The ol' stale labels.  USPS has been doing this nonsense for three or four years now.  Pricks.  Anyone who has printed postage often knows about the ol' stale labels.  I actually mentioned stale labels in a thread that I made a week ago.

yeah and good job redacting the link and posting THE ENTIRE FUCKIGN TEXT TO TEH SITE. JUST HAND IT OVER TO TEH COPS WHY DONT YA, fucking moron.

Are you dense?  This is nothing like TOR postage or anonymous or anything.  You are giving a STRANGER your CUSTOMER'S ADDRESSES so that he can print postage and mail them to you.  What the FUCK?  Do you know anything about STALE LABELS?  Get a clue Bill!

he doesnt fucking MAIL them to you moron, he EMAILS them to you, you know those things that you can ACCESS THROUGH FUCKING TOR. Like i said ive tried it a few times and never had a fucking problem with stale labels or whateverthefuck your so pissy about. I fail to see how THIS IN ANY WAY compromises my security, its one less camera i have to walk in front of to mail my shit.

It doesn't fucking matter.  Do you know what a stale label is?  You better get that shit posted the exact right day or it will be returned to the return address.  This whole reeks of bacon!

How the hell were you able to retrieve the packages when they were sent to the fake return address though? :o


Also Jack,

Don't mean to double post, but we didn't take the time to read what you had quoted there as thoroughly as we should have. Good to know we aren't the only ones catching some heat for this from people who don't know what they are talking about. No blame on them, they clearly haven't been in a position where they ship very often above 13 oz, but hey not everyone should anyways, are we right? If we remember correctly, you may or may not have had an integral part in helping us get this method down ;)
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: hopdub on June 13, 2013, 04:36 pm
This is true. Depending on the postal worker and post office, they may even send back packages that are only dated one day off. This is a pretty important thing for vendors to know and should probably be a sticky or added to another thread. Make sure to get your packages out the same day or date them the next day if it is late at night when you drop them. If you can avoid putting a date on it all together, go for it. Many electronic postage places will not allow this, but will allow you to post date.
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: Tessellated on June 13, 2013, 04:57 pm
What if you set the post date to 1 day in the future? Would they reject it for being a day early?
Title: Re: Stale Postage Warning
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 13, 2013, 07:05 pm
What if you set the post date to 1 day in the future? Would they reject it for being a day early?

Probably, they're fucking postal nazis!