What the heck? Another Ebay question! 2 2

[Math Teacher]

9 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Well that one you may want to be careful with.. 

 

"This packaging is the property of the United States Postal Service and is provided solely for use in sending Priority Mail shipments. Misuse may be a violation of federal law. This packaging is not for resale."

I believe that when the OP said, "Request the medium flat rate priority boxes....", he meant request them from USPS.

From someone who has purchased a LOT of comics over the last 2.5 years, I have seen far more than one seller cut the Priority Mail boxes apart and use them for extra padding. This doesn't happen from major dealers, like  Reece's Rare Comics or ComicLink. The people who do it are often people like me, who are trying to sell off bits and pieces of their collection to remove some clutter and possibly make a little money. I have also seen people put one Priority Mail box inside another Priority Mail box. The inner box is not being used to mail something via Priority Mail; it's being used as extra protection. I wonder how USPS would feel about that?

Supposedly, my mailbox mounted on a post across the road from my house is also supposed to be the property of USPS. In both cases, I find the use of this word, "property," to be pretty nebulous.

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

51 minutes ago, Math Teacher said:

people put one Priority Mail box inside another Priority Mail box. The inner box is not being used to mail something via Priority Mail; it's being used as extra protection. I wonder how USPS would feel about that?

We have all witnessed it many many times . This is one of the reasons their cost keeps going up and they are still losing money. 

That said it is even rarer than them catching media mail issues as unlike media they are not supposed to open priority, but if they catch it they would charge you the flat rate for each of the boxes, envelopes, etc used and technically could fine you on top of that although I have never seen or heard of anyone being fined, but have seen a few cases where they did charge for the each of the boxes. 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

58 minutes ago, Math Teacher said:

 

I have also shared in a few different threads how I package to cut the cost as much as possible , but earlier I posted a semi quick summation of them here. 

 

[xvipah]

Good call, I don't think I saw/paid attention to that before. I made a mistake when I first started doing this, I didn't realize they "cared" I sent some of the free priority mail envelopes with media mail postage. They came back to me after about 3 days with postage due on them. Instead of paying priority for all of them I got normal boxes and resent them media, but it was a lesson learned. I'm not sure of the consequences involved, if any, but in my experience (that 3 or 4 package shipment over 2-3 days) they just charge you the difference again.

But, might not be worth the risk, no doubt. I dunno if there are actual federal statutes for that specifically. Luckily the gemini's I use can hold a good amount of books, so I have been using them recently. The free boxes are nice, and I'd hate for the PO to start charging for them 

8 hours ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Well that one you may want to be careful with.. 

 

"This packaging is the property of the United States Postal Service and is provided solely for use in sending Priority Mail shipments. Misuse may be a violation of federal law. This packaging is not for resale."