Penalty for Move Update Noncompliance

The Postal Service began penalty enforcement on January 4th for Standard Mail not in compliance the Move Update requirements.

Updated information about the penalty was provided in our October 19th 2009 issue of Distribution Directions.  Click here for a complete copy of the Federal Register Notice.

The Postal Service will apply a $0.07 per piece additional postage charge for pieces found in a mailing with a Move Update error rate of greater than 30 percent based on the Service Performance Based Verification (PBV) samplings at time of acceptance.

The Move Update standard requires that a mailer participate in an approved Move Update process, and use the change of address information received through the approved Move Update process, to correct the mailing addresses in the mailing.

Mailers are reminded to include the method of Move Update when submitting address files to Brown Printing Alliance Services.  Customers not using Alliance Services must provide the Move Update method in the Mail.dat file format.

Pitney Bowes Issues Mailing Address Quality Survey

The survey findings, consisting of responses from major high-volume mailers, revealed that while companies are concerned with address quality, many are not yet prepared to receive the cost-saving benefits related to USPS rate changes for the proper management of returned mail and address updates.  Key survey findings include:

• 64% of respondents said they use the National Change of Address (NCOA^Link) method to identify address changes to help reduce undeliverable mailpieces before they enter the mailstream;
• 54% rely on Address Change Service (ACS^TM) to ensure that the new address information is returned to the mailer.
• When mail is returned from NCOA^Link® or ACS^TM due to incorrect addressing, 33 % said they rely on manually updating the addresses (most costly method).
• 46% of respondents consider handling return mail a manually intensive process and 22% believe that having multiple databases requiring updates;
• When it comes to updating addresses in environments that include customer consent as requirements (by legal or business rules), respondents primarily relied on sending consent letters (22 percent) or e-mail confirmations for verification. Source: Pitney Bowes

Periodicals Covered 76.1% of Costs  in FY09

In accordance with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) of 2006 the U.S. Postal Service issued their FY 09 Annual Compliance Report.

The report must be issued within 90 days after the end of each fiscal year showing a variety of data on "costs, revenues, rates, and quality of service" in order to "demonstrate that all products during such year complied with all applicable requirements."  The comprehensive report was filed and posted to the Postal Regulatory Commission website on December 29, 2009.

Most disturbing was the section on Periodicals.  The report (starting on page 39) states Periodicals cost coverage was only 76.1 percent in FY 2009.  See related story at Dead Tree Edition.

Read the complete report at:  http://www.prc.gov/docs/66/66288/ACR.FY2009.Final.pdf.

USPS Compliment

According to the 2009 Comprehensive Statement on Postal Operations, the total USPS complement decreased by 53,043 employees, with career complement decreasing by 40,147.  At the end of FY 2009, there were 712,082 employees on the rolls, of which 623,128 were career