If you get COAL in your packages for Christmas, it could be because you were NAUGHTY and not nice. Or, it could be a strange loophole in Santa’s shipping rates.
A man who runs a small business has found a way to keep his customers’ shipping costs down: Including a small BAG OF ROCKS.
There’s apparently an oddity in USPS’s shipping rate calculation, making it more expensive to ship things that are LESS heavy than other things.
In this guy’s case, something that weighs 13.1 ounces costs $7.60 to ship to Colorado from where he is. He adds a couple small bags of rocks . . . and that same package weighs 2 pounds, 3 ounces, and costs $5.97 to ship.
They sell razors and shaving supplies, so the rocks inside would be very unexpected. So he includes a little note explaining the situation, and adding, “Enjoy your free rocks.”
The USPS hasn’t commented, but there are a couple theories.
One person says that slightly heavier packages, between two and five pounds, are able to go through automated sorting machines without getting stuck, while lighter packages require manual hand sorting.
If this is true, this extra step can also happen when packages have unconventional dimensions, and need to be set aside for manual treatment.
But another person says this seems like a recent change, and that it was probably just USPS messing up their pricing tables.
(Here’s the guy explaining it.)
https://x.com/financedystop/status/2082255785073967248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2082255785073967248%7Ctwgr%5E11356fc2190f64303c605860c07802e68e30be57%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wisebrother.com%2Ftcs%2Fstory%2F197771
(With the insanity of things these days, it wouldn’t be surprising if this loophole is NOT fixed, and instead, the USPS starts selling one-pound bags of rocks for people to add to their boxes.)
