oh, ok. Well good luck then

clearly no one has implyed that eBay shouldn't have been responsible in your mind so I won't try to convince you otherwise.

I'm not sure how USPS pensions work, but I do know how the accounting for pensions works (or doesn't work as is often the case) in for profit and in government accounting. It was only fairly recently that Governments really had to report on pension liabilities at all...and after those rules were phased in, they were permitted a 30 year period to phase in the new accounting standards reflecting pension liabilities. Pension obligations are essentially forecast annually by actuarial guys who recommend a pension funding level for the company.

Those funding amounts are very tricky to calculate and you can smooth them out over periods of time due to market volatility. Often those funding levels aren't met (particularly in government funds) and the results are liabilities that should be carried on the balance sheet. That gets fuzzy in government accounting for the reasons mentioned earlier. No one has ever been willing to sign off on the financial statements of the federal government by the way.

Pensions across the board are often underfunded - but since they're also government insured, they have a sucker to bail them out.

Aaron, I've been told that the USPS has to fund pensions for employees they don't have yet and maybe even employees they may never have, since it seems that reducing staff is inevitable. This is an obligation no one else has. Obviously, it puts financial pressure on the system. Given the constraints, it's amazing they do as well as they do.

Your complaints are familiar to me. I've noticed that the culture at certain post offices is entirely dysfunctional. At other post offices, it's partly dysfunctional. And at some, it's stellar. It's a gigantic system, so it's not uniform.

Would you be so good as to rephrase that, or explain it without double negatives etc?

Clearly you are not the only one who thinks I'm implying eBay is financially responsible to me, but that's never been my position.

In my last communication with eBay, the cover-your-ass department (they call it "customer service" for no obvious reason) the rep told me: if I can get a letter from the USPS confirming they delivered the package to someone other than me, they, eBay, would refund my money. I told the rep I did not want a refund. I wanted them to leave the status of my transaction, and my "case" open; so I would still have the option of leaving the seller feedback, or to have them step in should this ever prove necessary. This did not seem so outlandish to me. But you know me well enough that my naivety will not shock you.

+10 Every post office is different. I avoid the one in my town for this reason, and use the one in the next town. Totally different response.

I also have had good luck with satellite post offices in retail stores (True Value Hardware in my case). They seem glad to have the extra volume, while the local post office seems put out when I attempt to drop off my on line postage packages.

There were specific laws enacted just for the post office, so reason and typical accounting standards get tossed aside. The USPS also has to fund in advance retiree health benefits, to high levels and had to do " make-up" payments extremely quickly far before need. Then if you add in veterans who work there and retire and will most probably be in the VA health care system... It is nuts. Internal GAO and other reports acknowledge the goofs but without legislation to change things... The status quo will continue. The next Congress will most likely not be the one to do anything as it would undermine the case for privatization.

This does not forgive poor service. Around here we lost a number of close to retirement carriers who were good due to the risks that became unfortunately real after the anthrax mess.

I'm going to do some reading on the USPS pension changes. It would seem difficult to justify one set of strict standards for pension liabilities for one entity when the standards are quite lax for government funds. I would also have to ask where were any standards on government insured plans in private industry.

As the USPS is a quasi-government agency, they get their own laws.

There are standards in private industry, but not much teeth to oblige companies to comply. The insurance fund that was set up by the Federal government for corporations with defined benefit plans is in trouble. Corporations fail and the plan gets turned over for the insurance company to administrate and fund, premiums to be paid by the viable corporations have not kept pace. The reason I have referenced this is my old employer wanted to buy out my pension, due to the current formula it was in their best interest to do so as the math worked to offer a modest sum. I declined of course. Then I got a letter that as of 1/1/2015 there will be no more participants, any new hires or rehires will not be eligible. Perfectly allowable. I expect in the next 30 months that they will kill off the pension entirely, buy annuities to cover the obligations, and since the pension fund at this point is overfunded, if that holds they will get to pocket the remainder back into the corporation's general fund, what any good CFO would advocate. As the companies that compete against them no longer offer pensions for the most part due to bankruptcy it is no longer an expected benefit. We live in interesting times.

^ Yep. I briefly mentioned the PBGC in one of my earlier posts in this thread. U.S. taxpayers are paying the pensions for corporations that have gone bust. It's shameful because it's all about the shareholders of the company. Shareholders take precedence over rank and file workers. I might just unsubscribe from this thread because it gets me so pissed off when I think about it.