US Postal Service missed out on $25M from package returns offering

Pricing errors on 22.8 million packages over a nearly three-year period were the culprit, the agency’s Office of Inspector General said.

• The U.S. Postal Service saw $25 million in lost revenue on one of its returns services due to pricing errors on 22.8 million packages, the agency’s Office of Inspector General said in an audit report last week.
• The errors, which occurred between October 2020 and August 2023, were the result of the Postal Service’s pricing verification process not tracking the type of facility where Parcel Return Service packages were retrieved from, a key factor in determining rates.
• In a response accompanying the report, agency management agreed with the Office of Inspector General’s findings and acknowledged the issue in its pricing process. It plans to move to a new pricing and payment system in 2025, which will factor in facility type into price verification.