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Gamefly Complains of Poor Treatment From USPS
Gamefly, the popular video game rental service that operates through the mail, has filed a complaint with the Postal Regulatory Commission about the high number of games that are lost or stolen in the mail. The complaint (PDF) asserts that the postal service's automated sorting machines have a tendency to break a small percentage of discs, and that preferential treatment is given to DVD rental services like Netflix and Blockbuster.
"According to Gamefly's numbers, it mails out 590,000 games and receives 510,000 games back from subscribers a month. The company sees, depending on the mailer, between one and two percent of its games broken in transit. ... Even if you assume the number is one percent, and a game costs $50 to replace, that's an astounding $295,000 a month in lost merchandise. ... That's not the only issue — games are also stolen in transit, which has lead to the arrest of 19 Postal Service employees."
Those lost game disks were lost in the mail... Heh heh... *hides stack of reported "lost" disks under the couch* Nothing to see here, move along!
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
This sounds a lot like the reason I quit Zip.ca (Canadian Netflix). 3 DVDs within 3 months failed to end up win my locked mailbox (I live in an apartment). With all the time I spent with my account on hold while they investigated the lost DVDs, I didn't get to make very good use of my membership. I can only imagine the problem would be worse with games, where they are worth quite a bit more $50 vs. $20 (many DVDs are $10 or less). Also, with no signature required for the discs, I'm sure a lot of people are just reporting that the disc never made it to them, or saying they sent it back when they didn't, and keeping it for themselves.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Seems like this is just one more nail in the coffin for the USPS. Seriously, without services like this, they'd probably already be out of business. Since 1973 they've been a state sponsored monopoly rather than an actual branch of the government. I don't see it being too much longer that they're allowed sole right to transfer first class mail with both UPS and FedEx waiting in the wings to offer better more reliable service.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
Now I finally understand what Netflix meant when they said it would "cost us too much to switch to machinable envelopes." (That's from memory, so it may be paraphrased.)
I just started using GameFly a few months ago instead of getting raped by Blockbuster when I didn't return the games on time. I rented every few months but would keep games 3 or 4 games for far too long. So I switched to GameFly after the girlfriend pointed out it would be far cheaper overall.
One of the things I found rather annoying is the constant emails like 'have you got XXX yet?' or 'When did you send back XXX?'. I figured they were just trying to establish the average time it takes to get the game to me and back from various distribution centers or something.
After reading this I'm inclined to believe they are just trying to figure out which shipper is shafting them on a regular basis.
What I've worried about is what happens when I put it in the mailbox to go back and some neighborhood kid comes and steals it? I live in a good neighborhood and have no reason to assume any of the kids around would do it, but having been a kid once not to long ago it would seem to me to be a great target for some free games once you realize someone is doing it.
Anyone had any experience with GameFly not getting back a game or the game never arriving in your mailbox? How is their customer support in those situations I wonder?
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I've been using Gamefly for almost 5 years now. In those five years, I've had three games lost when returned. I've had one game take 2 months to be returned to the Gamefly facility, one game shipped to me that was broken on delivery, and one never made it to me. I'm at my second resident since I've started this, so I would have to assume it's not just my address nor an individual carrier nor local postal center, but more widespread. I have noticed over the years the little cardboard thing has gotten a little more sturdy. Given the increasing news about postal carriers not delivering the mail, or stealing it, and the increased use of contractors to transport a lot of mail from major cities to smaller, I can see this becoming more of a problem. And with Gamefly plastered on the shipping sleeves, it is easy to take a guess at what's inside, quick and easy money.
I live in NYC (Astoria, Queens) and we often have our mail lost or damaged (they'll simply snap a CD in two or fold a book in half to fit it into our mailbox). At times, especially with packages, our postman doesn't even try. We'll have a tracking number to check the status and the system will show three "Delivery attempt" notices and we won't get a slip OR a package, and it will simply disappear into the ether.
And both I and my wife teach at the university level, with alternating schedules, so one of us is almost always home.
We've complained to our local post office (the Long Island City office at 11105) about losses and damage and the manager told us it was a "problem they were aware of" and that there were "investigations" and people would be laid off. A year later, no change. Last thing was a reasonably expensive wristwatch (not a Rolex or anything, just a garden variety $150 or so mechanical watch with a Citizen/Miyota movement that I hope will last a long time) and the company would only deliver USPS, so I took a chance.
Sure enough, it was "lost" without any delivery attempts the first time around and the shipper, happily, agreed to ship an alternate via UPS and to pursue USPS themselves for reimbursement. UPS, of course, had it here two days later, no problems.
Lesson: this is the age of email and global shipping services that actually work. There is no need for USPS. I wish we could do away with piracy controls already so that we could avoid this hassle and have all things like communications and games delivered electronically as should be the case naturally. For solid goods, everybody should just use UPS and/or FedEx. Yes, they have their own problems, but they're not as notoriously shitty as USPS, which has been the butt of jokes in major cities in the U.S. stretching back to the mid-'20th century, and which only got tracking capability for regular mail a decade or more after everyone else on the planet did.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
TFA says Blockbuster is now considered competition to GameFly. I've only been using GameFly a short while, but for fucks sake please don't compare them to BlockBuster. Maybe I'll change my mind, but BlockBuster changes their rules and rental policies almost weekly. They've got a hundred ways to get extra cash out of you. They 'did away with late fees' only to charge you some other weird fee of a dollar or so if you didn't return it in the 'time period' ... just like a late fee, smaller sure but its a late fee all the same. Then they go ahead and charge you full price for the game within a short period of time. When you return it, it takes them more than a month to issue the refund to your card. I'm not talking about the extra time the CC processor takes. BlockBuster itself waits for the better part of a month at least in most cases.
Then, the bastards just silently do away with the 'no late fees' policy and go back to charging them without warning, no signs, the clerks don't mention it, you either find out on your next rental afterwords or when the just charge your card anyway if you don't rent again soon enough.
BlockBuster is about as evil as Microsoft.
GameFly may not be better, but they have yet to charge me anything over what I signed up for. I will admit, I'm only in my 4th month so feel free to point out how they may rape me later if you have different experiences.
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Even if you assume the number is one percent, and a game costs $50 to replace
You'd think an outfit as large as GameFly would have a swap-for-flat-fee arrangement with vendors for broken media. After all, they are essentially buying a license that has rental rights.
If they are doing it right, it's more like $10-$20, assuming they pay for media only and get a full box. If they get just a disk, it's well under $5, probably very much well under.
If they are fortunate enough to be allowed to make their own replacement disks, it should be the cost of a blank DVD plus their labor costs if they can certify the original is destroyed.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Royal Mail (UK Postal Service) was made private and since then we've seen prices skyrocket, service diminish, and little or nothing of any actual benefit.
In fact the government is having to put more and more money into this private company each year to keep it afloat.
The USPO is SO cheap when you compare the two. And you all get first class mail with no additional charge!
You hate it so much and want private? Trade?
Since 1973 they've been a state sponsored monopoly rather than an actual branch of the government.
"The United States Post Office (U.S.P.O.) was created in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin on July 26, 1775 by decree of the Second Continental Congress. Based on the Postal Clause in Article One of the United States Constitution, empowering Congress "To establish post offices and post roads," it became the Post Office Department (U.S.P.O.D.) in 1792. It was part of the Presidential cabinet and the Postmaster General was the last person in the United States presidential line of succession. In 1971, the department was reorganized as a quasi-independent agency of the federal government and acquired its present name. The Postmaster General is no longer in the presidential line of succession.[14]"
Wikipedia, fun for the whole family. PS: they're not 'sponsored'; they don't get any money from the feds. They're given the postal equivalent of common carrier status, but only to a mailbox marked "US Mail". If you want to make your own postal service, you can go right ahead- you just can't deliver to a US Mail mailbox. Given that almost nobody's mailbox is actually marked "US Mail", practically, you CAN run a competitive service.
I don't see it being too much longer that they're allowed sole right to transfer first class mail with both UPS and FedEx waiting in the wings to offer better more reliable service.
USPS has never, in my entire life, lost or damaged a package or letter of mine. UPS and Fedex have done one or both, repeatedly.
I once had a USPS delivery guy (working the holiday season) bang on the doorbells of the entire complex until someone let him in. I was in the shower and when I stuck my head out the window, he demanded to be let in. His response to "I'm in the shower" was a string of profanity demanding I let him in.
I called the USPS customer service number and spoke to a rep who was meticulous in taking down the particulars, and apologized profusely. I figured I'd never hear back from them about it, except then I received a phone call a week later saying the guy had been disciplined and re-trained on USPS practices for delivery to apartment buildings. A week or so after that, a customer survey card appeared in the mail, asking if my complaint had been handled to my satisfaction.
Go read the Journal of Improbable Research's article about shipping weird shit through the mail. It's astounding what they got through the mail, and they said that it is a miracle that they can do stuff like ship a balloon when in most countries, you can't even get reliable letter service.
I don't know what the fuck your personal beef is with the USPS, but the fact that they're a monopoly and run both efficiently and extremely competently is pretty amazing to me.
Please help metamoderate.
Then there is issue of transit time. Does gamefly deliver with a day to most places? Netflix appears to. Less time in the mail means less time for damage.
Then there is the way the number are reported, 590 thousand units out, 510 thousand units in. There is no indication here that the post office has anything to do with this. The fundamental reality is that the business model of renting a $20 movies for $10 a month is different from renting $50 games for $10 a month. As a customer of gamefly it is worthwhile for me to claim I never got the disc, or claim I did send it back, as I get an expensive game that maybe makes the risk worthwhile. This problem is exaggerated when one considers that a movie can be copied. This may not be a 14% loss rate, but it probably accounts for some of the shrinkage.
In fact we don't really know anything because the article did not list certain critical facts. Like the precent of the subscribers who cancel within a month or so. At lest some of these, we assume, claim that they never received a disc. We also don't know what percentage of the netfix and blockbuster DVDs are damaged in transit, and any reporting of such numbers must be a function of the number of days in transit. Also, how many of these were damaged by the xbox?
Even if we assume that USPS is solely responsible for losing 14% of the discs, one has to assume that there is some insurance involved. Claims are filed, and if the dics are insured at retail price, then gamefly might actually come out ahead as the some fo the cost has likely already been covered i rentals. As far as preferential treatment, I have been in these situations. When the volume is high it is often worth to invest in certain processes to that will reduce cost overall. For a half million pieces of mail a month, there may be no ROI for this, and as a taxpayer I don't want to subsidize it. I suspect that netflix might be an order of magnitude above this, and then it might be worthwhile to implement special considerations.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The game rental business is the one with the nails going into it's coffin. Remind me again why you'd need a physical disk? And with theft, loss and damage Gamefly is living proof (so to speak) that A) there's a market for game rental B) renting *physical* media is costly and logistically complicated.
Quack, quack.
I see we rent the same stuff.
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
The problem is that you cannot send the disc back insured mailed without handing the disc to a postal employee behind the counter of the local post office. I'm also not aware of any sort of pre-payed reply mail program that includes insurance, so the insurance on the return would be coming out of the customer's pocket. No chance in hell.
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...its called 'bit torrent', and it streams all sorts of games...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The Mailbox access rule gives the postal service exclusive access to the customer mailboxes. Your mailbox is federal property, and it would be criminal trespass, and a felony under federal law for any employee of a competitor to deposit mail in anyone's mailbox.
That particular law isn't there for preserve a monopoly, its there to let them really put a dent in anyone foolish enough to steal mail. (mail related crimes are usually a federal offense.) My father was a postmaster, and mail theft is a very real problem. Postal Inspectors are the USPS equivalent of the FBI, and you do not want to get on their bad side.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
reduce losses by not using a bright orange envelope that screams expensive game. hell just make it red like Netflix and people will assume its just a DVD.
its the same reason you never send a birthday card in a colored envelope.
I worked for the Postal Service for 13 years. I can't believe that 1 in 1000 disks would be broken as a result of normal mail processing, even OCR machined mail, much less 1 in 100 or 1 in 50. If that is truly happening, there can be only one reason - the disks are packaged improperly. That is, the packaging is especially designed to be chewed up in mail processing equipment. Is there one Postal worker here who could comment on Gamefly's packaging?
I would not be surprised if the packaging were unsuitable and Gamefly knew it, too. Where I worked, there were three large accounts - both with headquarters nearby - that simply would not listen to USPS feedback about how poorly suited their packaging was to the requirements of processing. One of them moved its headquarters to a different state, rather than simply change the kinds of envelopes it used. Their mail wasn't machinable (but could have been) and moved too slowly, but there was nothing the USPS could do about that, because hand-sorting is, well, slow. Another of the companies printed its catalogs with a highly glossy paper that was so slippery that catalogs would slide from their chutes in the sorting machine and go into the wrong outgoing containers, resulting in delays. The third had envelopes that were incredibly flimsy and incompatible with machining.
I just have to call bullshit on Gamefly. The Postal Service is an easy fall guy. Theft of such a magnitude is just not possible, not within the confines of the mail service. These people are honest and proud of it, except for the few inevitable bad apples.
I wish I was joking!
About six years ago I lived in an eastside suburb of Seattle and subscribed to Netflix. I cancelled after about four months because during that time four movies never reached me and I wound up paying Netflix for one of them (I probably could have avoided that if I'd made a stink, but as I figured it they'd already eaten the cost of several other movies.)
Around about that time a substantial check that I was expecting to receive disappeared in the mail, and I noticed that other items were disappearing in the mail, too. I called to cancel a magazine gift subscription a well-meaning relative had signed me up for and discovered that they'd been sending the magazine for six months, though I had only received one issue. Between the movies, the magazines, and the missing check it was clear that I had a problem with disappearing mail.
So I went down to the local post office and asked to speak with the local postmaster. I explained about the missing magazines, movies, and check, and told him that I suspected I was a victim of ongoing mail theft.
He assured me that he'd look into the situation and was turning to go back into the bowels of the post office when I interrupted. "You're lying," I said. He said something to the effect of "That's an awfully rude thing to say for no reason," but I knew he had no intention of seriously looking into my complaint and I told him why. During our entire conversation I hadn't mentioned my address and he never asked.
His body language led me to believe that he had a carrier on his staff (or possibly several) that he knew was stealing mail. I figured as soon as I told him I was losing mail he knew who the likely culprit was without even having to ask which route I was on but either couldn't or wouldn't stop them.
Shortly thereafter I moved to a small town in Alaska. The mail service here is reliable and the people at the post office are very nice. To the best of my knowledge none of my mail has ever gone missing here. I've talked to other people who have had mail problems and everything I've heard has lead me to believe that the reliability of your mail depends a great deal on the people working at the post office nearest you and in some places at the nearest big sorting center.
It's a shame, because if you live in a place where the service is good, the USPS is pretty nifty. You tend not to think of it because the mail is so ordinary, but the fact that I can drop a piece of paper in the box on the corner here on an island in southeast Alaska and for $0.42 someone will carry it to my family back in Michigan or even halfway around the world is really pretty remarkable.
When something is important, plain is the way to go. As a great example look at credit cards, or other financial documents. When you are getting an offer, it is usually pretty obvious from the envelope what it is. There's all sorts of advertising plastered on the outside "OMG Chase card with t3h zeros percentage rate!!!11". Now suppose you apply for said card. Does it come in the same thing? No, it comes in a plain white envelope with nothing but your address and the return address on the outside. This is not because the advertising and issuing departments don't share notes, this is because they don't want your card getting stolen. The offer, well big deal they are mailing those out to everyone with a pulse. They'll just send you another one next month (and the month after, and so on). The card, well that is a problem. Someone steals that and you are pissed off and they are on the hook for the fraudulent charges.