Stamp of disapproval (Part 2)

I’ve thought some more on our friends at the post office canceling Saturday delivery. The more I think about it the less I like it. I need to stop thinking.

In a recap from Part 1, I don’t like that the post office wants to eliminate Saturday mail delivery. The big companies and corporations won’t care, but small business depends on mail. No Saturday delivery means a three-day gap from Friday to Monday delaying checks, contracts and other financial mail we depend on. Throw in regular Monday holidays (and the occasional times Christmas, New Year’s and the 4th of July fall on Mondays), and you create several four-day gaps.

But you know what? It occurred to me that there is one type of business out there that is probably dancing for joy at the post office’s plans. And that’s every credit card company in existence.

Having one less day of mail delivery makes a huge increase in the number of payments that will now start arriving past their due dates, incurring a late fee. If for whatever reason your check doesn’t get to your company on a Friday, they’re not going to see that envelope at least till Monday. I can almost hear the cha-ching! of bean counters at the credit card companies now as they rack up additional thousands of dollars in new late fees.

I’m not unsympathetic to the post office. I know they need to cut back somewhere, because technology is changing the entire concept of things being sent in paper envelopes. But as I noted last time, it would be nice for once if a change like this didn’t make things harder for small business.

This time, though, it’s worse; it’s not a government change that only hurts the little guys.

This time, it’s a change that gives a huge bonus to the big guys.

A.J.