A Rebuttal to the USPS “Hacked” Commercial

To state the obvious, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is well on its way down a slippery slope. Between increased prices, attempts to increase junk mail, and the announcement of the closing of 223  locations beginning next month (by the way, that’s 35,000 people out of jobs), the trouble that the USPS has gotten itself into shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. 

If any business was losing millions (in this case billions) year after year, like the USPS, they would surely cease to exist. But not the USPS. Instead, they are taking dramatic actions in an attempt to reduce $20 billion in financial operations while sending messages to consumers through commercials like this: http://youtu.be/oysFmSVzCnM In case you skipped over that video and want a one sentence synopsis of the USPS contention: receiving and paying bills via snail mail is better than electronic alternatives because computer hackers exist.

Let’s get this straight – as more and more people migrate to electronic billing, the USPS is trying to convince consumers to revert behaviors backward because there are hackers. The USPS is trying to convince us that placing orders online and receiving bills online is not safe and that the vendors who offer these services don’t know what they are doing.  Ironically, most of the advanced security measures provided via the web provide a safer environment than a paper mailbox.

We are supposed to believe it’s more efficient to receive bills and pay bills with delays, limited post offices, and increased prices. They want us to think that somehow all those inconveniences are worth it. I’m not buying it. And neither are the millions of people who securely pay bills online every single day. If this is how the USPS responds to advanced thinking from their consumers, then they have a lot more work to do than closing 223 offices and begging for junk mail. If you’d like to hear more about switching to eBilling, you can register for a Paperless Billing Webinar later this month.