Imagine you pay for an expensive car because you saw a commercial that said it has a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. After only 30,000 miles, the transmission goes out, so you have the car towed to a garage to have it replaced under the warranty. You go to pick up the vehicle and have a huge invoice that needs to be paid for. You say, “no, it has the 100,000 mile warranty, this should be free under the guarantee!” The mechanic looks at you and says, “yes, but after 30,000 miles the guarantee has been met.” Bet you’d be pissed, wouldn’t you?
The United States Postal Service has an offer where for a mere $16, you can send a letter and have it delivered before noon the next day. It’s guaranteed overnight by the time indicated on the receipt at the time the express mail is dropped off. Imagine my surprise when the USPS managed to not get the letter to me by noon. I found on their site where it says there will be a refund if the commitment is not met. Their commitment to me was noon by today, August 26. I called and asked how my mom goes about getting her money back, because $16 is a lot to spend on a letter when normal postage is what, $.42? I kid you not, the USPS customer service agent on the phone said, “No refund will be issued until the mail is over 48 hours late.”
So just remember, next time you have something that really, really, REALLY needs to be somewhere the next day, and are considering USPS Guaranteed Express Mail, you might be paying 3809.5% more than a stamp for something that’s still allowed to take 3 days to get to the destination. Seeing as how I’ve found no fine print ANYWHERE saying the guarantee is for 3 days or less, any other business/private person would get the snot sued out of them for false advertising or breach of contract, but something tells me the postal service is immune.