This from PostCom's Kathleen Siviter (www.postcom.org).

At the IDEAlliance conference being held this week in Florida, USPS senior vice president of intelligent mail and address quality Tom Day announced that not only is the USPS postponing the use of Performance-Based Verification (PBV) to assess additional postage for non-compliance with move update requirements for both First-Class Mail and Standard Mail (as the USPS announced late last week), but the USPS also will re-think the penalty itself and how it is applied.

 

Day said that applying the single-piece FCM rate for FCM, or the 7-cent penalty for Standard Mail, across the whole mailing "is a pretty stiff penalty." He told the IDEAlliance conference that the USPS decided this was not the time to take a hard line with move update compliance. Day cautioned that the rules that have been in effect for some time still will apply -- in other words, mailers must work to meet the move update requirements -- but said the USPS will not use the PBV process to determine compliance.

Also at the IDEAlliance conference today, mailers voiced their objections to the USPS announcement in the March 26, 2009 Postal Bulletin (http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/bulletin/2009/pb22255/html/info1_002.html#ep1403491) that it plans to raise the barcode quality threshold from the current 80% to 90% effective May 11. After May 11, automation mailings verified on MERLIN must meet the 90% threshold to avoid assessment of additional postage for barcode quality errors. Mailers criticized the USPS for not working with industry prior to announcing the change, and expressed concerns that with the new Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMb) being implemented in May, raising the quality threshold should be delayed.