USPS Creates Review Path for Deducting on Omitted Trips

The Postal Service has begun rolling out a multi-step process for evaluating omitted trips before deducting them from a contractor’s remittances. 

The new process is intended to replace USPS’ current and much maligned handling of the issue, which entails deducting the payment first, often without consultation and up to a year after the allegedly omitted trip. 

Details of the new process, which has been implemented for some carriers already, were discussed during the NSRMCA’s annual Board and Budget Planning meeting July 20 in Washington, D.C. 

The first thing that happens, NSRMCA President John Sheehy said, is if a driver doesn’t show up at the dock, the contractor is supposed to get a call asking if the driver is coming. If the dock worker doesn’t get a satisfactory answer, USPS is “going to get the load moved a different way” and treat this as an omitted trip.  

That designation will lead USPS to fire off a PS Form 5500-A (Contract Route Irregularity Report) which the contractor will have to answer. 

“If you did show up and (the dock worker) omitted it, you have to put that on there and try to prove it,” Sheehy said. 

Once the contractor does that, the Transportation and Network Specialists (TANS) manager will “decide whether it gets omitted or not.” 

“It’s going to run like a service change before you get any omits,” Sheehy said. “Before you get any deductions, you’re going to get a list of what they think they can deduct from you, and you get one more chance to refute it before they take the money.” 

Sheehy added that the process is already in use for some carriers. 

NSRMCA Vice President Suzan Porter said her advice is “do not delay going back in to refute anything.”  

Porter further elaborated on the new process, saying that dock workers are now alerted that omitting a trip deducts money from the contractor, which is “a very important thing for them.” 

“(The worker isn’t) just pressing omit anymore,” Porter said.