Effective September 14, 2015, the Postal Service™ will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) 507.3.0 to update the standards for Premium Forwarding Service Commercial® (PFS-Commercial®) service.
On April 16, 2015, the Postal Service published a notice to implement the third phase of PFS-Commercial, allowing customers to enroll and pay applicable postage online for Priority Mail® shipments. This phase concluded the implementation of the online process, allowing customers to enroll and pay postage for both Priority Mail Express® and Priority Mail shipments. As a result, except for customers using USPS® Corporate Accounts (USPSCAs) for Priority Mail Express shipments through the local Postmaster, written requests for these services to the Postmaster were no longer required.
This article serves to revise the standards for PFS-Commercial to eliminate the remaining manual process for those customers using USPSCAs for Priority Mail Express shipments established through the local Postmaster. Now, all PFS-Commercial mailers must enroll and pay the annual fee online through the Business Customer Gateway at https://gateway.usps.com/eAdmin/view/signin.
All former Priority Mail Express or Priority Mail reshipment agreements are obsolete, including those established through merchandise return service (MRS) accounts or paid through USPSCAs. Mailers who desire to continue their PFS-Commercial service must activate the service online.
Although this revision will not be published in the DMM until September 14, 2015, these standards are effective immediately.
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Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM)
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500 Additional Mailing Services
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507 Mailer Services
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3.0 Premium Forwarding Services
[Revise globally by adding a hyphen to the abbreviated terms PFS-Residential and PFS-Commercial.]
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3.3 Premium Forwarding Service Commercial
3.3.1 Description
[Revise the text of 3.3.1 to read as follows:]
Premium Forwarding Service Commercial (PFS-Commercial) provides business commercial customers the option to have USPS gather their mail addressed to business PO Boxes (including Caller Service) or business street addresses within the same servicing postal facility, and dispatch the mail as Priority Mail Express or Priority Mail shipments to a new address in bulk. An annual enrollment fee is required, and applicable postage is charged for each shipment of mail under 3.3.3b. Email notifications are sent with the USPS Tracking number for the expected delivery date or when there is no mail available to forward. See Notice 123 — Price List for postage prices and fees.
[Revise the heading and text of 3.3.2 to read as follows:]
3.3.2 Activation
Customers must enroll for PFS-Commercial and pay the annual enrollment fee online via the Business Customer Gateway at https://gateway.usps.com/eAdmin/view/signin. Customers must specify the business PO Boxes (or Caller Service) or business street delivery addresses, destination address, and frequency (Monday through Saturday). Service is activated electronically, upon receipt of an email confirmation.
[Revise the heading of 3.3.3 to read as follows:]
3.3.3 Conditions
[Revise the second sentence in the introductory text of 3.3.3 to read as follows:]
***PFS-Commercial service is subject to these conditions:
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[Revise the text of item b to read as follows:]
b. The annual enrollment fee and applicable Priority Mail Express or Priority Mail postage for each shipment container is paid using an eVS account linked to the Centralized Account Processing System (CAPS).
[Revise the introductory text of item c to read as follows:]
c. The postage is charged per shipment container as follows:
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[Delete the last sentence of item f.]
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[Revise the text of items i and j to read as follows:]
i. Business customers may cancel their PFS-Commercial service effective 24 hours after the USPS receives the customer’s request for cancellation through the Business Customer Gateway. The customer must pay all postage and fees as applicable for any shipments already scheduled before cancellation of service is made effective.
j. USPS may cancel a customer’s PFS-Commercial service request effective 24 hours after the customer receives written notice of cancellation from the serving Post Office. Cancellation is based upon the customer\u0027s failure to pay postage and fees, failure to meet the standards for PFS-Commercial service, or when there is substantial reason to believe that the service is being or will be used for unlawful activities (in this case, cancellation within less than 24 hours may be granted by USPS). The customer may appeal this cancellation of services to the manager, Post Office Operations, but must pay for all postage and fees as applicable for any service provided during the appeal period.
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We will incorporate these revisions into the next update of the online DMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification,
Pricing, 8-20-15
