The Post Office provides many “extra” services for mailing your shipment, but these are the ones that WOU Mail Services uses most frequently. For information on Registered or COD mail, please contact Mail Services at mailroom@wou.edu

Certified – $3.75

Next to Priority Express, this service has the most reliable and detailed tracking the USPS can provide. You can see when it was delivered or that a delivery attempt was made, and it ensures that the correspondence will be returned to you if it is unable to be delivered. I will always recommend that this be paired with the Return Receipt, as most materials sent through this method are particularly sensitive.

Return Receipt – $3.05

A return receipt provides the sender with a postcard containing the recipient’s “live” signature, along with the date of delivery.  This service cannot be used by itself, however, it must be paired with Certified, Express, or Registered Mail. This “postcard” is fixed to the back of your envelope or somewhere on the box that you are shipping, and upon delivery, the delivery person will collect a signature from someone at the house. You can even restrict the delivery to require a direct signature from the addressee, proving that the intended addressee received the delivery. I recommend this method when shipping time sensitive, confidential and valuable documents where a paper trail is necessary or desired.

USPS Insurance – Starting at $2.45

Many classes of USPS mail include a limited amount of insurance in the cost of shipping (Priority Express includes up to $100 insurance, and Priority mail includes insurance for certain shipments), but additional amounts can be added, increasing in price depending upon the value of the shipment and where it is going.

The Post Office can insure your domestic shipment up to $5,000, but in all honesty, if you come in to Mail Services and ask for insurance on your shipment, I will try to talk you into using FedEx or UPS depending upon the shipment type, as the process for being recompensed for the loss is more involved USPS than FedEx or UPS’s process.