U.S. Postal Service

The Postal Service's Express Mail corporate accounts allow customers to deposit money with the Service for use as needed to pay for Express Mail delivery services. Concerns have been raised in Congress about the Service's controls over these accounts, in part because some customers allegedly obtained Express Mail services using bogus accounts that were not caught by the Service. This report discusses (1) whether there is any basis for the allegation about account abuse and (2) what steps the Service is taking and could take to help avoid or minimize account revenue losses.

GAO found that: (1) some mailers obtained Express Mail services using invalid EMCA in fiscal year 1995; (2) the Service did not collect the postage due or verify EMCA which were later determined to be invalid; (3) some EMCA customers overdrew their accounts and carried negative balances; (4) the Service plans to provide post office employees with automated access to valid EMCA numbers and fund balances, but has no plans to provide similar access to employees at mail-processing plants; (5) although the Service's planned actions to improve controls over EMCA operations will take a considerable amount of money and time to complete, they will not have addressed several other EMCA control weaknesses; (6) to determine whether EMCA continue to be necessary or desirable, the Service could evaluate the relative customer convenience, cost-effectiveness, and other relevant factors; and (7) if EMCA are continued, Service employees need to follow new and existing procedures designed to help prevent EMCA revenue losses.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: