DMA Blasts Postage Hikes

The Direct Marketing Association board of directors, unhappy with proposed increases in mailing rates, has passed a vote of no confidence in the U.S. Postal Service. The postal service has proposed an overall rate increase of 6.4%, including an average increase of 7.7% for bulk advertising mail and a 15% increase for some categories of mail.

     "We lack confidence in the postal service to provide the reasonably priced services direct marketers require in the 21st century," says H. Robert Wientzen, the DMA's president and CEO in a letter to Einar Dyhrkopp, chairman of the USPS board of governors. "In fact, the request, with rates increasing at triple the rate of inflation, is not an action of a business looking toward the new century, but one looking toward certain decline."

     Wientzen's letter was sent to Dyhrkopp on Jan. 20.