crazypostal.com

As far as I’m concerned FSA should be RSA for Rigged Spending Account as far as the Postal Service branch of the program is concerned. I guess we were all supposed to have received a letter telling us that the Postal FSA is for working mothers! OK. Am I angry? Just a little, but I’ll get over it. I put $500.00 in there to learn how to use it and receive a tax benefit by lowering my taxable income or face lost opportunity costs, they recommend $2000.00 each to as much as $4000.00 for a couple on their web site. Two things to keep in mind: If your are near your high-3 years of service for computing your retirement it can lower what you receive from your retirement! So if you are putting any significant amount in there, you may be shooting yourself in the foot. Secondly, if it is as difficult as I find it is to collect your money back in the name of lowering taxes, and you could conceivably lose your own money why go through all of the paperwork, time wasting to call 800 numbers and general foot dragging to receive a modest lowering of your tax obligation? The credit card they issue you is for drugstore.com and Walgreen’s only! Can’t use it any where else in the world. They are trying to change that, but it seems the USPS has some reservations about letting us take advantage of a good thing so easily. So, if you are going to fax your claim in you have to call their 1-800 number 24 to 48 hours after faxing to verify that they received the fax. OK, let me go over that again. Credit Card is limited. YOU have to fax your claims in or mail your claims in. You have to wait 24 hours and check back with them to make sure they received your fax. YOU have to get your insurers EOB, or “explanation of benefits” and know that as a postal employee your ID number is your postal employee ID number and you have to call them for a group number before you can do anything. My take on it is this, it’s just not worth the extra bureaucracy to save a few bucks when what you are using it for is medical and you are usually in some state of incapacitation when you need the services so the extra effort to file the claims and get it right are just not worth the trouble.  To take advantage of the plan you are taking on a second job just to file the paperwork.  How sweet is that my friends?

Have a great week

George

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