PP,

Sorry to hear of the expense and trouble caused by your many generous sasbe offers, but am so glad to see you are able to post. There is probably no easy answers since the PO often overcharges, and is still not 'On Board" in many places....but I won't even go there on that here and now.

I sent you an email.

Sue...rbb

Hi Peggy!...lol....scrooge?....you?....I dont think so! :)
I myself,as you know,have had issues with rules also.I dont think there is anything wrong with having some rules,if you dont have any,it leaves the door open for those who want to take advantage.There is absolutley no reason for you to have to pick up extra postage! I would do as Jim stated he would do,return the envy empty! You asked me for 3 stamps and I felt that was more than fair for the amount of seeds you sent me!I think it was somewhere around 10 packs,so the way I look at it $1.23 is a great bargain for 10 healthy packs of seed!:)Anyone that wants to request 10 packs of seed from you then wants you to send it on one stamp is nuts and I think it is only fair they get an empty envy postage due! Sorry,call me a scrooge too!
I attached rules to my SASBE offer and had wonderful results,I feel good about every seed I shared and feel as if every person I shared with genuinely appreciated it.It comes down to this...rules discourage certain types of people,if someone is just trying to get all they can from generous people like yourself,they see that you are not just going to hand your seeds over to them and move on.You will notice,I am sure,that once you tighten the ropes a little you wont have as many responses,but I bet you wont be picking up as much postage either! I think it is great when a person offering SASE puts all their expectations right up front,that lets everyone know right from the door what is expected from them.I dont feel that there is anything wrong with expecting simple things from people,such as the right amount of postage,proper mailer,ect..it is the least they can do for free seeds! If someone feels that it is more than they are willing to give they can just move on from there and find an offer that better suits them!Newbies will also benefit from some direction.Alot of them (including myself in the beginning:)),are confused on proper SASE protocol and I have been asked many times what is and how to do SASE.So if it is all right there for them they have no questions on what to do and what not to do.Really Peggy, I feel rules help everyone involved,sender and receiver.Picture this world with rules....now picture it without! Scary!

No reason for anybody to get steamed about postage due, it is a SASE as in Self Addressed STAMPED envelope!!! That implies that proper postage will be paid by the person. I think its absolutely proper to do it that way and wouldnt be mad if it happened to me.

Im kinda bummed to realize that I need to make a "let me know when the seeds arrive" "rule".

Maybe everybody should OFFER a SASE before they can accept one and then you realize how it feels to be offering them.

Hi Peggy,
I have seen your post and read your rules and think that you are being very generous.
jim_6b

Hey Peggy, I've had the same experience of folks not sending enough postage after I told them how much to send. But why feel guilty about it, I don't. If you tell someone the correct amount of postage/packaging and they don't send it, then what can you do?

You sound a lot more like Mrs. Santa Claus than Scrooge to me!

Thanks everyone. Since I garden on a large scale and for profit(well,ok...commercially..sometimes not much of a profit when your crop is drowded by 28 days of rain in June),I often have more seeds than what'll I'll need for the next seasons gardens and just hate to toss out prefectly good seeds. Since I do grow to supliment hub's SS retirement,I can't give seeds away locally because I'd be shooting myself in the foot.

I pretty much line out about how much so many seeds per envy will cost to mail and still get quite a few that are still only sending one or two first class stamps. As I said before the smallest and cheapest padded envelope I have sent out has cost $1.13 which means "IF" all the 60 sases I mailed out on my last offer came w/insufficent postage(additional thirty-one cents per,doesn't sound like much individually),I could have paid from my pocket...$18.20(2/.41 stamps sent) to $49.20(1/.41 stamp sent)....so take to account if you had to buy seeds at(high road)$2.50 each for 5 pkgs of seed(with a seed count of 50-100)you'd be paying $12.50 "PLUS" postage. When I send seeds most of my counts are well above the suggested 25 seed per count and I often supply re-cycled padded envelopes so it comes to $1.54 for several hundred to several 1000 seeds or $1.54%5=.31 per pkg of seed....even less if the request is for more than 5 pkgs and often is.

I'm not hard and fast on the "let me know when seeds arrive" because I often forget to let others know I've received seeds from them.

PP

I have begun to tell people I will hold the seeds for 2 weeks, if I don't receive their postage or do not hear from them by email, then the seeds go back into the pot for the next person who requests them.

Amazing to me the person who is begging the loudest is usually the one who never gets around to sending the postage.

I'm tired of having to track people down and ask if they mailed their postage only to be told they mailed it that day but I do not receive that postage. I emailed one girl 3 weeks after she requested my seeds but no postage...she finally answered and said she had been busy moving and didn't want them any more. How long would it have taken for her to send me an email?

So I no longer contact them, I figure if they want the seeds bad enough, then they need to take some responsibility in making sure they do what it takes to receive them.

If I had to add postage, I advise them when I mail the seeds and thus far most sent me more postage to cover it. One letter arrived with no postage on it. My postman said he didn't know how it made it to me...I don't either since it had their return address. I had to pay postage to receive that piece of mail, so I let her know in a note with her seeds and even enclosed the envelope showing no postage was on it. She sent me the postage plus some extra.

Then there is the one who keeps asking me for the same seeds over and over and I keep telling her I mailed them Dec 6th and I ask if she received them, but she never responds. I can't resend them if she does not let me know if she did or did not receive them!

Have a Merry Christmas!
Peggy

wink, wink...I think I may know who you are speaking of on that last one. teeheehee.

I just want to say Thank You to all the wonderful folks who offer seeds for sasbe, and to those who have sent me so many in the past. I truly appreciated all of them, and feel I have a lifetime supply of seeds...if'n I get them planted soon.

Sue...rbb

I have so many seeds and I love to share, but I too have very "limited funds". It gets really frustrating sometimes. What I started doing is waiting until I actually received the sasbe before I package anything. When I receive the sasbe, then I pull the seeds and package them and send them back out. I get frustrated sometimes when somebody asks for a lot of seeds and sends very small stamped envelopes... I don't have enough room for padding then....
Peggy, i agree with you, if I am going to request seeds, then I should be willing to send plenty of postage. I don't think you are being "scrougeish" at all. Linda