Cool Card & Paymaster services available at new Grants Pen PO

Phone cards and bill payment services are now available at the recently opened Grant’s Pen post office. This new postal outlet is part of the Community Policing and Service Centre, located at 35 Grant’s Pen Road.

The postmaster at Grant’s Pen post office, Ms Gweneth Edwards, welcomes customers when they come to top-up their cellular phone credit or access other phone calling card systems using Cool Card’s e-card voucher system. Also available is the Paymaster bill payment facility to ensure that services are not disconnected.

The telephone # is 755-2907. Opening times are:

• Mon and Thurs- 8am – 4pm
• Tue, Thur, Fri- 8am – 5pm
• Closed for Lunch daily - 12 noon to 1pm

A Few Private Letter Boxes left at Grants Pen PO
Only a few Private Letter Boxes (PLBs) are still available at the new postal outlet within the Grant’s Pen Community Policing and Service Centre. If you plan to get a PLB there, move quickly, as at the pace at which they are going, very soon there will be none available.

The announcement that Private Letter Boxes would be available at that location created quite a stir, as PLBs are in short supply. Many persons made enquiries immediately following the announcement that Grant’s Pen would have PLBs and having registered, are now benefiting from their swift action.

Recognising the inadequacy of supply, the Postal Corporation of Jamaica (Post Corp) introduced initiatives that would significantly increase the availability of PLBs across the island. One such is to install them at postal outlets that marketing research indicates have a suitably high demand. Another is to place them at selected community centers and housing developments that have a minimum of fifty persons renting PLBs.

Toll-Free Line enhances Customer Service
Customers have been reporting that calling the Toll-Free line: 1-888-JAMPOST (1-888-526-7678) has significantly improved access to information from the Postal Service headquarters. This facility is operated Mondays to Thursdays from 9 am to 4 pm, and on Fridays from 9 am to 3 pm.

A wide range of enquiries is received daily via telephone at the Central Sorting Office (CSO) on South Camp Road in Kingston. The initiative to operate this Toll-Free system was implemented as a means of advancing the transition towards a truly customer-oriented organisation. This is in keeping with the mandate to facilitate communication, and encompasses the transformation towards modernisation.

Philately Corner
The truth about airmail labels
Airmail Labels are also referred to as ‘Etiquettes’. They are small, blue-coloured adhesive-backed labels resembling postage stamps that are used to denote mail items destined for overseas delivery that will be conveyed by air. These were introduced as early as 1912, but the French words ‘PAR AVION’ (‘by bird’) began to be used on them around 1913.

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) eventually decreed that all Airmail Labels are to have the French words ‘PAR AVION’ inscribed on them in addition to the issuing country’s language. Variations in colour exist, but they are predominantly blue, and may have a national emblem and additional inscription in another colour (most likely found in the issuing country’s national flag).

Private letter boxes at the new Grants Pen Post Office. Only a few are still available.
Postmaster at Grants Pen Post Office Gweneth Edwards (right) assists a customer with his Paymaster and Cool Card transactions. This post office is part of the complex at the recently opened Community Policing and Services Centre at 35 Grants Pen Road, St. Andrew