Gifts from Customers

• Soliciting customers for gifts or donations for yourself or a good cause always violates the ethics regulations.
• Such requests place our customers in an awkward and uncomfortable position, and could negatively affect our business.

Focusing on our business with our customers is smart business.

Contact the Ethics Office (ethics.help@usps.gov) for more information about the ethics regulations addressing gifts.

Gifts Based on a Personal Relationship

You may accept a gift from an outside source if it’s clear the gift is motivated by a family relationship or personal friendship rather than your postal position. Relevant factors include the history of the relationship and whether the family member or friend personally pays for the gift.

For example, a postal employee is dating an individual employed by Company X as an administrative assistant. Company X does business with the Postal Service. Company X provides the administrative assistant with two tickets to the opera for administrative professionals’ week. The Postal Service employee is invited to go along. It’s OK to accept because such a gift is motivated by the personal relationship between the postal employee and the administrative assistant.

Ethical gift-giving helps preserve the public’s trust in USPS. And that’s smart business.

Contact the Ethics Office (ethics.help@usps.gov) for guidance on gifts.