Can someone help me with the USPS and lithium & all batteries?

My local post office workers claim that you cannot ship any kind of battery, any way. Especially lithium ion batteries, even if they are in a device. Obviously this poses quite a problem when I am selling stuff online and want to ship it.

Now I know this is not true, because obviously the USPS is OK with shipping alkaline batteries. The USPS updated their terms on Lithium ion batteries and now allows them to be shipped in devices overseas and I assume also they allow them to be mailed domestically as that was never a problem in the first place.

http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2012/pr12_ma1116.htm

For the record I don't intend to mail any batteries separate, any battery I would be mailing would be already in the device that I am mailing.

I really love the workers at my local P.O. and they are always super nice to me, probably the nicest workers I have seen anywhere, but they fail to understand basic policy, my question is how do I convince them that this is really USPS policy?

How about you don't tell them what you're shipping?

There must be another post office near by you can go to. Or just buy your postage online through paypal and have the mail man just pick it up. I actually just got lithium ion batteries in the mail today so I know for a fact that they can be shipped.

I believe in order to ship a lithium battery you are supposed to provide a MSDS (or it's some other safety data sheet). Don't remember if it has to attached to the outside or inside.

Yeah, just don't tell them. I ship body parts, virus strains and radioactive shit all the time, no problem.

I'm guessing it's to prevent batteries from exploding due to heat... but since it's winter now, I don't think that will be a problem. As long as you have it packed before you go to the post office and you're not shipping via Media Mail, they're not gonna open you package during transit and check.

Yeah I already shipped a few and didn't tell them what was in the package. They made it just fine. I don't think you have to do anything if you are shipping them domestically. But what if I want to ship a Nintendo DS or iPhone or something overseas which is allowed except to germany I think because they won't accept the package.The problem is with the local Post office its the same workers that rotate between the couple offices that are here.

talk to the post master.

You aren't supposed to ship batteries priority mail, maybe that's the issue. They can only go via ground transport.