Post Office Lost My Mail Twice In One Month

After a few years selling on ebay I had come to trust the post office, but all of a sudden they lost two items in one month. I'm out $150 bucks (I use insurance on higher priced items, but these were below that threshold.) I guess I'm just venting, I don't know what I want from the community, but any thoughts? Does the post office use summer interns? lol

I would start using a different post office - it is possible someone knows you are mailing stamps

Peter

I assume you are referring to items you are sending. And is this domestic mail or international?

What tells you they never got there? I've had envelopes from Eastern Canada take a couple of weeks to get to me on the US Left Coast according to the originating postmark. Further, I've gotten insured and registered improperly handled (left with no signature, for example).

If the items were tracked you can have the PO do a search. It's an online form you fill out. I've done it 5 times, it worked once, another item was delivered a couple days after I started the search so maybe it worked. Twice they said sorry we can't find it, and today after 2 months I received a "sorry" response but I think the item was delivered because the customer hasn't complained in a while.

It's worth a try, if the items weren't tracked you're out of luck.

I did fill out the search form. Also the person I know at the local post office has been very helpful, but after two and a half weeks since the last scan, I have to figure they're lost. To answer hy-brasil: It is domestic and includes tracking. So it's easy to tell where it was last known and that it hasn't even reached the local distribution point.

Yes, it's possible the stamps will eventually get through, but I can't make the customer wait forever. One customer took a substitute, the other took a refund.


My next question will be, when should I buy insurance. My rule of thumb has been on items worth more than $200, but maybe I should lower that. Anyway, hopefully things will get back to normal, but I do see one other item that has a big delay since its last scan - customer hasn't said anything yet. Argh.

Risny, Is there any indication on your packages that there are stamps inside, or any indications of stamps within? Do you use a variety of stamps on the cover? Did you notice any bottleneck in tracking that the packages pass through that may be the problem area in the handling of the packages?

Hugh Wood Inc. insures stamp collections and also provides (private) postal insurance. It is the only company that specializes in collectibles as far as I know. They are responsive and excellent. You should contact them for rates and requirements if you are a regular shipper of stamps, and it may be workable that you can insure to a lower minimum.

They may show up yet. I had an item I bought one time take 6 weeks to arrive.

My wife recently mailed a tracked item by placing it in our rural mailbox. It was scanned as picked up and according to tracking never made it to the Post Office which is three miles away.

No indication of what is inside. I use ebay mailing labels. I used to mail them from my home mailbox but many would end up not being tracked for several days. At least when I drop them off at the post office they get tracked right away.

Thanks for the comments. I'm taking the various suggestions into consideration.

I'm a buyer, not a seller, and I use a PO box for purchases. BUT, it always bothers me a bit when I get a purchase with the ebay mailing label, which to me almost shouts "Something expensive".

I can appreciate ebay's desire to advertise, and so far I've not lost anything, but I keep waiting for that first time.

Before you fork out for insurance you should find out if they will really pay up on any legit claim.

I'm in the UK, and in theory any parcel sent by 'signed for' or registered you can file a claim. But from what I've heard from other ebay sellers, the PO wont honour most such claims, unless you can show them a receipt showing what you paid for the item yourself -- so if its something that came out of a glory box, an album, or has been sorted and reconfigured in any way, you won't be able to claim. Which covers all the stuff I'm selling!

After a month one actually showed up. Already refunded, we're working it out.