How do parcels disappear in the post?

[dijit]

Over the last 6 months I've had two parcels disappear in the post, one from Ral Partha and one from a fellow LAF'er. For the life of me I can't work out how they can lose parcels in the post and why they don't accept responsibility for all parcels. It's highly irritating and totally unprofessional.

[joroas]

....and, as I found last year, they don't even bother investigating....... 

[Penchour]

I have a rate of 1.5 lost parcels per year. Most of the time, the sender being a company, it's replaced. Still it's a growing problem as I've lost more parcels in the past years than I have in the 35 first years of my life! I confess I'm a bit puzzled

....and, as I found last year, they don't even bother investigating....... 

never ! I even found most of the "lost courrier" facilities have been shut down in France ... so now they must be burning the undelivered stuff ?

[Sangennaru]

same for me in italy, i lost some parcels, expecially under christmas holydays! not to mention the 1€ orders from china, they have a 50% chances of success...

[Too Bo Coo]

I've yet, fingers crossed, to have anything go lost on me, either in the States or in Europe.  That said, I bought from a vendor last year in Germany who said he mailed out my items, once returned and then resent, and yet, 4 months later....nada.  I suspected no good after the vendor refused to give me any evidence that he mailed my order, so I complained to Paypal and got my money back.  But aside from this one issue, again one I'm not convinced was on the part of the post, I'm batting 1000.  Sorry to read about others less happy experiences.

I just mailed out two packages to Sweden for LAF'ers and made sure to get track and trace and then to photo and email the receipts to the buyers.  That way had anything gone awry, at least they had proof postage and coverage for the loss.

Cheers!

[tnjrp]

I've been mail ordering from abroad since mid-1980's and I have never had a parcel actually get lost in the mail. One or two claims thereof but never any verifiable evidence for the supposed lost parcel actually been send in the first place. I've had a couple of cases where the parcel has been fairly obviously rushed out following me complaining to a credit card company about the seller, and some where the seller hasn't even attempted to fulfill my order (I think I'm having one case of this latter variety right now, actually). But no, no verified instances of packages vanishing in the mail, as odd as it may sound.

[TheBlackCrane]

I've only had one parcel that I've sent go "missing" (touch wood, as I've just sent two off this week), but I tend to use signed-for when sending to countries reputed to have dodgy postal services.

Coincidentally, the chap in the post-office the other day was telling me that there are seven countries which are the worst - he mentioned Italy, Greece and Brazil, and then said 'Africa'. I'm not sure whether that counts as the other four...  
Never had any trouble sending to those so long as it's tracked though.

[Too Bo Coo]

I've only had one parcel that I've sent go "missing" (touch wood, as I've just sent two off this week), but I tend to use signed-for when sending to countries reputed to have dodgy postal services.

Coincidentally, the chap in the post-office the other day was telling me that there are seven countries which are the worst - he mentioned Italy, Greece and Brazil, and then said 'Africa'. I'm not sure whether that counts as the other four... 
Never had any trouble sending to those so long as it's tracked though.

The Russian post can be quite sketchy as well.

[jp762]

Royal mail lost several for me in the past but until this week its been great. One lost item in the past two years, standard 2nd class deliveries. Of course it had to be a crooked dice order I was hoping to get for a game tomorrow night. No chance now.

[carlos13th]

Mail going missing can be for a number of reasons. Theft being one. Dropping stuff and not realising it can be another. A major one is addresses being damaged. If an address is damaged and there is no return the package is often classed as missing.

I have heard Italian post is awful. To the point were people would recommend that if you were going to the Vatican during your visit post your mail there instead.

[Hitman]

In the past year and a half to two years, I have lost had more parcels shipped to me lost in transit than the previous 35 plus years. I was working for a large investigative firm in Toronto back in the late 1980s, and our biggest mail bust was a postal employee who scooped up the federal government pension cheques being sent out to senior's when they were being mailed out and snuck them into the washroom. The individual had a special tool used to slide into the envelope and clip onto the cheque which was then rolled up and slid out of the envelope near the top edge where the glue doesn't quite reach without opening the envelope. The cheque was detached and the remaining paper was reinserted back into the envelope which looked like it had come straight from the government's mailing. Quite slick, but the employee was caught by our company and Canada Post's internal security services.

Still, how do so many parcels go missing? I believe a lot of them are lost at Customs. Has anyone ever seen Border Security on TV? Parcels are flung all over the place when agents are looking for drugs, illegal smuggling, etc. so that they can inspect them or the drug sniffing dogs can. Once they find the illegal items, it never shows them return the packages back into the containers or back into the system for sorting....

Makes you wonder....
Regards,
Hitman
 

[Too Bo Coo]

Not too slick when the check has to eventually be cashed...by someone.

[Cubs]

I had one parcel within the UK that a customer claimed had never arrived, whereas I knew for a fact it had.

I also had one parcel to Canada that went missing for a while and was then discovered after I made a lot of calls. It was returned to the UK after I had forgotten to put my own address on the outside as the sender (pity they didn't open it, because my address was on the paperwork). I eventually managed to get it back after some good guy in a Liverpool warehouse manually checked all the returned parcels from Canada and found the one I was describing.

A few parcels damaged in transit (mostly over Christmas) but other than that, fingers crossed (since I have one in transit right now to the Netherlands) nothing too serious.

I put it down to human error every time. Mine, the customer's or the courier's employees. It's a shame, but I will now never post anything over £20 value without full insurance and preferably a tracking service (which costs a lot).

[Conquistador]

Two Amazon book orders years ago that the vendors claimed was delivered and no one, (Vendor/Amazon/USPS,)seemed to care to follow up on; two Ebay items (several years before they tightened up their Ebay/PayPal processes) that the USPS claimed they "delivered" by dropping on the porch - even though my snoopy neighbor and her retired postman husband who spends a lot of time outside with the grandchildren, never saw them on the steps - when the mail slot was (admittedly) too small for book sized parcels (but the front porch door was unlocked which the current mail woman seems to be able to open easily,) which almost turned me off EBay and if there had been a viable alternative to the USPS...

Last Christmas a "Furby" the wife ordered as nostalgia gift disappeared but she got her money back from the Amazon vendor.

I think there are several possibilities:

1) #1 in my personal frustration index is it never was sent.  Three Ebay vendors I ordered from failed to deliver, and [probably not coincidentally] Ebay closed them down, in the last 12 months.  And while I got my money back I would rather have had the items.    Years (5?) ago a person was openly violating IP and the response from Ebay (after closing the seller down) to a least one shafted buyer I knew was - tough luck, it was an illegal activity.

2) "Delivered" to the steps/in front of an outside door, [and yes some mail persons do that, I used to find that all the time with prior mail men/women,] and "acquired" by a passing individual (my neighborhood is much better than 20 years ago.)

3) Issues with the labels causing it to go into the "Lost Mail" system...  USPS doesn't release statistics on that... and becoming, well, undeliverable... a web post on an old forum had this (unconfirmed IMO) statement:

The USPS processes 200 billion pieces of mail per year. 5.5 billion (3%) aren't deliverable as addressed -- 1.3 billion are returned to sender, 2 billion are discarded, the rest are forwarded.

While those numbers don't specifically deal with "lost" mail, it looks like about 1% are thrown out.

4) It is being "processed" due to multiple factors and eventually shows up much later than it should.

from that same forum:

I once got an unimportant domestic business letter more than a year after the postmark. On the front, someone had used a rubber stamp to imprint a message like "found between a shelf and the wall."

I presume the USPS didn't get such a stamp made if such a thing happened once every 10 year.

Last year a library in a nearby town was remodeled. The building had been a post office back in the 1950s I think. Anyway, during the redo, someone found a letter postmarked during WWII from a service man in Europe.

5) Your neighbor doesn't care that they got your mail.  When a prior "permanent temporary" (the term came up in discussion with the local USPS agent during the vacation so I assume it was a valid title) postman went on two weeks vacation I was delivering mail for the entire time that came to my mail slot:

A) the right house number on the wrong street - 1234 Fox Ct. when you live a t 1234 Ox Ct.,)

B) the wrong name with the "right address" - the USPS staffer I took it to seemed irritated {"What am I supposed to do when that is a valid address?"} I actually get one person's notices about 'travel miles accumulated' according to the exterior message on the envelope at regular intervals.

C) The numbers are the right ones but not the right order (1234 Fox Ct. when it should be 3124 Fox Ct.,)

D) It  belongs to the neighbor next door (I assume it sticks to the item above it in the pile.)

E)  best ever - When I had subscribed to  "Hispanic" magazine I frequently got the "Latina" (sometimes quite risque covers comparatively- try explaining that to your wife when she sees it from across the room the first time,) magazine for a neighbor in block with a similar address - (1235 Dog Ct.)

Had I tossed those items in the trash/shredder no one would have known.

Gracias,

Glenn

[Too Bo Coo]

Weird Glenn, I had subscribed to 'Latina' magazine and kept getting 'Hispanic'...spooky...