General Forum

I used to only trade in U.S. but read threads about people sending to Canada regular mail with no tracking number.  I thought what the heck more people to trade with and less postage expense.  Now I am not sure what to do in the future.  I mailed 17 cards, paid postage, they were evidently lost in the mail.  So now I am out the cards, postage, money I reimburse to trade partner and have negative feedback.  Looking for opinions of what others would do?

It's the chance you take. I went and read your feedback and what I got from it (correct or incorrect) the biggest issue was your lack of communication during this problem. I make a lot of trades via PWE and have been lucky so far and haven't had an issue. Most of these trades the cards are probably not worth more than the postage anyway but I have thought about this possibility and what would I do. I think both parties should be able to work together and either find replacements to send or offer compensation or let oit be. It's up to both parties to communicate and agree. I figure with what I save in mailing small PWE trades VS paying for tracking on my low value card trades I can afford to pony up a few bucks if a bad situation every happens. But, it's up to each member to decide how they want to trade.

I almost never ship without tracking. The only exception might be a few commons, and the buyer requests a P.W.E. to save on postage costs. But even then, I ask the buyer to send me an email, stating that they will take full responsibility if lost.

FIrst, did you both contact your Post Offices or submit a Missing Mail request?  I've done this many times, my local carrier does a lot of misdelivering to the wrong address.  And the main PO frequently misroutes.

When did you mail the cards?  Mailing times to Canada is very inconsistent. The quickest I've had is 5 days, the average is 10 days, the longest has been a month.

The other member left you a Negative?  Did they claim you didn't send or are they blaming you for a postal system problem?  If it was the PO's fault, the Negative is unfair. 

I mailed in April.  Yes I deserve the negative feedback because I have had a busy spring and have not been logging on so I missed his messages.  I wrongly thought if someone sent me a message I also got an email but have figured out that is only if it is not a transaction message.

Regarding mail times - definitely can take longer (6 weeks instead of 6 days) when mailing to and from Canada.

Regarding PWEs, always possible one can go missing. I had one package sent to the US (a box of commons which didn't require tracking), go missing, and had one PWE sent to me go missing. With good communication and understanding, I think most everyone on here undertands those things can happen, and a resolution can be found.

Regarding the feedback - I noticed the same member gave you positive feedback 2 days later, I assume because the situation ended up being positively handled after the negative feedback was left. Is there a period in time in which feedback left, can be edited/revised by the "giver"? I could see in a situation like this, it would be nice to cancel the negative feedback (wouldn't want it to be an indefinite period, but a cooling off period of a couple days may be appropriate, just a thought).

RE: Feedback editing - 24 hours from posting the feedback it can be edited. After that, it's permanent, unless there is compelling reason(s) to see if Admin can pull it.

Thos year after the Postal strije in Canada I mail 2 PWE to the same member in canada at the same time. Feb 25th

    One got there in about 10 days   and they other  one was in the postal system for about a month  March 27th to arrive.

This was not the first time I have to give a lot of time for it to show up.

as for emails when you get a msg on here, I too have stopped getting them so it might be a problem for some, I checked my profile and my e-mail address is there.   

As for feedback if you are a active member, long term, made a lot of trades recently I give it time.  I just moved as some know  and I was only logging on about twice a week to check for msg or trade offers and let them I know I was moving and cards were packed up but will trade when done BUT I may misplace some.  I will give it time

THis really isn't that complicated. You received megative feedback because you didn't communicate with the other member. You admitted that above and when I look at your feedback it certainly wouldn't stop me from trading with you as the problem was resolved. As far as the shipping you can either go the lower postage rate and take your chances or pay a lot more for guaranteed delivery. I choose to take my chances as most of what I trade are cheap commons. I would also like to point out that while this was a trade crossing borders this is just as likely to happen within the US. I think if you are worried about this happening again and aren't willing to take your chances you either pay the crazy costs for guaranteed delivery or you just don't trade through the mail.

Have your Missing Mail requests ever resulted in any recoveries?

Whenever I've shipped to Canada, everything arrived, but there was always a 2-4 week lag once it hit customs.