20husker00
03-06-2020, 10:02 PM
This may be a low point in all of my experiences in the hobby, which spans about 30 years.
I live in Pensacola, FL, a decent sized city. A year ago, the local USPS lost a package of mine. It was sent with Tracking and D/C. I spent hours on the phone, in person at the office, in the office of the Postmaster General. I filled out claim forms. It just "vanished". At the end of that, all I got - which I had to fight for - was the cost of postage for the package. I lost that battle.
Fast forward to this afternoon, my customer in NY State messages me and says that he had not gotten my box yet that I sent to him on Monday (March 2nd). It was sent Priority Mail, with Tracking, and D/C. He'd been trying to track the package, and all it shows (as of this moment) is that it is "In Transit To Next Facility". It shows having been received at my local post office, scanned, and then being sent to the next destination.
I immediately began looking into the tracking, which did not confirm anything really. I left my office, and drove down to the Main Post Office. The tellers told me everything that I just described. I'm angry that this feels exactly like a year prior. The clerk goes into the warehouse for about 10 minutes and comes back with nothing. I get escorted, again, to the PM's office in the interior of the building. Same thing. She confirms all my info. "We received it and scanned it. I just don't know what happened after that." It could be in Pensacola, FL. It could be in KY, New Jersey, NY. No one knows. She sends emails and notifications to all of the local post offices and then the receiving office in New York. The investigation begins.
Meanwhile my customer is beyond irate. The box contained 27 PSA graded cards, that, beyond him not having in the mail on time, he also had to wait 4.5+ months for our bulk submission to get finished at PSA, which I also felt really bad about, albeit something beyond my control as well.
I'm trying to remain optimistic that the package will just all of a sudden show up, but I'm also trying to get in front of this, in the event that the package remains "missing". And I use quotation marks because at this point, I'm persuaded that there's internal theft taking place possibly.
I'm also in deficiency of insurance of the total estimated value of the package. In my haste in turning the package around to my customer, I really didn't calculate a larger amount of insurance to add. Here are a few questions, and please give me any feedback if you've encountered this:
- If the package isn't located, can I do an insurance claim for lost mail? I think it's absolutely ludicrous that the Post Office is not held to any punitive standards for losing mail they acknowledge that they received, but if I do the insurance claim, how soon can I get my money?
- If the package isn't located, and I'm short - monetarily - on the market value of the cards, how do I best determine what is fair and equitable to refund my customer? Do I just take recent comparison sales for the slabs at their respective grades, and come to a dollar figure from there? I'm sure there is no easy way to approach this, and no one ends up happy.
- How soon would you wait to refund your customer? This is fresh, and from just today, but I feel pretty awful. And my reputation is on the line too, which is more important to me than the dollars are. I hate the idea of having to wait 30 days or something for the claims to go through. Or having my customer wait. But also the box might turn up next week. Here. There. Who knows.
- Since I have the Serial Numbers from the respective graded cards, is there a systematic way to track the slabs? I would imagine that they'd miraculously show up on Ebay eventually. Most of the cards in this order weren't too unique (2019 Chrome Rookies, etc) so, trying to look by card name would be impossible. But the Serial #'s I'd want to keep checking for. If they showed up online, obviously it would be a criminal affair at that point.
Bottom line - Have you lost a package with cards to a customer? How did the claims go? How did you determine the "worth" of the package? Do you have any other routes you'd recommend taking?
Thanks for reading and thanks for any thoughts. - AP
I live in Pensacola, FL, a decent sized city. A year ago, the local USPS lost a package of mine. It was sent with Tracking and D/C. I spent hours on the phone, in person at the office, in the office of the Postmaster General. I filled out claim forms. It just "vanished". At the end of that, all I got - which I had to fight for - was the cost of postage for the package. I lost that battle.
Fast forward to this afternoon, my customer in NY State messages me and says that he had not gotten my box yet that I sent to him on Monday (March 2nd). It was sent Priority Mail, with Tracking, and D/C. He'd been trying to track the package, and all it shows (as of this moment) is that it is "In Transit To Next Facility". It shows having been received at my local post office, scanned, and then being sent to the next destination.
I immediately began looking into the tracking, which did not confirm anything really. I left my office, and drove down to the Main Post Office. The tellers told me everything that I just described. I'm angry that this feels exactly like a year prior. The clerk goes into the warehouse for about 10 minutes and comes back with nothing. I get escorted, again, to the PM's office in the interior of the building. Same thing. She confirms all my info. "We received it and scanned it. I just don't know what happened after that." It could be in Pensacola, FL. It could be in KY, New Jersey, NY. No one knows. She sends emails and notifications to all of the local post offices and then the receiving office in New York. The investigation begins.
Meanwhile my customer is beyond irate. The box contained 27 PSA graded cards, that, beyond him not having in the mail on time, he also had to wait 4.5+ months for our bulk submission to get finished at PSA, which I also felt really bad about, albeit something beyond my control as well.
I'm trying to remain optimistic that the package will just all of a sudden show up, but I'm also trying to get in front of this, in the event that the package remains "missing". And I use quotation marks because at this point, I'm persuaded that there's internal theft taking place possibly.
I'm also in deficiency of insurance of the total estimated value of the package. In my haste in turning the package around to my customer, I really didn't calculate a larger amount of insurance to add. Here are a few questions, and please give me any feedback if you've encountered this:
- If the package isn't located, can I do an insurance claim for lost mail? I think it's absolutely ludicrous that the Post Office is not held to any punitive standards for losing mail they acknowledge that they received, but if I do the insurance claim, how soon can I get my money?
- If the package isn't located, and I'm short - monetarily - on the market value of the cards, how do I best determine what is fair and equitable to refund my customer? Do I just take recent comparison sales for the slabs at their respective grades, and come to a dollar figure from there? I'm sure there is no easy way to approach this, and no one ends up happy.
- How soon would you wait to refund your customer? This is fresh, and from just today, but I feel pretty awful. And my reputation is on the line too, which is more important to me than the dollars are. I hate the idea of having to wait 30 days or something for the claims to go through. Or having my customer wait. But also the box might turn up next week. Here. There. Who knows.
- Since I have the Serial Numbers from the respective graded cards, is there a systematic way to track the slabs? I would imagine that they'd miraculously show up on Ebay eventually. Most of the cards in this order weren't too unique (2019 Chrome Rookies, etc) so, trying to look by card name would be impossible. But the Serial #'s I'd want to keep checking for. If they showed up online, obviously it would be a criminal affair at that point.
Bottom line - Have you lost a package with cards to a customer? How did the claims go? How did you determine the "worth" of the package? Do you have any other routes you'd recommend taking?
Thanks for reading and thanks for any thoughts. - AP