Items lost in mail!!! what should I do?
 

Late October 2017 I won 3 kerises in an auction. The items were duly sent by the auction house to my address in early November using USPS mail service. However by end of November the tracking record stated "DEAD MAIL/SENT TO MAIL RECOVERY CENTER.

The sender made an enquiry to USPS and the latest e mail response from USPS a few days ago was:-

" Your package has not yet been recovered, but every effort is being made to locate your item(s)".

My questions that I hope some of you can answer/comment

1) Has any of you experience this situation (lost mail)... if yes were they eventually recovered? after how long?

2) How long should I wait to finally resign to the fact that the package is lost forever?

3) what should I do ? (apart from asking the sender to follow up with the post?)

thanks in advance for you help.

green/nik

Sorry for this, but there isn't very much you can do other than ask the auction house for a refund.

It is the seller who can ask then USPS for damages.

Regards,

Marius

As far as I know the auctionhouses all over the world send only on the risk of the buyer - so there will be probably no refund by the auctionhouse. In case the package was insured the auction house has to contact the insurance Company
corrado26

Insurance covers the sender, IIRC. So the auction house would be reimbursed and the insurance company would own the keris if found.

If you paid by credit card or paypal you could submit a claim to them and expect reimbursement.

claim is my very last resort. What I am hoping is the package will eventually be found and sent to me. What is the likelihood or chance that the package will be recovered...after it has been lost for 2 months already?


Should I wait further or discuss with the auction house to reimburse me now?

Two months is a long time. I would start discussing with the auction house about reimbursment.

There is still hope
 

In selling and shipping a few hundred items for Lew's estate, I have had just two fall off tracking. Both were international and came back to my porch unexpectedly, one after a full year and the other just after two months. Another item got misdirected at an airport in the Netherlands and sent to Brazil where it sat in Customs about a month before the fact that it was addressed to Israel was noticed and it was successfully put back on course.

If the auction house's packers got the address correct or placed a legible return address on the package it should find its way back or forward in due course. (I always include a slip with both addresses inside as well.)

PayPal and credit cards will usually give you up to about 6 months to file an 'item not received' claim and will very likely find in your favor if there is no tracking showing delivery. So patience is appropriate at the moment. If you paid by bank transfer, then you are probably at the mercy of the auction house's policies. Good luck at having your items in good order and fairly soon.

Many thanks Lee for informing us your experience. So, looks like there is a small chance it will finally come my way one day. I think I will wait for one more month before I discuss about reimbursement from the auction house. I paid by bank transfer but hope the auction house will be gentlemanly enough to reimburse if it has to be decided that the package is definitely lost.

This loss is especially unfortunate and keenly felt as the kerises were from Edward Frey's book.

I send around 100 parcels every year from Australia to other countries.

I've been shipping internationally since 1978.

In all that time there have been only two actual losses, as well as an incident in Whitehorse where a package was run over by a piece of machinery, and another incident in Utah where a parcel fell behind a piece of furniture in the delivery post office, and was found two years later when they did a re-organisation.

I believe you will eventually come out of this OK, as others have commented, if it is insured the sender should reimburse you, but the likelihood is that eventually that parcel will get to you.

Hi Alan;

That sound somewhat reassuring, except that if it ever find my way i hope it will be sooner than later.

A constant thought that keep running in my head is this:... these three kerises do not want to come back home.!!

Except that unlike most most malays who believe that some keris have special magic and persona I (who is also a malay- from Kelantan) is generally NOT superstitious ( but may be I am unconsciously)...

Yeah, I can understand the not wanting to go home thing.

Just about everybody I've ever known from SE Asia gets addicted to pizza, donuts and Italian restaurants within the first six months in Oz.

Your keris will probably be a bit super-sized when they do eventually get there.

If you paid using Paypal you have 180 days after paying to lodge a claim for non receipt of item. This in no way affects any other investigation.

As a fellow collector, I feel your pain; especially when the prize you won far exceeds the cost!
When dealing with the USPS, I always send the item by Priority and I fully insure it, as well as ask for a signature confirmation if any significant amount of value is involved; they seem to pay much better attention to the package when they are monetarily responsible.
Since you are in Malaysia, my next possible solution may not be cost effective for you, but I have found that it sometimes works; call the USPS Service center with the tracking number.You will have to wait for many minutes on hold before you will be able to talk to a human being and prior to that agree to participate in the short survey after you have talked to the USPS representative.They must be graded on their performance as I have found them to be very, very helpful and call more than once if you do not get the answers that you want, as a different operator may have new information or different insights.
My guess is that your hold up would be with Customs.
Good Luck and I hope that your items will come to you.

drac2k,

Many thanks for your suggestion. I have checked with Malaysian custom and the local post office and they confirmed that the package has not arrived in Malaysia yet.

A happy update.

I have finally received the lost items!
Early this month the USPS managed to trace the whereabout of the items and resent back to the sender. It was unclear what went wrong but apparently the main reason I gathered from the communication was due to the custom declaration form was lost and the package was not shipped but sent to 'Dead mail center'.

To make sure it was not lost in the mail again I requested the auction house to resend to me using fedex (which I had to pay additional shipment fees) and it duly arrived last week.

To be fair I've not lost any shipment from USPS before and not sure whose fault it was in this case.

Great news and congratulations; after a long lapse of time, the results are usually negative.

I am very happy to hear that you got your kerises! :)

Unfortunately, it seems there are more incidents like this (not necessarily with happy end) lately. I had two similar incidents (both with PostNL - Dutch post) during last few months.

The quality of services is free falling. :mad:

Happy to hear your situation had been resolved
As a tip for others, I have found that filing a claim with USPS often triggers a sudden delivery of 'stalled' items. In my opinion, always is a good idea to file a claim.
I'm glad your kerises ultimately found their way home and have earned even greater appreciation due to their journey.

I have come to know of this post after so long tima has elapsed.
Once I bought a nice Madura keris hilt and received an empty envelope with a tear, indicating that the contents was stolen somewhere (I suspect after its arrival in Italy and after customs operations). I filed a claim both with the Italian customs and with the seller. I heard nothing from Italy, but to my great surprise I got an almost complete reimboursement from Indonesia. Unfortunately I don't remember further details as to the insurance or about who made the reimboursement (Indonesian Customs or Seller).

Being a SME on physical distribution and customs, I can advise all shipping companies, regardless if you use the local / country's postal services like USPS, DP, post NL , B Post or carriers like FEDEX, UPS, DHL, Chronopost, DPD or whatever to:

- have it insured for 150% of the value or whatever higher level is indicated
- make a foto if you send or ask for a picture of the goods / package upon shipping to you
- do the same upon arrival
- sign with reservation
- claim within < 2 weeks, being the legal period
(attention: some carriers and or countries use a legal deadline of < 1 week to raise a claim
- preferably pay by a credit card as this also gives you some protection

it doesn't make a difference if you use f.i the Dutch Post or DHL: as long as you stick to the above rules.
I had a case were a package worth 2 K got lost by the postal services and as I could proof my case by complying with the above ABC, they paid after investigation.
On professional level I had a case were some boxes were stolen from a pallet to China and due to a mismatch between paper and physical qty I found my employer between a rock and a hard place.
Just because I had pictures of the outgoing shipment and could proof that upon arrival some tape to the plastic wrapping was added, my case was accepted by the quite strick authorities, goods cleared and an adjustment accepted, so a claim for the missing qty.

Just make sure you have it insured and proof available, regardless what you think or perception is. the latter doesn't count...
Take care and be smart !