Three postcards to the USA have expired. The most recently expired postcard is marked at 73 days of travelling, while the oldest expired postcard is sitting at 297 days of travel.
Two postcards to the USA are still travelling at 48 days and 26 days respectively.
In contrast, some postcards have arrived at their European destinations very quickly, within 6 to 8 days. Postcards mailed from Canada to Asia have arrived within 12 to 15 days.
Do I need to follow up with a message to those American recipients on those expired postcards at the very least? Or is it best left alone?
Generally, I do not write to a Postcrossers if a card expires. Another card comes up to send. Besides, one shouldn’t register missing cards. Once-in-a-while, a card gets registered months later.
I have noticed this too, both with tags and officials - not arriving or taking an unusually long amount of time to arrive. Have 5 officials and one replacement tag card travelling right now, looked up the additional 4 numbers for the zip code and used boring definitive stamps (vs an assortment that might take longer to hand cancel.) Will have to see if it makes a difference.
I wouldn’t follow up - most of those cards are lost - a few would be misplaced or not registered by the receiver, but that happens. The vast majority of people register a card when they receive it.
I got a message recently from someone pretty much assuming I just hadn’t bothered to register their card & I should just get to it. It didn’t impress me.
I would say no, especially if the recipient is someone who regularly registers cards anyway. Personally, I get annoyed if I get such a message. You can check anyone’s registration patterns by clicking “received” on their profile.
Anyways, I also wonder if it’s a shortage of postal workers. I’ve noticed in the past couple weeks or so, the USPS has been advertising a lot on the local radio stations for people to come work for the post office. And if the current rail situation gets worse, there may be further slowdowns.
As someone in the USA I will say our postal system has problems. I have received cards that have long expired, one almost 6 months after it was sent to me. I register cards the same day they are received. I can not understand how I can get cards from over seas in just a few days but local mail takes so much longer. I have no explanation for why cards from Canada take so long.
This is news to me…none of my mail has gone missing. There are delays at holiday time and private shippers like Fed Ex are horrible, but we have a good efficient postal system. It may be a regional sorting issue someplace and Covid kept some employees off work for awhile, but I think thats mostly resolved now.
Things with the USPS really began going downhill ahead of the 2020 election. Covid also still slows things down. And flooding and wildfires have intermittently shut down some pretty big hubs in different parts of the country this summer. You aren’t alone in noticing issues…I have 2 official cards within the US that have expired recently and a direct exchange across the country that has been traveling for about 2 weeks already. To and from Canada is slow, but I just received an envelope from a new postcard pal that I think travelled nearly 3 weeks (maybe more like 2.5 weeks)! Don’t lose hope! All that being said, my mail carrier is a rockstar and so are the ones that sub for her. We receive mail Monday-Saturday, usually around 1pm, but there have been many days this summer that our mail came after 6pm.
Cut funding and also installed an incompetent individual who is a monkey wrench in the well-oiled machine that is the USPS … instead of fortifying the mail service to support all the online sales etc… Sorry this is happening to your cards to the US
I’ve noticed this too. I had a postcrosser send me a second postcard (from China before the ban) citing that it’s been a while and although eventually I did receive both, I got the second one first. That prompted me to resend my cards going to the US. Eventually they received my second cards…. Not sure if they ever got my originals, but also a pain to have to resend and keep track of what I’ve resent and when.
USPS problems seem to be due to several factors, most of which have been mentioned already (funding cuts from a certain past President, COVID, staffing illness/shortages, increase of volume, natural disasters). It also seems to be fairly post office/region specific. I’ve noticed our post office in our small city is pretty efficient both on the sending and receiving end, while if I mail something from a post office closer to the nearest large city, it seems to take longer. Also, I was visiting my parents last month and there was one day where their mail did not arrive until after 7 at night. I’ve recently had some cards which have taken over a month to arrive within the U.S. They do seem to get there eventually, for the most part.
This topic is specifically about cards being sent from Canada to the USA, so a comparison of cards sent from Germany to the USA is off topic.
I’ve found it’s a frequent source of discussion between Canadian and the US members as to why cards take so long between our two neighboring countries.
Did you know there’s a forum thread for expired cards in general? Here’s the link:
that is the USPS … instead of fortifying the mail service to support all the online sales etc… Sorry this is happening to your cards to the US 