Blocked from requesting more addresses

The Postcrossing system detected that most of my postcards to China have expired. Due to the unusual amount of expired postcards, my account is temporarily blocked from requesting more addresses until this issue is fixed. The system will automatically unblock my account when the number of expired postcards returns to a normal level.
Will I now be blamed because my postcard didn’t arrive and/or registered by the recipients ?
I found out that most of those Chinese postcrossers did not visit the site since months, so my postcards will never be registered and my account will never be unblocked… On the moment I have 76 cards to send, but I cannot request adresses. My messages to Postcrossing about this problem are ignored…

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It’s frustrating, but you’ll just have to be patient till staff have time to answer your message - you’re not being ignored but they’re dealing with a large volume of email every day.

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You are right, they don’t ignore me: one of my mails was answered over 3 weeks ago: I’m going to have a look through your recipients, to see if there’s something we can do to help

This is not something I usually do, but if I were you I’d try sending a message to all the people to whom you sent a card months ago and it was never registered, explaining the situation : it is possible that some of them were actually received, but the recipients had quit postcrossing in the meantime and didn’t think of registering them. You may need just 2-3 of them to register your card to be able to ask for new adresses.

Also, I think expired postcards are deleted from the count after 365 days. So if one of your cards is near to reach that travelling time, you should be able to ask for new adresses after it is gone

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How many expired do you have? And the expired amount is not causing this but specifically expired to China?

To me this seems strange as they do know that mail to China is slower than ever. I think this has happened automatically, and they haven’t had the time look this situation better, yet. Which is sad of course. Let’s hope they will have time to fix this really soon!

(I didn’t know anyone can get that many addresses to China now, I thought those are given in small amounts.)

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I have the same prob, be blocked for new addresses… don’t know be punished for my lost cards or ppl don’t register my cards… it’s really a pity…

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@Kikidee You have the same problems with postcards to Russia, don’t you?

:green_heart: :fox_face:

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How many expired cards do you have @ipuenktchen, and to which countries?

Yes, I have the same problem, I am also blocked for new adresses, a lot of Cards I sent to Russia don’t arrived yet.

I was advised to resend some cards and hope they arrive and register this time. So I sent 5 cards back to the addressees. I really hope they arrive this time.

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I don’t remember exactly…
To all countries

No, no…it’s meeeee, I didn’t registered my arriving cards!!!
But there arrived nothing!!!

Oh, I see. The system is alerted because there are too many expired cards traveling to you, so it’s the other way round like the OP said.

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If there are many recipients who didn’t log in for months, how to choose whom to send a second csrd? Did you choose the members who still seem active?

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I thought if a card expires after 60 days you automatically get the option of sending another. Like a replacement. If the expired one eventually gets registered you have already sent a card in its place.

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It’s true. But they still follow the amount of expired so members don’t choose where they send.
I remember when the mail suddenly stopped between Finland and Russia, without any reason, I ended up having so many expired to Russia and was afraid of getting blocked, but it didn’t happen.

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But what can you do then to get unblocked? Those cards are apparently lost and even if the underlying problem maybe was solved, they will never arrive. Looking at your stats, they must have dropped off the system long ago anyway.

The Postcrossing team made sure that all my addressees are still active, so I sent again to the oldest addresses. Please excuse my bad English

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I think I would message all expired, if they didn’t register. When I had fewer slots, I did this couple of times, and every time (if I remember correct), a couple of cards got registered.

Also, I would look who is active, resend to them, if it’s possible they would get the card, and maybe send in an envelope just in case. And the ones who are nearing year of expiring, I would hope time goes quick and they drop from the list :smile:

But I don’t understan how @ipuenktchen is blocked.
She has not received anything after 2020, so are not all to you expired and “forgotten”? Or did you recently get active and didn’t get any cards? It looks like you haven’t sent any either. Very confused.

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How many cards would need to be marked as expired for you to be blocked? I’ve never heard that you could be blocked because of this. I have like 10 expired cards, cause while I was travelling I sent some cards from Albania, but sadly not a single one arrived :worried:

:woman_shrugging:

I believe it depends on the amount of sent/travelling too somehow, so there is not a set number that goes for everyone.

(I can have 84 travelling, now have 12. I have 23 expired! But from last year when I sent more cards. Few are to Russia, and I think they never left Finland. But many are to Germany and USA. In about a week two more USA addresses expire. But then the older ones disappear soon.)

@ipuenktchen when did you try sending a card? Do you have any travelling?
To me looks like you haven’t been active so all would be dropped from the list, both sent and to be received expired. What it gives you as a reason that you can’t have an address?

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