Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started and some countries had been into quarantine, most of the postcards that I sent out haven’t been delivered to the receiver and it kind of frustrates me that I have more than 10 lost postcards and I don’t feel like sending anymore if this continues on happening. Most of the postcards were address to Rusia and Scandinavian countries. So I want to know about their postal service. Is it on froze or was it my country’s postal service that didn’t send out the postcards
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Postcrossing keeps an up-to-date list of postal service problems.
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I think right at this moment, Malaysia can only send to Singapore 
But it wasn’t the case all along. As far as I know, nowadays Postcrossing tries to only give you addresses of countries you can send to, based on the list above. I imagine there might be times when things change quickly and Postcrossing catches up shortly afterwards. But that wouldn’t account for many cases.
@khairinakmrl Having some expired postcards is normal… even without pandemic, you’d have some. But yes, more than 10 is quite a lot, especially as I can see in your profile that your sent/reiceved are not many so your sending limit is not high. I have 9 expired postcards at the moment, some of them since January-February, before the pandemic was global. I had a similar situation a few years ago, when there was no pandemic at all.
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I haven’t received from Malaysia since January and the card I sent there in April was just registered last month (travel time 150 days). So it does look like postal services Norway/Malaysia, at least, is having issues. I can’t speak for the other Scandinavian countries. Malaysia is on the list of countries that we can send mail to, but that list doesn’t say anything about how long it will take, only that the Post will accept outgoing mail to that country.
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I am from Scandinavian country and ours at least works just like it should. Haven’t noticed any differences on cards’ travel times and the ones expiring have been sent to people who haven’t logged in for months. Delivery has been 4-7 days for Europe and 13-30 days for the rest of the world, like it normally is (average to and from Malaysia seems to be about 27 days). There are some differences between areas (the ones with more cases have more delay with post as people are not able to come to work), but so far that I know the delays have been more like a week or so.
Have you asked #communities:malay if others from Malaysia have had similar problems? Really unfortunate to be new postcrosser and get so many expired right away 
Fortunate tho that often even expired cards will arrive one day.
Don’t know how it is in other Scandinavian countries, but as we have the most cases out of them I would think our postal service would be the one affected most Russia again is sadly infamous for occasional veeeeery long delivery times even without pandemic, although I have noted that they are getting better over the years.
Adding a bit: I have got one pandemia time postcard from Malaysia: MY-538406, the travel took 59 days
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I’m from Russia and our post was always working in normal mode. But the postcards that we sent were difficult to deliver to other countries because the borders were closed, and post in other countries worked poorly. I have more than 20 expired postcards sent by me to other countries since January/February
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In the beginning of the Pandemic I noticed some decreases in travel times as well. May of my sent cards were geistered after they expired.
Postcrossing then reacted very quickly and included a postal monitor. They then excluded addresses from countries where your local postal serevice would not deliver to at that time. It worked really good.
With Russia and the US in the begining there were very long travel times but since two month or so my cards there seldom take longer than two weeks. Russia has become surprisingly quick lately.
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Actually… I had a feeling that everything was taking “so much longer” now, but now I actually checked my stats March-October 2019 vs March-October 2020. My average travel times have increased, but not nearly as much as I thought! It’s taken 2-3 days longer to/from Germany, Finland, other western European countries, and on average 10 days longer to/from USA, Russia, etc.
It still feels like everything is taking much much longer though 
And I definitely have more cards get registered at like 60-80-90 days now, but apparently not enough to make a serious dent in the statistics! (There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics.)
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In Finland the postal service works normally in my opinion. (If someone counts it as a Scandinavian country).
The cards I’ve sent during the pandemic so far, has been delivered as they were before it. Most of the cards were sent to Europe though, so maybe the connections are better than to other continents at the moment.
All my cards are taking longer to arrive too. Just a few more days for Germany, Netherlands and the US, and much longer for China, Russia.
Most of my cards to and from China and Russia have now been traveling for well over a month, with a few over two months (including official Postcrossing cards and forum tags).
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Most of my cards that expired are sent to people that haven’t login anymore or haven’t registered cards in a while. Of course cards do get lost once and a while too or they just take longer.
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I had one to India which took over 150 days, but that was due to the pandemic situation. I’ve one going to Turkey at nearly 200 days, but that person hasn’t registered any cards since March
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I also have a lot of expired cards, but two I sent in July were registered this week. (China, Portugal). I think most will eventually arrive. They are just taking longer.
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At this moment I have only 3 expired: two to members that haven’t logged in for several months and one travelling to Russia. During the pandemic 4 of my cards travelled for over 60 days to the USA and 23 cards (mostly from the USA and Russia) travelled longer than two months before arriving. One card was sent from Malaysia and I received it after 91 days. Right now mail travelling speed seems almost normal, but there are mail suspensions. I can send mail to most European countries, but only to 19 countries outside Europe. It is an improvement, but I can’t wait till I can write to some of my penpals again!
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I wish luck that postcard you sent Turkey.Our postal service has problems.I’m waiting postcards too 
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It’s such a bummer to send to users who stop logging in. I only have 5 expired cards right now (soon to be 6), two due to users who haven’t logged on in over a month. Most of my cards have arrived at their destinations, just much slower than normal due to disruptions with the USPS.
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At the moment I have 41 expired cards and 37 of them are expired this year, compared to the cards I sent this year, which I counted is 456, the expired rate is a bit higher than I thought, and some of the expired cards were sent to those who haven’t logged for months, but that’s the sad fact I had to face it, 
I have 21 expired cards at the moment, but this is actually a low number for me. Usually it’s somewhere between 25 and 30. Only six of these are going to people who are no longer active, the rest … who knows what happened? Two more cards are about to expire though, one to the US and one to Russia.
I’ve had four expired cards registered within the last two weeks, that was wonderful. Two by postcrossers who always take their sweet time, one that went to a country where long travel times are not unsual (Brazil) and one because an account was closed.
While it is a bummer, I’m sadder to see expired cards for people who are online and active. I have 2 (almost 3) like that right now and I really hope they’ll end up in their mailboxes soon and didn’t just get lost on the way.
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At the very beginning, this also annoyed me somehow.
But it’s part of the game. No one can change it.
I am happy about every postcard that arrives. And about every expired one that reaches its destination at some point.
I currently have 10 postcards that have expired.
Five of them Russia, one Germany (member active - since 212 days expired)
This is life or postcrossing 
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