Expired Postcards

For totally inactive members, my advice is to wait six months before contacting Adminustration.

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Does this mean that they did not register your card when they received it and only did so because you asked about the card?

Yes, exactly, they registered it right away without any explanation (travel time was more than 100 days to countries where it normally takes between 10-20 days), one registered six or seven other cards along with mine.

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Thanks for your response. For whatever the reason may have been that stopped them registering cards, I guess sending a ‘reminder’ works. I might contact a few members on my expired list.

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A reminder works sometimes, not always. Imho, it’s worth a try, though others see it differently. There was/is a long debate about it here somewhere.

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Here is one of the long debates. I have said this before and it bears repeating: I have zero patience with people sending me messages asking if I’ve received their card. If I had, it would be registered. So I’m firmly in the do-not-send-reminders-camp :innocent:

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I have here a book pile, work pile, music pile, someone asked me lately did I got their card, I check these piles, my bag at least too, look the entrance hall if something fell there.

The zero patience sounds so scary and hostile :frowning: sender can’t know about your perfection.

It happened to me too, I asked about my expired card (waited until many), and each time something was registered, often the same person registered other cards too, so to me it seems it’s good to ask these. Writing the messages was slow, so I don’t do it anymore.

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Oh dear, I didn’t know it was a much discussed and touchy subject. Duly noted that you are firmly in the do-not-send-me-reminders-camp.

Out of 500 cards, I think I’ve had three or four inquiries from senders, at most. One never arrived, one arrived expired, others I don’t recall.

I have asked a couple of times, one person did admit it was received but never registered, another replied she did not have it (arrived later). Easier to just re-send to active members, and move on beyond others.

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Yesterday I remembered I actually had my card expire to a person who told/shouted not to ask did they get the card. I didn’t ask but also didn’t send another. For some reason I felt already when sending, that my card will expire, or “expire”, they had specific wishes, lots of don’ts and because also I felt maybe if so often people ask it, they do get some cards, but don’t register. (A country with well working mail then.)

Only maybe twice a year someone asks did I get their card, so it’s not problematic.
If it would be, I would not open such mail, most likely if a person don’t like mail like such, they already have done some filtering with their mail, doesn’t read it etc.

This could be, but for many it’s about money too, like from Finland the postage alone is 2,30€/2,50€ so I understand well if they don’t want to re-send.

And why I don’t re-send: I read some persons don’t like the first card and they wait if the sender re-sends something they would like more :frowning: I don’t want to support and reward such behaviour.

But I’m not bothered about my expired, unless those would block me from getting any addresses. I have always free slots. Still of course it would be good to help those who have only few slots…I’m occassionally now feeling guilty not asking after the expired, because it always resulted with registered cards.


Just in case someone likes to correct the tone, which I don’t notice, here is the style I used to send:

"Hello

I am writing to you because I have sent you a postcrossing card on * date * and normally mail to your country has travelled in this time.
Maybe the id was unclear or some other problem with my card?

My card was * general description of the image side * and sent from Finland.
Perhaps you could check if you got it and forgot to register, or have other troubles to register it, then the team can help with the id. Not every time they are able to solve it, so that’s why I’m contacting you.

If you didn’t get it, let’s hope it arrives soon :slight_smile:

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Yes, this has been discussed in many topics :smile:
It is ok to ask, in one topic some of the founders told that, we can contact in a friendly way, they don’t have time to do it of course for us, but we are allowed to ask it.
(Of course if someone tells they don’t like it, I respect it and wouldn’t ask.)

Also asking can help, like now I have a half of a card, someone already asked did I receive their card, but it was not it. I can only register it if the sender contacts me.

And earlier someone sent me a card, but it was from Finland so not clear from where it was originally sent, so I could not get help to that. The message side with id was faded away from wetness, only address was readable. Also there, if the sender had asked, did I get a card from Finland, I would have known immediately it’s that.

These also at some point expired of course, and I felt so sorry because the senders can’t know I have the cards, but just can’t register those.

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I usually don’t ask if cards arrived. The only time I do it is at the middle of month February for my december cards, as it would be a pity if they won’t be registered in time for the december donation to “Stiftung Lesen” because the ID was not readable or someone forgot :slight_smile:

But in other times I usally don’t ask and just move on.

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I messaged a member in January about an expired card I sent to them (last year). In my message, I mentioned that my cards to Germany generally take 2-4 weeks to arrive. They said the card was in their child’s room, and had missed getting registered, and thanked me for messaging them to ask about it. Life happens! Everyone is different.

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I once had a person admit that the card had arrived, but apologized they’d neglected to register it. These days, however, rather than asking I just send another.

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This one got registered by postcrossing, as the account was closed. I’d given up on it, so now I’m happy to have it on my wall! It was my only copy. Hopefully, it did make it to the recipient, and they just didn’t register it for lack of interest in the project or something, but did appreciate it…

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I recently received a message asking me to register their expired postcard. This postcrosser mentioned that they mailed 2 postcards. I registered the ID# and it was a nice postcard. I messaged the postcrosser back and said I hope I receive it someday.
I don’t normally mail a second postcard after my postcard has expired. A few of my expired postcards are beautiful (in my opinion) and I wish they could be displayed on my postcard wall and in that case I may mail a second postcard.

It is nice that you took a kindhearted approach but it is against the Community Guidelines to register a card you didn’t receive:

Never register a postcard that hasn’t arrived yet; if you see requests otherwise, please report it to us!


It is interesting to read in this thread that very active users don’t get many messages at all chasing up cards. I seem to get quite a lot, but often they are people enquiring about their long travel time of ~30 days. I used to always gently explain that it is normal for mail from X to Australia to take more than a couple of weeks, but now I only reply if I feel particularly motivated to — I do sympathise with wanting your slots to free up, but it’s not too difficult to look at average travel times either. I definitely sympathise a lot more if it’s actually an unusually long travel time!

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I didn’t think much of it at the time since the expired postcard was 100+ days overdue. Thank you for reminding me of the registration rules.

Hi friends! I know not everyone chooses to re-send long-expired cards, but for those who do, do you typically send the same card again, a similar card, or something different? Do you change the uploaded photo or leave it the same and hope the recipient will correct it if they get the second card first? (If you are the recipient of a re-send, what do you think is best?)

In my case, I have only re-sent one or two cards in the past, but I currently have 5 cards with super long travel times, 4 of which are going to consistently active users. And because they were all sent in Travel Mode from different places, I really want them to be registered and am probably going to re-send.

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I have a set of cards especially for resends.

Same motif in the front (Singapore flag), on the back it’s a printed message, something along the lines of ‘My name is ___. Sometime ago I sent you a card but it got lost. I am sending you this in the hopes it gets to you.’ then add the ID

So all the SG flags on my wall are resends. This helps me keep track of how many I resend as well

Though for Travel Mode, it might be a bit weird for them to get a SG flag card with a foreign ID :rofl:

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