Expired Postcards

Apologies if this is answered somewhere above…

I have a card that’s about to expire. I’ve seen some people listing ‘resends’ in their profile- if my card expires and I resend and it eventually gets there and is registered will take take it out of ‘expired’ status? Or how do people know when to resend to get it there in time before it expires?
Thanks!

After 60 days a card expire and stay expired til it is registered or delected after a year.

Sending a second card is not required, some cards just need really loooong travel time.

If you want to resent, I would frist check if the member is still active, maybe they quit postcrossing.

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Thanks Jarana, they are still active and active quite regularly so maybe it’s delayed or maybe it’s lost in the post. (My secret fear is they didn’t like it so didn’t register it!!)

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As has already been mentioned, we might never know the reason why a postcard hasn’t been registered. But recently, a couple of my expired cards were registered. In one case, the poor person had been ill with Covid, and only just felt well enough to get back in to Postcrossing. I’m sure this must be the reason for a lot of our expired cards this year.

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I would venture to say that most people don’t resend (I’m sure there’s a thread about it somewhere). I don’t - I’ve done it only twice in my 5 years of postcrossing. The idea is to send a card, if it doesn’t make it, that sucks, but that’s life. Some cards are registered even after 200, 300 days (max. 365, then they are removed from the system), some don’t but it’s part of the gamble of sending a piece of paper on a worldwide travel.

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Good to know that most people don’t resend. I just happened to come across a few mentions of resending. My first card will (likely) expire tomorrow. It’s going to Ukraine so there’s a chance it’s just slow. It’s good to know they can still be registered for a year. Thanks for getting back to me @elikoa

It is actually all in the FAQs, no big secret :slight_smile:

https://www.postcrossing.com/help/what-are-expired-postcards

https://www.postcrossing.com/help/why-do-some-members-have-a-list-of-expired-postcard-IDs-on-their-profile

And here is the thread about resending:

https://www.postcrossing.com/help/why-do-some-members-have-a-list-of-expired-postcard-IDs-on-their-profile

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@clareaye

It cannot be that someone does not register a card because they do not like it.
Because when we send a card, the sender thinks something about it. (I hope)
You never know whether the recipient will like it. But then one should be polite enough to register the card. And if you just writes… .Hello, thank you….
Because that’s the point of postcrossing.
But I think that right now more cards will expire than usual.
I can live with that. And I never send a second card.
As @elikoa noted: That is a part of the game

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If a card expires and the country is normally reached within a week, do you ever send a replacement?

In my case, the recipient still seems to be active and I have assumed the card was lost in transit. I have fired off another.

I’m almost at 200 sent cards and I have a block going to China and Russia (which may take a while). Therefore I’m trying this little trick.

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Yes, I do sometimes, in fact I’ve done it in the last month with Germany & the US - 2 countries that I almost never have trouble with, but I think the Delta wave is disrupting the mail a fair bit now.

I would rarely do it with China or Russia given the length of time cards take to travel there & the fact that for both of those countries for me, sadly they have my most expired cards.

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No…never. I get the address, write and mail the card. I’ve done my part. Whatever happens…happens.

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How do you recognise a ghostcrosser…?

I only log in when I receive a postcard to register and when I ask for my maximum of addresses. If possible once a month all of the number addresses available and even taking time to make costume handmade postcards if I have an address where I can send a handmade postcard. That takes a bit more time, but I really like to take the effort of making something special for someone!

So, I don’t resend - never thought about that option either…and I really don’t know how many expired postcards I have till now…My balance of sent and received postcards are nearly the same…Is that an indication?

Last time I got my postcards addresses was the 11th of September. Till now 6 postcards arrived and 8 are traveling. By mistake I wrote a postcard to the only expired address I have - while all written with stamps I decided to send the postcard anyway. Checking now - the person only sent 28 postcards since 2013 and logged in the last time 6 months ago…
Ghostcrosser…?!

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In the 1.5 years I’ve been in Postcrossing, I have mailed out 270 cards (not including the forums). Of those, only five have expired, and four of those were sent between June 4 and July 17 of this year. Has anyone else noticed an increase in expired cards? My expired cards included cards sent to the US and Canada, so distance does not explain it. But this sudden rash of expired cards is dampening my enthusiasm for the site. Any suggestions?

I hope I’m not scaring you with my answer: hide the expired :slight_smile:

At the moment I have 32 expired. Mostly from summer. And I believe in two week comes ten more. But this is because there’s something wrong between the mail from Finland to Russia, where most of my cards are going. But there are cards to USA as well, which was very slow at one point.

I have always had expired, and gotten used to it, and I let my self believe, that the cards are somewhere and maybe arrive eventually.

And the happiest thing of course, the card can arrive even after it’s expired :+1:
(And of course it can arrive even after that, when it disappears from the list, but then you don’t know it, unless they somehow know who sent it.)

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I try to think that too.
My worst time was last year but I had times with lots of expired even before the pandemic. I constantly have at least 8, maybe one arrives and one disappears from the system but new ones expire. I don’t send that much compared to some so it’s a bit sad if I think about it so I try not to.

4-5 expired over 270 sent is very little, I’m jealous🤣

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I had to capture a screenshot of my traveling list, because it’s just so sad to look at! 11 cards actively traveling, 11 expired. :flushed: There’s an ongoing mail problem on the route from Finland to Russia, which is causing most of my cards expire one after another. I already have received 12 cards more than I have sent, so it’s easy to do the math and and come to the conclusion that it will take me ages to catch up… :joy: Fortunately it’s always possible to take part in tags! Another piece of good news is that I have 4 slots to fill on World Postcard Day. :love_letter:

The route from Finland to Russia is currently temporarily blocked by Postcrossing. Fingers crossed that the situation will resolve soon! :crossed_fingers:

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At the moment I’m quite lucky with expired cards as some were still registered. Since the pandemic I have always 10 at least expired (for statistics: being active all the time, with 68 possible slots)

But yes, before the pandemic started I’ve had one or two, max. three expired cards. And just very very few of them disappeared from the system after one year. Now the third or fourth card in one year is waiting to say good-bye… :woman_shrugging:
That’s part of the game.

One of the addresses I got a year ago (WPD 2021) will go to Postcrossing heaven today.

image

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That’s my list of expired postcards:

Sadly, all three of them were sent to members in USA. My postcards to Russia usually take around 1 month to arrive, and it’s halfway around the world. I hope things go back to normal soon. :frowning_face:

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We received 2 postcards this week from Taiwan (to Australia), both postmarked in September this year (2021), but neither able to be registered because they were both over one year old. :disappointed_relieved:

Our national carrier (AusPost) has almost collapsed under the strain of a reduced workforce (workers in isolation) and increased customer demand (two states have been in lockdown almost forever, well, feels that way).

Having said that, yesterday’s card was postmarked in Taiwan on September 14th and re-marked in Australia on September 29th, so in this case the hold up must have been in the country of origin.

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