2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Registering a card you didn’t receive
Why would someone post an expired postcard on their home page? I wonder:thinking:
Don’t know about everyone who does so. Each has his own reason. Most probably want to keep some sort of tally of how many cards they actually sent vs. sent and received.
That said there are a few members that include the recipients’ user names on what can only be interpreted as a spiteful “wall of shame.” Personally I think this should be prohibited.
I received a card once and as usual registered it immediately. I then saw on the member’s profile my USER NAME listed. I don’t remember whether I received a second card she sent or the original which took a long time to arrive. Nevertheless I messaged the member to immediately take my name off, and I reported her profile.
By the time Admin responded she had taken my name off, but I have to say I was deeply disappointed with Admin’s response. They said they could do nothing about that because it was her profile and of “freedom of speech” blah blah blah. I’m sorry, but “freedom of speech” doesn’t allow me to post her address on my profile, likewise members should not be allowed to publicly shame by name other members. List a count of expired cards all you want, but as with addresses the names and user names of other members should be prohibited on your profile.
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so, i’m pretty new (only been a member since February!) but i sent a card out and this user has not been active on the site for 2 months. it has been expired now of course on my end haha – do i just ignore the expired card now since the user has been inactive? what is the proper thing to do in a situation like this?
I let it be, regardless of whether someone has logged in or not. I simply accept it as a phenomenon of global mail that sometimes cards get lost and/or that people stop participating in Postcrossing.
However, there are quite a few people who prefer to send a second card.
Ive had a couple of cards arrive in Russia at 70plus days recently. Russia seems to be quickening up at present. Most of my expired cards are USA. But less than for a long time
560/566 cards registered seems a positive advert for the Worlds postal service 
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One of mine just got registered after 70 days. There were 57 cards to the same person registered the same day and not the first time either. Makes me wonder whats going on with the post over there.
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Is 9 expired cards out of 200 cards bad?
Currently 7 out of my 12 travelling cards are going Russia or Belarus, worrying that my slots will get stuck now!
Are the recipients regustering cards late in general? As far as blocking accounts, it’s my understanding that the average travel time (to slower countries) might be taken into account?
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Bouncing off of this question: If a postcard is deemed lost can the person who originally sent the postcard mail out a second one using the same ID in hopes it reaches the person?
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Yes, nothing to stop you doing this - if they’ve logged in recently and the card has been travelling for over 180 days then I send another.
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Hi Amanda. Yes, you can send a second card if you would like. Sometimes I message the recipient first, to ask if they are traveling or maybe look around in case the card was missed somehow; some recipients don’t reply though, fyi.
When I do send a second card, it’s to members who look active, registering other cards they receive, etc. when writing the note on the second card, I let them know it’s the second card I have sent, so there’s not confusion if both cards arrive.
Here’s some other forum topics about this too. It happens to all of us, so there’s lots of conversations about it here in the forum:
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I’m sure this is like an endless topic, but I’m starting to be worried a bit that my account will be closed due to amount expired cards that I’m starting to accumulate from my sent ones and I also wonder how come Postcrossing doesn’t flag some of those accounts that I’ve sent cards to.
I’ve sent total of 37 cards from May 2024 to this date. From those, 2 cards have expired and another 2 will expire soon. I’m also thinking that there’s another 2 cards that will eventually expire.
From these 6 accounts one hasn’t registered received cards in almost a year! Another one has registered only one card received and hasn’t been seen in 2 months. Both have sent more than received. So their address just keeps on being given to people even when cards don’t reach their destination.
I’m starting to be really suspicious that does Postcrossing actually work because I feel that if I get 4 to 6 cards expired from total of 37 sent in 3 months then that’s a lot!
This is not the case! 
Addresses are not given out when the member is inactive – and if someone isn’t logging in, we automatically set them as inactive.
Postcrossing does monitor for people who aren’t registering cards sent to them, but that isn’t always instantaneous, for a few reasons. Firstly, a single missing postcard probably won’t trigger anything, because single postcards can get lost or take months to travel. The system looks for a pattern of not registering. It may also depend on whether the pattern is normal for a given country – e.g. members in some countries all take a long time to register because the mail is slow, so we know that a few missing cards is fairly typical and they will likely still arrive.
Secondly, we do give people time to respond to our emails and let us know what’s happening before we close their accounts for not registering postcards. Sometimes the issue is temporary, and the member gets back to us, and then we also take the time to talk through how to solve the problem. Sometimes we do close the account, but given that that’s irreversible, we don’t do it lightly. (Even so, it’s not uncommon for people to get back to us a little later and be sad that we deleted their account while they were in hospital, while a loved one was sick, while they were in the middle of a complicated move, etc etc.)
It’s always disappointing when postcards don’t arrive, but in general things often resolve with a little patience. Sometimes I send the recipient a private message to ask them to double-check whether my card might have arrived, which has helped a few times. (Just be careful not to ask them to register it if it hasn’t arrived, of course!)
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Thank you for your reply.
I don’t mind waiting, but I mean giving out an address which hasn’t registered received cards in 7 months is a bit discouraging to me.
But I don’t mind actually the expiring cards that much as long as it doesn’t come haunt me on a later date like I’ve seen few post saying.
I just shared with my friends that I have so many expired postcards out of which the longest ones are those who were last seen nearly 4/5/8 months ago. Few of my postcards got auto Registered as the account was disabled.
I often check the profile if they are active or not before sending a postcard because both postcards + postage are expensive. I don’t mind sending once again if the postcard is lost.
I wish for inactive accounts, the postcards were auto updated. Like xyz members have been inactive for let’s suppose 90 days so the postcards are auto registered.
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It’s hard to say for certain without looking on the back end at the exact user you’re calling out, but not having registered any postcards for 7 months (or longer) doesn’t automatically mean the person has been sent postcards and hasn’t registered them. They may have been inactive, or in travel mode.
People don’t have to be active all the time – it’s fine to take a break, or have a period during which they send while inactive so they don’t receive. In that case, they’re entitled to receive postcards in return when they become active again; it doesn’t mean they’ve done anything wrong at all. On the contrary, someone who went into inactive mode while they were unable to register promptly for some reason would be using Postcrossing correctly.
So… there’s no reason to assume that someone has been misusing Postcrossing, just because they haven’t received for a while. 
Sometimes it might be the case, but it would be unusual for someone to go a long time without registering without Postcrossing picking it up, if there were postcards on the way to them.
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When you request an address, you are agreeing that you will send a postcard to that person, regardless of any opinion you might have of their profile (including whether you think they’re active or not). Postcrossing doesn’t give out the addresses of people who aren’t logging in, or who have many postcards missing on the way to them.
Most likely, you’re effectively punishing people who haven’t done anything wrong, by refusing to send postcards to people you deem to be inactive – who may have very properly and correctly used the “inactive” or “travel mode” statuses in order to avoid receiving for a while.
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In a way you are right. But it does affect the choice of the card. If you are quite sure it will expire and lost, it’s crazy to send an expensive card. Or that’s what I learned through losing some really beautiful cards where I had that gut feeling before.
But to stick to the topic: There are a few more discussions around expired cards and profiles. Maybe you want to look at them:
About people who have not logged in a long time:
About expired cards:
An lost cards gallery:
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It was wrong wording on my behalf, i apologise, i do send all of them postcards. But it is also true i have received addresses where people have been inactive over 3 months.
This is what I really agree with @ChocCrossie
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