"Incomplete" postcards, and how these are treated officially

Sorry John, but I’ll act as Ana @meiadeleite has advised me to multiple times. Contact the team and not register the postcard until she tells me to. It’s her website after all.

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There are the Christmas discounts sometimes, at least in my country. Until 18nt December you can send your cards and letters cheaper. Who don’t knows, can misunderstand.

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Here I am again. The same annoying user under the name nikos8109. Let me give you an example of what happened to me.

I sent a letter to a penpal of mine,from Germany. I paid the exact postage fees and affixed the stamp on the envelope. When my penpal received the envelope, he sent me a picture of it. The stamp had fallen somewhere in between me and him. Obviously,while the envelope being on transport. Yet, I paid for the fees and did everything right. Now transfer it to postcards? Would you register it? According to your thinking,(which is not wrong by the way),no and you would have reported me. Still, I did everything right. Am I responsible for the stamp falling off the envelope? Even if the postcrossing owners advice me to resend another postcard,is it fair for me who did everything right and still I have to send a second postcard? Even if I tell you or them that I did pay for the postage,would you or them believe me? Clearly, you have a stampless postcard at your hands. So you could rightfully claim that I cheated. Is this really the case though?

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I think that’s why reporting missing/incorrect postage is important. If it only happens once or twice, the receiver would be told to register the postcard (maybe the sender will get a reminder by the postcrossing team to put correct postage on the postcards). Shit happens. But if one user is reported for the same issue over and over again, then they are clearly cheating and their account should be closed.

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More than 1% of us have eyes :eyes: and basic math skills so we can tell if there are stamps or not and if these stamps seem to have sufficient value (at least I hope so :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:, no offense to blind people). But if the postage used seems fishy to me (like way to low), I can take a look at the lovely wiki above and then know for sure.

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I’m not here to push the rules, I’m here to enjoy Postcrossing. Therefore I follow the admins’ advice. :slight_smile:

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And some percentage of us have no interest in examining postage amounts and consulting wikis to try to catch the small percentage of people who might have done something wrong.

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And nobody’s saying you have to. All we’re saying is if you notice something off, report it. If you don’t notice anything, then there is nothing to report.

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Of course you’re not. Often the stamps stay at least until it’s postmarked, so there will be partial stamping showing or some kind of glue remains. And I don’t think you are told to send another card, if you say there was a stamp and there is no reason to believe you were lying.
I had to register a card that used stamp that were no longer in use, with an explanation it was by accident. But as I noticed it at once, feels weird the sender didn’t :thinking:
So, in my experience they are more of the understanding side than sceptical and no one is looked as cheater, unless it’s very clear.

But, I don’t think anyone has sent me another card (of those with too little postage).
Once I got a weird letter, maybe Google translate wrote it, and some items in addition to that, these I didn’t need to register. She sent a lovely postcard.
But others didn’t bother, not even writing a message, so these supposedly look like they never got here? (Unless the team has some mark, that it arrived, but not as it is supposed to.)

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Yes, we have it too for cards in Finland.
But if someone misunderstands, and reports it, it will come clear it’s not cheating.

Even in India for international postage it is Rs.12/- for an air mail and also you can send the postcard with Rs.7/- postage which is surface mail. Now Postcard is being first class mail, it gets free airlift. So use of lesser postage i.e., 7/- is legally valid. We have system that postage can be paid in cash at post office and it bears no postage stamps and just a booking post office mark.

Some people affix Rs.15/- postage for air mail.

Do not think it’s fraud, if you receive this kind of cards from India.

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Who are we? Some kind of postal police? By the way, do you do that to all of your postcards? Because I see you have more then 2000 received. I myself, do not have the time to “check” all my mail. How do you do it? Do you have so much free time? Because I don’t.

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I am here to enjoy postcrossing, not to police others. For me, postcrossing is fun. Clearly, if I spend so much time into one postcard, comparing and taking looks at postage fees,etc, then I lost all the fun of being a postcrosser. I am not going to spend my time on “what ifs” and I believe @saintursula is absolutely right.

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I said I notice when postage is way too low and then i’d report it. I’m not sitting there with my little lookingglas and calculator and I do not expect anyone to do that. But I do think that it is in the best interest for all of us to discourage the use of insufficent postage. Why? Because Mail Services lose Money when people cheat, so they then might raise the postage prices for everyone. I don’t want to pay for somebodies lazyness/ignorance.

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And that is exactly my point. If a business finds out that it loses money, they should do something about it. It is not my job to check whether the postage fees of a different country is correct or not. It is the postal services’ responsibility. The less paid item, shouldn’t have passed through the country’s mail system.
By saying that, I don’t encourage such behaviour and actually, that is the third time I write/claim that. But for a small percentage of people who do it, I am not going to become psychotic

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So we agree that insufficent postage is bad. :+1:
Maybe there is a difference in mentality for the rest of the discussion. Because maybe I am too ‘german’, being taught to speak up when I notice something’s wrong. Or to look out for things being wrong in the first place. :woman_shrugging: Who knows? Anyway have a nice Sunday :smiley:

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Yes of course we agree that it is bad. Nobody argued the opposite. And of course you should speak up when you see something wrong. The difference is that if me, as a receiver, am the one to speak up and nobody from the services responsible,has noticed the fault in the proccess, then there is their responsibility too.

Have a nice Sunday too. Hopefully, I will “meet” some of you today, at the virtual meetup

Yes, not your job, but you are not forbidden to do it.

Maybe it’s a cultural thing, I think too. Here (people I know) most people feel responsibility about common things and know it is easier for everyone when you “police” also other things, not mind only your own things. There is a basic level of trust in many daily activities, so you don’t have to guard every process in every point.
When you see someone stealing, you can tell about it, or if you see someone getting beaten, call police. Not just thinking, it’s not my job, and “they” should do something about it, like add cameras. One day it can be your job that gets easier, and someone helps you. For someone the mystic “they” is their parents, boss, even themseleves etc.

Or it’s a personal feeling, if they feel they are part of society, and play by rules, they are more likely to report things, than if they want to rebel against “authorities” and are not yet grown up being responsible, or it might be culturally accepted thing to look away too, they don’t report. I know some adults that pride themselves on cheating this and that.

Funny how from someone’s messages I get a feeling it’s bad to report about such things, like the one who notices it, is doing something wrong, when they aren’t.

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This wasn’t asked from me, but I still answer. I too have more than 2000 received. I have time to look all my mail, it’s a way to relax for me, read the message, look the artist, the stamps, the photo in the card. So it’s not a task, or job, or responsibility, it doesn’t make me tired and actually doesn’t require much time either. And I still get mail other than Postcrossing :slight_smile: I have time for that too. Maybe matter of interest rather than time. I never go to cafes, because that would take my time and I don’t enjoy it, but for someone else it’s relaxing.

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Funny you mention cultural things. Well maybe it is your culture to overexaggerate, but not to mine. It is also quite funny to speak about responsibility, without knowing the slightest about the others.
Yes, if you see smn stealing,you report it. The same if smn gets killed or beaten. But comparing these crimes to just less paid postage, is really something l don’t agree with. You better sort them out yourself.
I am not saying don’t report, I am not saying don’t check, but that doesn’t mean I am less responsible than you, since this is what you imply.

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