Maybe you got the card, but something happened befor you could register it, maybe an urgent phone call, and afterwards you were busy with other things and forgot to register the card.
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An expired card of mine to Spain was registered the other week and the recipient wrote in her Hurray-Message that she’d only just found out by some lucky coincidence that quite a lot of her mail had been put into a mailbox next to hers that didn’t belong to anyone! Luckily she was able to open this mailbox and retrieve her own mail and that was how she found my postcard.
So, as the others have said, anything is possible!
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Great! But not everyone is as perfect as you are!
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I agree. It’s not your problem.
The whining “did you receive my card, (also often:) please register ID-xxxx, I sent it xx weeks ago” messages drove me crazy, so I added this to my profile:
Please note: I register all cards on the day that I receive them. Not registered = not received.
It did help, I get fewer of these messages. But still some, and I think they are so incredibly annoying. I wish the FAQ didn’t recommend sending these! I usually reply something like “No. Please read my profile, it clearly states that I register all cards when I receive them. I will register your card when it arrives.”
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I have added similar note to my profile some months after the pandemic started, though I still receive messages like: “I read your profile but you can’t be so sure that you didn’t forget to register my postcard XX-1234567, so check it again and register it asap”. Grrrrr! 
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Sometimes I have people writing whether I receive their cards like after 10 days of traveling. On some occasions they exaggerate the travel time (like recently user claimed that he sent me a postcard in July, which was strange because I was in-active back then, turned out it was in October and at the time it wasn’t even expired)
Even though I register everything the same day or such, I must admit once I forgot to register, luckily I noticed it when I was writing about the card in my blog, and it wasn’t deleted from the system yet. So I registered and sent a thank you as an excuse
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I thought I would never ever forget to register a card but it happened twice lately that I put it somewhere and forgot until the next day. Sure, a day doesn’t make a difference, but if it had fallen somewhere or if I had a crazy busy life with 4 small children running around misplacing things, or a dog that might eat the postcard… I exaggerate, but it made me realise how it’s possible.
I’m not the biggest fan of these messages but I receive them very rarely. I occasionally sent them too in the early days, I’m more likely to send them to people who register sporadically but mostly I gave up as it never happened to me that someone forgot (only once someone registered 3 cards after my message and was never seen again since then).
I just registered a postcard sent on 28 December which is only 78 days but still. One of my cards took 4 months to get to Germany…!
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I recently received card mailed to me in December…
I also thought I would never forget to register a received postcard… until I found two postcards hidden under other things on a not so tidy sofa. They had been sent over 11 months before and must have arrived some time right after my moving back to Italy. I must have been so busy then that I didn’t put these postcards onto my desk.
I felt terribly sorry when I found them, but also relieved because I could still register them (with many apologies)!
I do send “have you by chance received my postcards” messages from time to time, but only after several months (10-12 months). It helped in a couple of cases: the recipient had actually forgot to register my postcard.
Anyway, I think it’s not a huge effort to reply “I’m sorry but I haven’t received your postcard yet”. 
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I guess we should all realise all Postcrossers are different. Maybe the person sending the postcard finds it expensive to send postcards due to their finances, their country’s postage price, etc, so it is really important to them that their postcards make it to their destinations so that they feel that they are not throwing away money on an expensive hobby! Maybe they sent the most beautiful postcard and really can’t wait for the receiver to receive it!
I think it is really quite unfair to not think the best of the person emailing you after four months to see if you have received it.
I have to say, I have emailed three people with expired cards from me (not to demand registration but to see if they received it). (I am new to Postcrossing and am just succumbing to being more patient). One emailed back with a perfectly logical explanation (they are stuck in lockdown away from home) and two never emailed me back. My first thought is that it’s entirely rude to not email back, as if they are telling me ‘I don’t care if I never received your pretty postcard, one that you picked for me based on what I said I wanted.’ But then I think that maybe something awful happened in their lives and postcards aren’t the biggest priority right now. I now have four other expired postcards on my list that I won’t check up on… so be it.
Sure, for someone that posts a message like this, it is clear they didn’t receive the postcard if they didn’t receive it. But let’s show some fellow respect to Postcrossers- we all love to send and receive postcards, and we should show a bit of empathy to those with missing postcards to their name! It sucks to have your postcard go missing, let’s face it!
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Exactly. Some people have more things going on in their Real Lives than worrying about a postcard or two.
Not really. It happens to everyone all the time. Other stuff in life “sucks”, but not an expired postcard. The word “perspective” springs to mind, TBH. 
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To receive an email is also a thing that happens to everyone all the time. So if an expired postcard does not ‘suck’, an email* doesn’t either. In perspective to all the other evil stuff out there.
*Note, again: I’m talking about friendly inquiry, not insisting/threatening stalking
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IMO expired postcards and messages about them both suck.
Expired cards happen. It does suck. But you learn to live with it. And do not message me about it.
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It seems to depend on one’s personal definition of “suck”. Having a now-disabled husband who depends on me entirely, sucks. That he’s also had a stroke, and cannot think of the right world and loses his temper a lot, sucks. That, like it or not, I’m his carer and it’s never going to get any better, sucks. That we’ll never go travelling again, sucks.
That’s why I said that other stuff in Real Life sucks, but not an expired postcard, which is so trivial compared with all the above. And that’s why I said it’s a matter of perspective.
For clarity, this reply isn’t aimed at you, KAS, it’s a reply to earlier posts in this thread which seemed not to be clear enough. 
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That must be hard. I would probably use a stronger word than “suck” to describe that.
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I very much agree on what you write.
Just want to add one point: The id might got blurred, the card arrived but it wasn’t possible to register as the number is missing.
So I wonder about the strong emotions regarding a simple, polite question.
To me it’s not that fun to invest time and money and not have the cards in the system. So if one slipps through - okay. But I would do anything like writing a mail to have it in.
If that sucks in the mind of people, I would rather wish for a way to get someone elses adress …
Postcrossing is suppossed to be fun and crossing borders, bringing together - isn’t?
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Yes, I think you are right, @ChocCrossie! I do like that PC brings like-minded, nice people together, and so I would think that any interaction with a Postcrosser is a good thing! 
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I literally just this week received a card postmarked 23 Dec 2020. 
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Maybe we should establish a new ranking for “longest time for travelling” … and make it a new award winning category 
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