Not receiving postcards

Let me add one more thing - Sometimes I show the post office counter clerk or mail carrier one or two of my Postcrossing postcards - let them share in the fun of reading postcards from around the world!

I got some card from Italy that traveled about 1 month (to Germany)

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Since COVID period, mail exchange became a huge, unpredictable mess. Travelling times became much longer, mail gets stuck somewhere and there is no guarantee that card from/to a neighbouring country or within Europe (speaking for Slovenia) will arrive faster from from card departing to/arriving from one of distant, exotic countries.

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I’m glad it’s not just me… I have not had any cards to register since 10 Jan and 4 of my 6 travelling are more than 3 weeks old (one will expire on Sunday).

But I got drawn on a tag by a user in Japan and their card arrived in 5 days.

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I thought this response is only common in our country :joy:
Well, now I know it’s not.

I haven’t received postcards (both official and from the forum) since October 2022. Now my account has been temporarily suspended due to high number of postcards travelling to me, expiring

I have 103 sent and 72 received, quite a gap

At least for me I know the issue is in my local postal service which is reportedly have been working slower than usual. Some postcrossers have at least received some cards, although slowly. Some others have received none, like me and have their account temporarily suspended

I was suggested to use P.O box , while that may solve my problem in getting mails, it doesn’t solve problem our postal service is dealing with. So, sadly, I’m taking a break from postcrossing until my mails are delivered (which I don’t know when :joy:)

Perhaps P.O box could be nice idea to try if your mail delivery has been slow

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I have sent six traveling cards sent in November, all now expired of course, and it seems they all have gone missing. Three of those cards to Germany, and one to Netherlands, which are both usually reliable and somewhat fast (maybe 2 to 3 weeks). The recipients are all active, so it does not seem to be them.
I have sent many cards since then, most to Germany, and they are all getting registered.
I think my sent cards from November may be permanently lost somewhere. Except one of them was sent to a new member from Japan who has not been back on the website in months and has only one sent card in their profile, so I assume that is a ghost now.
I hope your mail arrives soon! It is frustrating.

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I don’t know why but this system is so hard to comprehend for me. :woozy_face: I see why I may not be receiving the official PC postcards but I am also actively swapping and tagging here on the forum, and I’m not receiving those postcards as well. So there is something going on for sure.

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From your numbers alone you are not due any cards. (Though there may be some traveling to you still, triggered by a past registration) (The imbalances are discussed regularly, they happen because the demand for (certain countries’) adresses can only be met that way)

Note: your adress goes into the official pool only when your see the ‘NOW you will receive …’ as last line in a hurray message.

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Thanks for the insight, appreciate it :slight_smile:

This is so true for neighbour countries. A postcard of mine took 150~ days to get to France which is so close to Portugal

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May I ask why your account got suspended? I’m not sure I understood it. Is it because of the excess of postcards to receive? Why would that suspend it?

I started Postcrossing on 30 Dec 2022. I didn’t receive my first postcard until the 3rd of Feb.

I can only speak for the US Postal Service. Domestic delivery has been slowed down. Instead of 3 days for a letter to go from say New York City to Los Angeles, it is now 5 to 8 days. Local/regional mail has slowed as well.

When I had penpals back in the 90s - a letter (or postcard) to Germany took 4 to 5 days to arrive, now it takes 8+ days.

I sent a Christmas card to my friend in Australia back in mid November. She didn’t get it until the 3rd week of January. However, my Christmas cards to Canada, Ireland and Germany arrived within 7 to 10 days after sending them.

It is so strange how mail around the world works these days. Sometimes it’s quick and other times it takes weeks for something to arrive to its destination.

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Appreciate the update on the potential mail strike in Germany. Please keep us updated! Many of my cards get sent there.

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I believe German will be temporarily blocked then, like Finland was when we had a strike.
So Finnish addresses were not given (I don’t remember if I was able to draw adddresses :thinking: probably not). Some Finns, I think a very small part, still got mail and swaps, but I didn’t get anything during the whole strike.

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During the last postal strike in 2015 we were not blocked, although the strike took five weeks.

  • The unions did not impose the strike on all sorting centres and delivery bases for the whole time, they always changed them after a few days.
  • Not all workers were members of a union and got a strike pay.
  • Deutsche Post hired strike breakers.

So there was always some mail delivery back then.
And after the strike they delivered the backlog instead of burning it, like maybe the workers in other countries would have done.

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:grimacing:

But that’s interesting, obviously we had some places/people working too and not full strike, since some people got mail. I don’t remember how long it was, two weeks perhaps. (Edit. yes, looks like it was two weeks.)

Maybe the postal monitor type system was not working in 2015, but did in 2019 when Finland had the strike.

There’s no reason to block the whole country because even if a whole company is called to strike the reality is that NOT the whole company is doing that. Like Ralf said. In 2015 the strike lasted for around one month and even though only some regions felt a big impact.

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The postal monitor was set up in 2020 when the Covid-19-pandemic began.

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I’m not suggesting/hoping it would happen. :hugs:
Just thinking how Finland was blocked in similar situation (if I don’t remember totally wrong).
I don’t see what’s different, we also didn’t have the whole company striking.
Also I don’t think our country burnt any mail piles :slight_smile:

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I do not remember that Finland was blocked or that the Finnish strike was discussed on the forum and a blockade for two weeks would not have much effect, for postcard travel times are often longer.

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