What about going to Post Office and telling the problem?
She’s done that:
I’ve spoken to the clerk at the desk and she has no idea why they won’t deliver it.
in the usa, sorting machines process the mail. unless you pay extra for manual processing (15¢ for domestic and 21¢ for international per piece of mail). the sorting machines can do up to 30,000 pieces of mail per hour. so, it finding the address fast and will anything looking like an address. non-latin alphabet addresses will be a bit harder for the machine code.
interesting fact that the sorting machine - it took 85 people to process the same amount of mail as one sorting machine. but less errors with human processors.
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I have to agree that this sounds like a sorting machine problem.
I work as a mailwoman in the Netherlands and almost all of our mail is sorted by machine. I often see letters (not so much postcards) coming back to the original owner because their return address was more visible than the recipient’s. But I will often redirect these letters to the correct destination by crossing out the return address and striking through the printed barcode. When it goes back into the machine, it usually picks up the correct address. If it happens a second time, I put a sticker on it and send it back into manual sorting which almost always solves the problem.
But given that the recipient’s address is in Chinese and your return address was easy to read, it probably never got streamed into manual sorting. I am pretty sure you leaving your return address out will fix it. But then again is it really worth a 4th stamp? I’d have to agree with @SailingBy here. I’d just skip it and go to the next. You’ve already had contact with the postcrosser. I’m sure he would understand.
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This is all very interesting for people who are interested in the USA mail processes, but the fact remains that one postcrosser - who has been here for over ten years - has tried to send one postcard (three times) which didn’t get delivered or registered. This is really not a Big Deal. It happens to everyone. The word “perspective” springs to mind.
But while I’m still here, you said
Please don’t tell us that you’ve tried this three times in sixty days?! (automatic expired, you get a slot back) Or did you mean you’ve tried three times in one year? If the latter, please just forget that one card. . . . . . . .you’ll feel better if you do, honestly. Life’s too short!
It was posted on another topic here on this forum, but this might help, too:
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interesting that the usps had this requirement. for any addresses in non-latin alphabet, i just on the bottom of the address write in big black letters the country of destination and never had one of those postcards return by the usps. but i stop putting my return address on them to (thus no returns) but do not know if the postcard was lost if the receiver has not register the postcard.
if you choose to put your return address, put/write it unside down and in small letters and put a red “X” over the return address. this way, the sorting machine will see the correct address and the receiver and/or post office of its destination point can read it.
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No. I have not “tried three times in sixty days or a year” I just keep popping it back, with the SAME stamp for the last couple of weeks. I guess my perspective is different than yours. I’m patient and I try to make things work. Yes, I’ve been here over ten years but I haven’t been active for most of those ten. I just this month started again and many things have changed since the pandemic. I agree is isn’t a big deal, but if I can learn something from this, including something I may be doing wrong (which I have found I am), then my perspective is that asking this question was worth it.
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English should not be a problem.
I used to live in China, when I received some foreign letters or postcards. Staff would write the addresses in Chinese next to the English ones, in order to make postmans understand where letters or postcards should go.
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Why a fourth stamp if it is a fault of USPS? I would mail it again without a new stamp.
Ya she just corrected this and said she didn’t use new stamps. That’s even better. Then it is just a long delay.
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I can confirm that putting a return address onto a piece of mail sent from the USA always bears the risk of getting it returned to the sender by USPS. A while ago a friend in the USA sent an envelope to me, my address written large in the expected spot (lower right side), the return address small in the expected spot (upper left edge). Both in the same Latin-script handwriting, but still the envelope was returned. The clerk at the post office told the sender to cross out the return address and to obfuscate both barcodes (USPS uses a black barcode on the front and a neon-orange barcode on the back of each mail piece), and this time the envelope arrived. It is one of my favorite items in my collection now, because it got cancelled twice with two different dates (on the same stamps of course). 
On postcards I never put a return address. Either they arrive or they get lost…
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Postcards, in my opinion, should be regarded as balloons released into the sky. Or messages in bottles floated into the sea. Some arrive, some don’t. It’s good when some arrive, but that’s the ‘name of the game’. I realise that I’m in a distinct minority here, not taking this seriously (enough).
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I’ve never had to add another stamp…only the original stamp has been used.
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I replied to Cremebrulee, who wrote about using a fourth stamp. I hope your card will arrive now.
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So there’s a company failing several times to perform its promised services, the service you paid for, and you shrugg it off?
Don’t know if that’s the last state of laidbackness or the ultimate surrender to a flawed world only ruled by fate.
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Very interesting to know that USPS requires extra postage for hand cancelling.
The UPU recommendation is to use both (the language&script used on the destination country, as well as your own script). In practice though, this is hard to fit on postcards and using just the destination script is often fine.
Regardless, it is important that the name of destination country is always written in a script/language that the sending country can understand. Hence: does it have China on the last line of the address? If it is written just in Chinese characters, that could explain why the sorting machine can’t figure out where to send it.
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I use the address provided by postcrossing and print it on a label. I some cases, the postcrosser will provide two addresses, one in their native language (non-latin alphabet characters like any of the asian ideograph forms, or Cyrillic or greek). In those cases I use the address that they provided that is in their native language. It is my theory that the postal system in their country is more likely to deliver such a card then if I send it with the address in the alphabet that they don’t normally use.
All that being said, I still write (or print on the label) the name of the destination country in the eating alphabet (in English in my case, as I am sending for the U.S.) at the bottom of that address. Once the sorting machine or sorting mail clerk knows the card is going to China, the rest of the address is really immaterial to them. But you do need them to recognize that it is going to China.
This method has worked well for me.
Kudos to you for your persistence!
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Thanks. This is what I do as well. My handwriting isn’t the best so I print the address and the Id and tape them to the card. In this case, the address was in Chinese Characters but it also had CHINA written in English at the bottom. This time I have crossed out my return address so either way I won’t be getting it back. I just hope it manages to make it for the receivers sake. Thank you.
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