Receiving MyPostcard Express cards - yay or nay?

@helent, thanks a lot for that great printer company suggestion! According to their site, they have 6 locations in UK and USA. @flecksofdust, they do ship to Singapore, cost depends on the speed you need (4, 7 or 20 business days).

1 Like

I agree with the people who said the primary issue is that you are giving someone’s address to a third party. I understand that Postcrossing is OK with these services so I will register cards and respond politely! But personally I don’t like it. I would rather receive a card the sender printed with Zazzle, VistaPrint, or at their local drug store than a card through these services.

(Putting this here since it’s sort of on topic)

I just received my first third-party service card. It’s a pretty picture, and the message is friendly and interesting. But I went to the third-party website out of curiosity and was surprised (and dismayed) to find out how much it cost the sender.

The service claims it uses First Class postage (35 cents), but the card was actually stamped First Class Bulk Rate (25 cents). And unless the sender is sending 500 cards at a time, the per-card charge was expensive. The paper is a little thin, and the photo is matte, not glossy. I feel like the sender didn’t get their money’s worth.

But the thing that bothered me most was the third party service website mentioned twice how using their service let someone “avoid the smell” of other people in line at the Post Office! Seriously? :flushed: I don’t want my address given to third parties, and I wouldn’t want to do business with a company that puts such a statement on their website.

7 Likes

I mean they could have worded it as maintaining social distance while still sending out your mail… “Avoid the smell” is not exactly very friendly. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

2 Likes

I think this was written pre-pandemic:
“No more standing in line at the post office and having to endure the sweat aromas of your neighboring post-office goers.”
“Send a card in minutes with a click of a button without any unpleasant odors to deal with.”

1 Like

:anguished: That is just unappealing advertising and makes all kinds of assumptions.

4 Likes

Hello, I’m a fellow Singaporean, so I could give my two cents’ worth too :slight_smile:

As the other Postcrossers already mentioned, they are uncomfortable with their addresses being given to other parties which they did not consent to, so I guess that might be a concern.

As for stamps, I would recommend going down to the Philatelic Store at SingPost Centre in Paya Lebar (first floor towards the back of the mall). There is actually a section where you can browse the stamp releases from 2017-2020, and then you can make a note before heading to the counter to let them know which series you would want to get.

For me, I will take this opportunity to get as many as 200 stamps at one shot so that I won’t have to make so many trips down. Local post offices are fine too, but they usually only have the definitives (i.e. the Vanishing Trade series or the Goldfish series), or another series but you won’t really get to choose which stamps they give you.

I think in general Postcrossers would appreciate to have actual stamps as opposed to postage stickers, so that might be a consideration.

As for postcards, they can be quite cheap if you search for them online on Shopee or Taobao, or you can visit The Green Party outlets too.

Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

5 Likes

Absolutely. I’ve bought many a series of stamps from the online shop. They have some lovely postcards too. If you go down to the post office looking for stamps in a specific denomination you might get disappointed by the lack of designs. Also the very odd thing I do not understand about Singapore’s post offices is why they sell a whole lot of postal-related things EXCEPT postcards…

I had good luck in 2018 at the Singapore Post Orchard location, in the underground of Ion Orchard Shopping Mall. I bought a packet of postcards themed “things we love about Singapore”.

I still have some, but can’t send them since no one wants postcards not sent from country of origin. :laughing:

1 Like

Oh those are nice. Were they sketches or photos? There are some really nice ones done by local artists on Shopee. Not as pricey as those sold on Naiise. I would love to have one! Anything you would like in exchange??

They were sketches. The drawings are slightly raised and glossy (hard to see in photo), really nice cards. I’ll DM you. See here:

1 Like

Oh these, they’re really cute. Did you manage to check out the Singapore Philatelic Museum while you were in Singapore? Many a gem of Singapore memorabilia to be found, including those old phone cards! It’s closed for renovation now, however.

1 Like

@shermint No, sadly, did not make it to the philatelic museum. But next time, for sure,
Maybe I’ll start a thread on Postal/ Philatelic Museums. When the world is safe to travel again, it would be good to know what cities have notable ones. I tried to go to the one in Paris in 2019 but it was closed for remodeling.

2 Likes

Continuing the discussion from Receiving MyPostcard Express cards - yay or nay?:

I just got my first MyPostcard.com card and I am really disappointed. First the person did not write the message; what he wrote was something that could have been said to any Postcrosser. BUT the biggest problem to me was the postcard was mailed from the USA to me in the USA from a person in Singapore. The card was obviously printed here in the USA and then mailed from here. That saved the person the cost of mailing from their country. No problem about saving money but I would have loved to have received a card from Singapore, not a card from here.

1 Like

I don’t like these either.
Not only the message is printed and card looks like piece of commercial often (not all these have real stamps - even cards from same sending service have had other a real stamp, the other not). Also one I received was more like a leaflet, with senders profile copied there, but it ended weirdly in the middle of sentence (all didn’t fit?), so I think one problem is, the sender don’t know what they are sending. They don’t see the “card”.

I have received nicer ones, that are sent from sender’s country, with a message to me, with picture I really like, but also not in any ways nice ones sent from different continent, with a bulk feel that partly copied profile. Like the card from German service took I think 25 days, and this was times when card from Germany normally travelled under a week.

Most of all, I don’t like my address shared, and I want this to be from person to person, not have some company do the job for anyone.

(Yes, I do understand maybe someone doesn’t have hands etc, and these are allowed and have to be registered. Good thing it’s rare and most members send normal cards. So, I will register such card, thank, but also tell I don’t like my address being shared. If they don’t care about my privacy, they should be able to live with knowing my opinion about this :smile: )

For me the privacy issue is the main point why I don’t like these cards.

Yes, they are impersonal and the pictures are not always what I like but I could oversee that. Giving my address to a third party is what I dislike. Postcrossing gives out very sensitive information (addresses) for the use of sending a postcard. I need to be able to trust other postcrossers to not use my personal data lightly. Them giving my address to one of these websites… I feel very uncomfortable about this.

There are so many ways to get postcards. You can print your own photo, buy postcards online, even make your own card if you are a crafty person (also not my taste but I would prefer that over a postcard where my address was given to a third party). I think most countries even offer stamps online. So there are ways to get everything you need in order to send a postcard yourselve. If you live far away from a public mailbox or a postoffice well that can also be taken into account by sending postcards when you plan a trip there. Or maybe ask your mail-person to take the cards with them.

So long story short: Privacy issues should be considered with this hobby.

6 Likes

Another issue is that this can distort statistics - like make it seem like a very quick arrival from Singapore to the U.S., when really it is U.S. to U.S.

5 Likes

That’s a really good point, @vule101 - Cards sent by friend in a different country

Dear @luckycherry - here is another good point from this older thread about the MyPostcard topic! It can distort Postcrossing’s statistics.

2 Likes

Thank you for tagging me! That’s a good point. I just read through the post - what an interesting read!

1 Like

Your post cards are lovely! I think you’re doing great and you can absolutely send them! :blush: