I’ve had people from Germany, Russia & US ask about lost cards so yeah an ID is necessary given the volume of cards some of us receive over time from these countries.
… all of us is more fitting 
No interest in quarreling here. But what is the scenario where a description is not suffice, but you need the exact ID?
- card is thrown away already - no need for any of the things
- card is in an album or box without order: guess it’s easier to search by image than by 7- or 8-digit-numbers
- card is in album with order: again, for me personally, timeframe and description would be enough.
Note also that for all these scenarios folks would have to move cards into their boxes/boxes/bins without registering before on a regular basis. I doubt that it’s the most common reason for unregistered cards.
Also, if a user really is willing to go the extra-mile to check for the asked card, they could always ask for the ID resp. parts of.
Not providing the ID spares situations the OP has had, so for me - again, personally - it’s the prefered option.
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Also, by providing a description of the postcard front but not the ID, you are implicitly making it clear you don’t want them to register it unreceived. So this is what I have done.
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If they registered the card without having it, then it is their fault. The rules say, that they must not do so snd you did not ask for that, so you do not need to do anything. You sent a card, so your part is done.
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A little off topic but I have a question. I received a message from someone who reports a postcard sent to me expired. I have been asked to register it anyway. I am going to double check my basket, maybe I did miss it but what are your thoughts about registering a card you didn;t receive?
Welcome to the forum! 
To answer your question, you’re not obligated to register a card you haven’t received. In fact, it’s against the community guidelines :
Register postcards on arrival.
When a postcard arrives, you should register it as soon as possible, since the sender is dependent on you to be able to receive a postcard back. Never register a postcard that hasn’t arrived yet; if you see requests otherwise, please report it to us!
Some users will send a reminder if a postcard expires or if (what they consider) too long has passed before it gets registered. This isn’t necessary (nor is it forbidden, but it does tend to ruin the surprise for official cards), and it’s entirely possible that the card simply hasn’t arrived yet!
When my first postcard expired, I sent a message to the recipient on day 60ish. I sent a second card shortly after, as she’d replied that she hadn’t received the card. Funnily enough, she received the first card the same day I sent out the second one! 
So patience is key, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to register a card you haven’t received!
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What about registering cards that have been lost. I am totally down with registering them if they show up after the 60 days but why /why not register them if they never come? Seems silly to register if they never come but is it the polite thing to do if specifically asked? Help
Per the Postcrossing rules, you don’t have to register a card that you did not receive
See:
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Hi! If someone has asked you to register a card you haven’t received, you definitely shouldn’t do that. Only cards which actually arrive should be registered, according to Postcrossing’s community guidelines.
If someone has been asking you to do that, it’d be best to let the Postcrossing staff know about it via the contact form: Contact us
One of the team can get in touch with the member to explain the rules and remind them it’s not permitted, to make sure there’s no confusion about that.
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I’m part of the Postcrossing team, so I can definitely say that we handle this kind of thing and guide people toward obeying the rules! Sometimes, in my experience, it gets awkward because someone has been doing it for a long time and “no one ever complained before”… so I’m sure a lot of people don’t let us know about it. But it is breaking the rules and it is fine to contact the support team about it.
Of course, it’s one thing for someone to just inquire whether a card has arrived, and another to ask for it to be registered when it hasn’t. Just asking whether a card might have arrived and been missed accidentally is fine, of course.
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Asking someone to register a card that hasn’t arrived is against the rules, and the support team will contact people to explain that it isn’t allowed if it gets reported to us.
If someone contacts you saying something like, “I sent you a postcard recently and I was wondering whether it arrived yet; it has a picture of a castle on it and was sent on [date], is it possible you missed registering it?”, then that sort of thing is fine – they’re not asking you to register it, they’re just making sure their card hasn’t been missed. But if they’re asking you to register a card which hasn’t arrived, then that’s against the community guidelines.
Here is the rule as written there:
Register postcards on arrival.
When a postcard arrives, you should register it as soon as possible, since the sender is dependent on you to be able to receive a postcard back. Never register a postcard that hasn’t arrived yet; if you see requests otherwise, please report it to us!
You can see that right there in the community guidelines, it’s asking people to report such instances.
I hope that helps clarify things! 
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This was a very useful thread, thank you to all and to the mod who moved me over here:)
I checked my stash and do not have it, the from country is far and we are not on the best terms at the moment, so I will regisiter the card when it arrives and not before.
Thanks again
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I would probably ignore the message. Amazingly in my three years here I have never had anyone ask me.
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I recently got asked by a member to register his missing card, which foolishly I did, because his message was very nice and he promised to sent a replacement card. But that never happened. When I looked at his profile I noticed that he has sent A LOT of cards, well into the 5 digit number, so clearly he is just interested in raising his numbers. Obviously it was my own fault, and I shouldn’t complain, but I just feel quite disappointed in this dishonest behaviour.
I think you should maybe report this member.
But perhaps the replacement card will still arrive, hopefully! Still, asking to register non arrived card is wrong.
With that many sent he should also have the patience to wait, and know the rules not to ask such things. (And not to offer to do it either.)
I do not register postcards I haven’t received. I got my first request to do so last week, and politely said, “I’m sorry - I did not receive your postcard.”
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I registered a postcard that showed up in my USPS Informed Delivery email (a summary of inbound mail for the day, with images of the back of the card).
The card seems to have been lost between the sorting location where it was scanned and my mailbox, but the image of the postcard in the email was good enough for me to read the sender’s message and the postcard ID. Thankfully, the sender had uploaded an image of the front of the card to Postcrossing, so even though I didn’t receive the physical card, I was able to see both the front and the back.
I’m new to Postcrossing… it fact, this was the first postcard that I “received”… Hopefully this is an anomaly, and I’ll actually receive most of the postcards that are sent to me.
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I have received a few messages this year (more than in previous years) asking me to register postcards that haven’t arrived. I either ignore the message or respond with something like I register postcards as soon as I receive them. Mail takes a very long time it seems to travel to and from Australia. It is what it is.
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I’ve only received a message asking me to register a card once. I simply wrote back that the card hadn’t arrived yet but that I would be on the lookout for it - and the sender sent me a second card! I thought that this was really nice of them 
the original card unfortunately never made it.
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I sometimes send out a message to ask if they received my card with picture X. Because it has been travelling for quite a while and I want to make sure it didn’t arrive before sending a resend. Or something like that. So I don’t mention the ID.
When someone asks, I will just reply that I haven’t received it and that I hope it wil arrive soon.
But I don’t register without ID.
I know some state in their profile that if a card is travelling to long, you can ask them to registrate anyway. But I wouldn’t even ask them. Most cards arrive anyway.
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