Mail to China (2022 temporary suspension)

[littlesthobo]

@Bille

And Chinese user are not banned - they can send cards to their own country and to other countries and they will receive cards from other countries again when when the big backlog dissolves.

In fact, they are reporting that they have been receiving plenty of cards. So, from their side, it should seem like things are working normally. It is the other side that ends up waiting and waiting and waiting for cards to China to arrive and free up their slots.

[Johnk60]

Imagine my surprise just now at a Hurray message from China… after 46 days!

[Izzy2018]

You can do more private swaps and tags…these will keep you going until the Chinese post pick up their pace.

[Dr-K]

Some going to Shanghai made it in 3 weeks, others going to different cities, places took over 60 days. But if the sender’s slot is freed after 60 days and the Chinese recipient can still register the card after 60 days, why “suspending the mail to China”. It is not like every other address is from China!
For me every other address is from the USA or Germany, so China would be great!
I had 2 cards sent from Mexico 2 months ago and I am still waiting for them. And we live in Texas! So you never know!
Good luck to all

[varn]

Just trying to get my head around this.

Basics

• A postcard is in travel mode when it is traveling for fewer than 60 days.
• A postcard is in expired mode when it is traveling between 60 and 365 days. It still can be registered.
• A postcard is deleted from the database after a year without registration.
• A user can be deactivated by the system under certain circumstances. In this case, the user can neither send nor receive.
• A user can voluntarily set their account inactive. In this case, the user can continue to send but their address will not be given out.

Some numbers

Q = Quota of postcards one can send at the same time

Expected total of sent postcards S = S1 + S2 + S3
S1 = Number of sent postcards
S2 = Number of traveling sent postcards
S3 = Number of expired sent postcards
Additionally,
S4 = Number of deleted sent postcards

Expected total of received postcards R = R1 + R2 + R3
R1 = Number of received postcards
R2 = Number of traveling postcards to be received
R3 = Number of expired postcards to be received
Additionally,
R4 = Number of deleted postcards to be received

Surplus limits:
Sx = Maximum number of expired sent postcards one is allowed to have
The surplus limit may depend on Q, S2, S3 and potentially on the breakdown of destinations.

Rx = Maximum number of expired postcards due for a recipient

Over time, S equals R on a per-user basis

Scenarios

What happens when a postcard expires on day 60?

• If the recipient’s Rx is not exceeded, the address of the intended recipient will be assigned to another user (whose S2 < Q) randomly.

What happens to the recipient when traveling and expired postcards exceed a certain amount?

• Once Rx reaches the limit, the user will be deactivated until they register some postcards.

What happens to the sender when traveling and expired postcards exceed a certain amount?

• Same as above. Once Sx reaches the limit, the user will be deactivated until some of their sent postcards are registered.

Multiple ways of defining imbalance of sent and received numbers:

• Compare S1 and R1
• Compare S1 + S2 and R1 + R2
• Compare S and R

What if…

• R3 or R2 + R3 grows too large for a single user. A massive automatic deactivation will occur for many users?
  • Deactivated users may have motivation to create a new account?
• R3 or R2 + R3 grows too large for the system. The backlogs will cause the database to collapse?
• Suppose the server can handle a high level of “backlogs” (distinct from the physical postcards, among other items, that a mail processing center is handling), and also suppose all users get notified on extremely low registration rates in a specific case, individual users can make their own decision to send immediately or wait it out?
• Long waiting times cause frustation. How to calculate waiting times? For example,
  • Traveling days for S2, S3 and/or S4. This is visible to the sender.
  • Traveling days for R2, R3 and/or R4. This is invisible to the recipient.

How is such frustration distributed?

• Even if the option is enabled to send to the same countries, there is still likely to be a mix of at least two or three. Deactivation due to high S2 + S3 looks less likely than due to R2 + R3.
• As long as address assignment is random, frustration should be evenly spread out, which is fair.

Then the question boils down to whether, when and how a postal route is determined to be dysfunctional based on incomplete information.

• When and how?
  • Seek input from local users first, especially on the mail delivery situation?
  • Inform people of the problems (such as low registration rates) first?
• If it is not the case that the algorithm is failing or that a massive deactivation wave (and potential duplicate account creation) is imminent, would it be possible to just leave it to individual judgment as to whether and when to send a postcard?
• Adjustments for giving out addresses of “postally unreliable” destinations may be possible or even desirable, taking into account one’s quota (Q).

[June060310]

I received the callback of my complaint.

They said there isn’t “a list of unavailable destinations” on the website of China Post.
We can ask the post office or 11185 for the information when we have a CERTAIN destination to mail to.
We can also use the Rate Enquiry on the website to search for the information. “If the destination is available, you can get the price of it on the website.”

Examples:(according to the standards of Postal Monitor, the examples are only about airmail)

That means you can send mails to USA from China.

That (the grey message) means you CANNOT send mails to Curaçao from China.
(Curaçao is not in Postal Monitor yet.)

So the only way to work out the question is - the exhaustive method - to search for all of the destination countries on the website and check if it is available.
I can spend some time to search this. Should I report the (relatively reliable) result at :postcard: Mail Suspension Alerts - #1162 by Chieusa ?

But, at the same time, they said the TEMPORARY suspension is unable to be enquired on the website. I don’t know the standard of “temporary”, but that means the result I get cannot be on time very much.

[littlesthobo]

That sounds like a very broken postal system. I have never heard of anything like that in a large country. I’m very sorry.

[missmelbourne]

@June060310 I just wanted to commend you on all the research and reporting on this. You’ve done so much work and I know a lot of people will appreciate it

[meiadeleite]

This is really helpful, June! Thank you so much for taking the time to follow-up with China Post and going through that list.

Could you maybe share with us the link to this Rate Enquiry page? I’m not sure whether it is the one we know of… but this one looks different, and maybe that means we can make a script that goes through the form, so that we can automate this process of checking which countries are receiving mail.

[June060310]

My screenshots are from the WeChat official account of China Post(中国邮政微邮局).
There isn’t any link of Rate Enquiry on the mobile website of China Post. The homepage of it is almost a website to sell postal collections.

Then I used my laptop. The website is also like a shopping website. But according to the guidance from the earlier callback, I successfully found the link of Rate Enquiry, despite it is confusingly in the page of express delivery service.

The way to use it is same to the WeChat official account. The example is still of Curaçao.
The website is:
https://dey.11185.cn/web/#/jdpostage
(Please use it on computer. On the mobile phone it is not properly displayed.)

I may update the translation of the website later. But now I have to reply my boyfriend. Sorry—he is waiting for me.

[paulo]

Thank you for taking the time to help us with this!

@June060310

The website is:
https://dey.11185.cn/web/#/jdpostage

I should have mentioned it earlier, but long ago we went this route and even had a script working that would query the China Post postage calculator page for all destinations.

This worked well for several months, however, at some point they have put up a protection that prevents the page from being query through automation… And we just don’t have the resources to regularly do it manually for every single combination of not just country but also Airmail/Surface/SAL (plus all the other postal operators we need to keep track of). I just had a quick look and it seems the protection is still in place.

[June060310]

Here is the simple translation.

Please follow the order of the photos when using it.

[June060310]

Oh, I understand the situation… Thank you for your careful work!
The tool at the WeChat official account is working. But you can’t use it unless you have a WeChat account. It is hard to register an account with a foreign phone number now.
The only solution maybe is to check it in person from time to time🤣. It takes about 10 minutes to run through these countries. How often should it be examined? As far as I know, the website is updated quite slowly. And the information from this way is very basic-since the temporary suspension cannot be published.

[Snorkie]

Thanks, I was getting frustrated knowing my cards to China have gone expired yet I was still getting addresses for China- knowing they’d surely meet the same fate.

[natashaportman1]

Exactly, I was suspended for almost a week, because too many cards sent to China were expired. I was trying to explain to the admin that it’s not my fault, but the only answer I got from them that the system will unblock me automatically. But it was not my fault in a first place. This is extremely unfair. Do I want to send cards to China? Not anymore.

[Bowyum]

The blocking of accounts due to cards not arriving is really upsetting for Postcrossers who do the right thing and always send/register cards when given addresses/ receive cards. When you have been participating in the project for years it is annoying to say the least, to be told by a computer that you are not allowed to take part any more because of a perception that you are doing something wrong.

[varn]

Looks like the deactivation threshold based on sent traveling cards Sx is much lower than for expected received postcards Rx and does not account for breakdown of destinations.

[Vollerei]

Sometimes, this system is inaccurate - for a while, the cost of sending letters (or parcels) to Russia could not be found in this system, but in fact, mainland China could send things to Russia at that time.