I’ve seem to be having the worst luck lately and it’s really getting disheartening. A large number of the addresses I’ve drawn the last couple of months are from users who I’ve come to realize put their account on inactive, rack up due postcards, reactivate their account, then disappear for 40, 60, 80+ days until they have a huge stack of cards and register them all at once. Looking at their Received cards you can see they have dozens of cards all send the same day, received the same day, traveled the same number of days.
I know that it’s just part of the game but I have about 6 slots taken up in this way right now and it’s getting so discouraging. One is to my same country, one state over, only a few hundred miles away. It’s been traveling almost 30 days. I’m just here to complain, I know nothing can be done about this. Has anyone else been drawing an unequal share of this kind of user?
I don’t really check very often, but when postcards to countries where the travel time should not be very long, I do check if they are active. Then I might also check sent and received, and a couple of times I have seen people who seems to wait with registration of their received postcards to later (every two weeks or once a month).
@linos203 Do postmen actually steel stamps? I’ve heard of user’s say this before in the past and I’ve heard some users who I talk to privately and they have said that this has actually happened to them.
@Walden unfortunately there’s nothing you can do you cant control the actions of others. Personally I register my postcards the same day I receive them it if I don’t register in the morning I’ll do it in the evening. Stacking up 60 cards and register them all at once seems like a chore and more hassle than it’s worth.
Only speaking for me PERSONALLY, but I gave up on Official Postcrossing long ago. I had enough of dealing with short-timers and others who prefer to participate on their own terms. I wish these people would find a different hobby, honestly.
Yes I generally don’t like private swaps and prefer the old-fashioned way. But I admit I do not send my really special cards to anyone whose profile gives me the smallest sense that it might not be registered. They get the cards that I won’t stress over being lost.
Although I went the opposite direction a couple days ago for a user I drew who had only sent one card in the last 2 years and hadn’t logged in in 2+ weeks: sent 2 cards in an envelope will stickers, stamps, etc. I figured maybe I’ll make it so good they feel too guilty not registering it! We’ll see if that strategy works. But now I’ll be extra annoyed if they never register it lol
I just joined Postcrossing and already there is one who hasn’t registered my card. The member has been sending cards but nothing registered in almost a year. Is it considered okay to send the person a message?
I have been very busy in some weeks, travelling several days for work without returning home at all. It can happen, that I only register on the weekend. I am very sorry if that annoys others, but it cannot be helped.
And sometimes our postman seems to collect cards. I got FOUR WorldPostcad-cards on Saturday, from Taiwan, US and Canada, after getting none for days. Difficult to believe that they all had the same travelling time?
When did they last log in? If it was very recent there’s no need to worry, they will register the card when it arrives. If they haven’t logged in for a month it might be worth a message.
That’s right. But I guess that Cliffside meant it that, that some users just give up after a short time and never coming back although they still have to register some received cards.
He didn’t say that every beginner is a short-timer.
Also this is true and it happens.
But, and of course I can only speak for myself and for what I see in the games I take part: from around 500 cards I send out a year in RR or any other games there are maybe one or two cards which never reach the recipient.
In the same amount of official cards there are at least 10, 15 cards which never get registered (or really lost or whatever). I think this is huge difference.
An example: between September last year and May this year about 50 of my sent cards got expired. I think that in all my postcrossing years before there were maybe 30 expired cards in total.
There are plenty of reasons why this happens, mail isssues, illness, death…
But there are also users who lost interests and vanish or aren’t taking the rules serious.
I’ve read some people say they get very annoyed to get a message asking if they received the card, so this makes me afraid to ever message anyone and have them decide that now they’re REALLY never going to register it. I would say definitely don’t message anyone before 50 or 60 days, unless it’s in your same country and then wait maybe 30 days at least.
@linos…I apologize and I removed the latter part of my comment.
Obviously I’m not talking about people who just register on weekends or whatever. I’m talking about people who register once a month or once every 2 months or more. I’ll sometimes hold onto a card for a few days if I want to write out a longer response message or if it’s written in another language and I need to spend time translating before I respond.
I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope that a message will change the outcome.
If you do send one, make sure it’s very neutral - people sometimes send very accusatory messages & that is not helpful to your goal. You have no idea of their life circumstances.
And the other thing I’d say for your “in country” cards is there are have been lots of problems with USPS in the last 8 months or so & so it may be a mail delivery issue rather than an issue with the person who receives your card.
I’m had 9 of my cards to the US expire in the last 10 months & I’m sending from Canada.
Lads at the end of the day we are all here because we like sending and receiving postcards can we not unite around that we are literally a dying breed of people.
Oh boy don’t get me started on USPS. It’s very embarrassing and I’m sorry to all the other countries that have to deal with the US’s crap. It’s crazy the difference when I look at travel time when I started in 2012/2013 vs when I started sending again this year.
Well the previous US Admin made lots of cuts that haven’t been reversed sadly - even a year ago, I had no trouble sending cards to the US - 99% of them arrived quickly, but not in the last 8 to 10 months or so.
Did you see this recent post?
And the corrupt postmaster general from the last administration is still the postmaster general today… it’s a complicated process to replace him but they are trying. Hopefully soon. My travel times sending to Canada are pretty slow and it doesn’t make sense to me. How do cards to Germany and Japan arrive sooner than to our neighbors? But I believe it will improve eventually. In the meantime we are scheduled for yet another price increase in 2023.