Okay, I hope this is the right place to put this. If not, MODS, feel free to move it.
I recently moved back to an Apt. where I lived before. (We had to sell our home, which there were 0 mail problems in 8 months there.) We had a few problems before at this same address, but different Apt. #. The problem is this. When I have ordered cards on Ebay through Delivery Confirmation #, I have occasionally NOT received them in my box, despite the usps.com tracking saying that I did. This only happens when my regular mail lady is not here. She can't work all 7 days a week all year round. The 1st time over a year ago, I lost $170 that I paid for cards totaling $270. Right now, those cards are worth $500+ as you can see with the price spikes in Legacy and Modern staples.
This is what happened last Sat. I was supposed to receive cards from an Ebay store from the same state. Unfortunately, they came in 1 day shipping, which was Sat., the day that the regular mail lady was not working. It was said to be received at 9:30 a.m., but I had an empty box. There was nothing. There is no reason for me to lie about $40 worth of cards that I will probably end up paying for without having them anyway.
I checked at all of the local post offices. Today, I talked to the manager at my local post office. He said that he is going to talk with the mail carrier that day. He also made a mistake of agreeing with me when I described the mail carrier who I thought it was. The female mail carrier doesn't seem like an MTG player and some of her mistakes before were just leaving the DC mail outside of the box (twice before when I lived here; once I found it face down on the ground and once a 6 yr old neighbor who I didn't know personally brought it to me). Should I confront her and ask what happened? I know there's really nothing I can do but "take it up the b@#$." What would you do?
(I realize that I created a thread like this before when it happened last year.)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
You just have to wait.
Did you verify the address they had? It could have the wrong apartment number or Circle instead of Street etc.
The mail carrier may be dropping it in the wrong mailbox. I had my neighbor bring a netflix movie to my house that got dropped in their mailbox.
Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
Thanks for the website. I forgot about that one from last time. By the way, I don't remember any correspondence after I did this the 1st time
a year ago. Hopefully this time will be different.
Maybe I can videotape the non regular mail lady doing her rounds? It would not be tough to
set her up since she's so consistent. The sad part is that I don't want this person to touch my mail or even be any-
where near my mail for obvious reasons. At the same time, our regular mail lady is so professional and my wife and
I have even exchanged gifts with her on the holidays. She's a very nice and professional person. I have come to
notice this with certain people as I have gotten older because it's very uncommon.
Overall, the mail service has been great for me at least 99% of the time. I bought cards for $60 shipped on Ebay that would have cost me $84 at my LGS, so I will continue to use the Postal Service until there is an affordable option. Please don't tell me UPS is viable because I've had much worse headaches with them and refuse to use them. The mail service works wonderfully usually, but unfortunately it seems that these mistakes are more than coincidence when it
always happens with DC mail to my address when the same non regular mail lady is working.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
when you track your package, you could always request the carrier to hold the package for personal pickup. this has to be done before your package has reached your city and out for distribution. i do this whenever i order something valuable or at least big.
The post office takes this stuff very seriously. File a report and if needed file a claim back with whoever you bought it through. If it was on eBay, as long as you have the report from the post office at the very least they'll compensate you.
Thanks for the website. I forgot about that one from last time. By the way, I don't remember any correspondence after I did this the 1st time
a year ago. Hopefully this time will be different.
Maybe I can videotape the non regular mail lady doing her rounds? It would not be tough to
set her up since she's so consistent. The sad part is that I don't want this person to touch my mail or even be any-
where near my mail for obvious reasons. At the same time, our regular mail lady is so professional and my wife and
I have even exchanged gifts with her on the holidays. She's a very nice and professional person. I have come to
notice this with certain people as I have gotten older because it's very uncommon.
Overall, the mail service has been great for me at least 99% of the time. I bought cards for $60 shipped on Ebay that would have cost me $84 at my LGS, so I will continue to use the Postal Service until there is an affordable option. Please don't tell me UPS is viable because I've had much worse headaches with them and refuse to use them. The mail service works wonderfully usually, but unfortunately it seems that these mistakes are more than coincidence when it
always happens with DC mail to my address when the same non regular mail lady is working.
I wouldn't video tape the postal workers without looking up and making sure it's not a felony. I know in most states it's now illegal to video tape police officers, it might even be a federal law. It might be highly illegal to video tape a postal worker or any federal employee.
Thanks for the website. I forgot about that one from last time. By the way, I don't remember any correspondence after I did this the 1st time
a year ago. Hopefully this time will be different.
Maybe I can videotape the non regular mail lady doing her rounds? It would not be tough to
set her up since she's so consistent. The sad part is that I don't want this person to touch my mail or even be any-
where near my mail for obvious reasons. At the same time, our regular mail lady is so professional and my wife and
I have even exchanged gifts with her on the holidays. She's a very nice and professional person. I have come to
notice this with certain people as I have gotten older because it's very uncommon.
Overall, the mail service has been great for me at least 99% of the time. I bought cards for $60 shipped on Ebay that would have cost me $84 at my LGS, so I will continue to use the Postal Service until there is an affordable option. Please don't tell me UPS is viable because I've had much worse headaches with them and refuse to use them. The mail service works wonderfully usually, but unfortunately it seems that these mistakes are more than coincidence when it
always happens with DC mail to my address when the same non regular mail lady is working.
I wouldn't video tape the postal workers without looking up and making sure it's not a felony. I know in most states it's now illegal to video tape police officers, it might even be a federal law. It might be highly illegal to video tape a postal worker or any federal employee.
Yeah I realize this. I actually remember talking to her before last year about the problems and I seemed unconvinced that she did something. At that time, I did not know if it was her that delivered that particular day or one of many other possibilities.
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():
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
The same thing has happened to me several times in my apt building, but it has always gotten sorted out within a day or two of talking to the post office manager.
It won't be much help but I have a similar incident. Had a package that was coming from Texas and one from Michigan that tracking said Delivered on January 22, 2014. Nothing in the mail box, so I contacted the post office. They spoke to my mail carrier who swore up and down she delivered my mail and that the tracking says delivered so she must have. I called the post office probably 10 times, filed 3 reports, and was basically told that they trust the mail carrier more than me so I must have taken the mail.
Fast forward to February 17, received the mail in my mailbox with no explanation. Was happy to receive the cards as they totaled over $100 and were cards I needed for the deck, but I definitely trust the mail much less than I used to.
And another current situation, sent a package of cards in a bubble mailer with Top Loaders and Delivery Confirmatino to someones house. It says delivered to the correct address and the post office confirmed it, but he states that the top was sliced open and the contents removed. So now I'm out the cards and there's not much I can do about it. Pretty much has ended my online trading / buying for now, it's ridiculous.
Thanks for the website. I forgot about that one from last time. By the way, I don't remember any correspondence after I did this the 1st time
a year ago. Hopefully this time will be different.
Maybe I can videotape the non regular mail lady doing her rounds? It would not be tough to
set her up since she's so consistent. The sad part is that I don't want this person to touch my mail or even be any-
where near my mail for obvious reasons. At the same time, our regular mail lady is so professional and my wife and
I have even exchanged gifts with her on the holidays. She's a very nice and professional person. I have come to
notice this with certain people as I have gotten older because it's very uncommon.
Overall, the mail service has been great for me at least 99% of the time. I bought cards for $60 shipped on Ebay that would have cost me $84 at my LGS, so I will continue to use the Postal Service until there is an affordable option. Please don't tell me UPS is viable because I've had much worse headaches with them and refuse to use them. The mail service works wonderfully usually, but unfortunately it seems that these mistakes are more than coincidence when it
always happens with DC mail to my address when the same non regular mail lady is working.
I wouldn't video tape the postal workers without looking up and making sure it's not a felony. I know in most states it's now illegal to video tape police officers, it might even be a federal law. It might be highly illegal to video tape a postal worker or any federal employee.
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a ruling that voided the police-recording laws. Recording a postal worker couldn't be any different from that, as they're on duty employees of a government (owned) service.
Thanks for the website. I forgot about that one from last time. By the way, I don't remember any correspondence after I did this the 1st time
a year ago. Hopefully this time will be different.
Maybe I can videotape the non regular mail lady doing her rounds? It would not be tough to
set her up since she's so consistent. The sad part is that I don't want this person to touch my mail or even be any-
where near my mail for obvious reasons. At the same time, our regular mail lady is so professional and my wife and
I have even exchanged gifts with her on the holidays. She's a very nice and professional person. I have come to
notice this with certain people as I have gotten older because it's very uncommon.
Overall, the mail service has been great for me at least 99% of the time. I bought cards for $60 shipped on Ebay that would have cost me $84 at my LGS, so I will continue to use the Postal Service until there is an affordable option. Please don't tell me UPS is viable because I've had much worse headaches with them and refuse to use them. The mail service works wonderfully usually, but unfortunately it seems that these mistakes are more than coincidence when it
always happens with DC mail to my address when the same non regular mail lady is working.
I wouldn't video tape the postal workers without looking up and making sure it's not a felony. I know in most states it's now illegal to video tape police officers, it might even be a federal law. It might be highly illegal to video tape a postal worker or any federal employee.
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a ruling that voided the police-recording laws. Recording a postal worker couldn't be any different from that, as they're on duty employees of a government (owned) service.
So, couple possibilities. USPS doesn't accurately scan packages sometimes, I've had it happen several times now. So there could be missing scans at origin, scans at destination (i.e. USPS status shows never delivered). In addition, there are sometimes FALSE scans (USPS status shows delivered when the package is still at the post office or whatnot - delivered a couple of days later). So those could happen. In addition, USPS could deliver mail to a different building/apartment/house, have it scanned and it will show as delivered (just not to your addr), so that's a possibility as well. And of course, your neighbor(s) could mistakenly (or intentionally) nab your mail.
Honestly, I would rank the odds of USPS stealing mail as pretty far down the list - there's a lot of items that get sent in the mail that are worth more than mtg cards, just saying.
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a ruling that voided the police-recording laws. Recording a postal worker couldn't be any different from that, as they're on duty employees of a government (owned) service.
That law has to violate freedom of the press or something, but honestly, what can you do when the only power able to overturn it isn't willing to?
Second paragraph: "By passing on the issue, the justices left in place a federal appeals court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free-speech rights when used against people who audiotape police officers."
The law was found to be unconstitutional. Still better to check, though. You may win in court, if it comes to it, but it would be a long and expensive fight, even with the backing of groups like the ACLU and EFF.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
I've worked for numerous companies over the years who've shipped products to clients via Canada Post, USPS, and countless other courier services including (but not limited to): Canpar, UPS, Loomis, DHL, FedEx, local bike courier services, and a few others), and from my years of experience I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Canadian and American postal services are the worst. Granted they deal with a greater volume of mail than the competition so more items may be expected to get lost in transit (albeit unjustifiably for the most part), but their reps are extremely incompetent, disorganized, and departmentally fragmented.
If you're expecting a quick resolution with an immediate refund, prepare to be very disappointed, get 'the runaround', and have a mentally exhausting, painfully long, time-consuming multi-month battle before you get any concrete information.
For starters, you'll have to contact the claims department. They'll want the sender's information as well as the receiver's (your) information. They'll also want information about the package itself (contents, weight, tracking number, insurable value, etc), and will need to know if it was shipped express or expedited. Then they'll give you a case number and tell you it could take 10-14 business days for an update, after which you'll have to pursue them with repeated phone calls, emails, and/or faxes because they almost never take the initiative to get back to you on their own when new information becomes available (let alone within that 10-14 business day time frame). Sometimes they'll give you a hard time and tell you that if you're denying receipt of the product shipped, you'll have to contact the sender and have them open the case. If you or the sender want the signature for proof of delivery, they may even try to charge you or them for that, and even if it's an unrecognizable scribble which you still deny is your proof of receipt, they'll maintain the stance that they side with their own postal employee's word over yours and hope you give up. Suffice it to say they have countless (possibly tens of thousands) of these cases which are open at any given time.
Occasionally, some cases will mysteriously get closed on their own seemingly at random with no explanation or followup to you, at which point reopening it will bring you back to square one because they have to assign a new case number which is extremely frustrating. Chances are you'll never get the same customer service or claims rep on the phone twice, so keep extremely detailed logs with names, timestamps, and extensions (if the reps are even willing to give theirs to you which they're often reluctant to, presumably to create plausible deniability on their part as a convenient delay tactic to let the case drag on indefinitely until you eventually concede that you're not getting your product). I also highly recommend that you monitor and record every call you make to them (with their knowledge), so you have some recourse when they play dumb and deny you spoke with "rep x" on "date y".
Getting a refund from the sender will be extremely difficult since they'll be reluctant to accept your story with the "proof" of delivery they're being given from USPS, and will likely suspect that you're trying to pull a fast one on them by denying having received the package which you in fact did (according to USPS). If you paid by credit card, you could contact Visa/Mastercard/Amex and ask your service provider to do a chargeback, but even though they'll usually comply because you're insured, this will open up a whole new can of worms as the sender may accuse you of attempting to commit mail fraud. If they pursue the claim after the fact and manage to convince USPS that the information provided is invalid and that the receiver (you) is still denying having signed for said shipment, USPS may eventually give in to them and refund them the basic/default insurable value of the shipment (which is usually only $100 plus the cost of shipping). Obviously this will frustrate the shipper if the cards sent had a value of $270, but their value argument will hold little if any water with USPS since they could argue that the cards had a lower value at the time of the shipment, and that the values themselves are virtual and artificially created by an unregulated secondary market because they're constantly subject to change. I know they do this because sometimes I would try to claim software which was lost in transit when being shipped to a client, and even though the software was often valued/invoiced at $500+, USPS would argue that the cost of the cd/dvd is less than a dollar and easily replaceable so they wouldn't refund the presumed value of our product which they consider inflated and arbitrary (which may or may not technically be true), completely disregarding the work put in to manufacturing the software on the physical medium, the fact that we were wasting ton of company time and money to resolve these lost shipments, and also that we would be unable to collect on the clients' invoices meanwhile without long delays since those clients would require the items they were waiting on to be reshipped before paying. As you can imagine, this happened often enough that the ripple effect was extremely costly, so we eventually just stopped using Canada Post and USPS altogether. Saying that they were unreliable is an understatement because they literally lost 2-15% of our shipments per month on average, some of which were lost repeatedly even when reshipped to addresses which were thoroughly verified.
In conclusion, I highly recommend that you never ship or have anything important and/or valuable shipped to you through the post. Your best bet is UPS followed by FedEx because despite their higher rates, the amount of packages they lose (or are reluctant to refund when they do) is honestly quite negligible by comparison.
Unfortunately, the situation is likely to get even worse (at least in Canada) because Canada Post recently announced that they're phasing out all door-to-door deliveries and installing more communal bulk mailboxes in an effort to save costs (and subsequently fire a good portion of their mail delivery staff so their salaries can undoubtedly be redistributed to high ranking entitlist executives and administrators' pockets in the form of unearned bonuses). Personally, I don't care too much since I get most of my mail electronically and am healthy enough to walk to a community mailbox on occasion when I'm expecting something beyond flyers and other junk mail. However, I definitely sympathize with the disabled and elderly who rely on door-to-door service which is already in the process of being phased out. In fact, I just read an article this morning which talked about the first areas to be affected by the change which can be read here: http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/the-11-places-canada-post-will-stop-door-to-door-delivery-first-1.1695202
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
That post was very informative. Basically when this happened the 1st time, I should have continued to contact them and ask for a resolution. Because I didn't, I ended up paying for half of what I was supposed to receive while another new MTGS member paid the other half and promptly quit MTGS.
The thing is that I strongly believe that I have pinpointed the problem. The problem is with ONE particular employee at the post office. It has not been a problem from where it was sent. I have watched all the cities and states that it went through to get here. But it was DELIVERY CONFIRMED with nothing in my mail box and that suggests the problem with my non regular mail carrier. Admittedly, I have seen probably 2-3 small problems that happened in other states or cities and the small package was delayed 2-5 days. Two out of 2000 isn't too bad in my opinion. The major problem I have is with the 1 person who is not delivering DC packages for whatever her reason, the fact that she won't be reprimanded, and the fact that she will continue to do so whenever given the chance. I will not be able to do anything short of me getting my payment back from her illegally.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Honestly the best thing I would recommend would be to have you require signatures on all delivered mail. It would save a lot of hassle for you and worst case scenario you would simply have to pick up your mail at the post office.
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Unfortunately, simply requesting a signature on delivery still doesn't offer any concrete guarantee that a shipped item will be delivered successfully. You'd think it would, but there are many layers of incompetence which cause that logical fail-safe to fail. We always used to request signatures on delivery when shipping anything to clients via express or expedited mail, but sometimes packages would still go missing, be delivered to wrong addresses or suite numbers, be delivered entirely without signatures, the signatures would be illegible/unidentifiable, or they'd claim to have a signature which was simply unavailable without any explanation (and seemingly irretrievable), which caused several packages to be claimed after being declared lost.
The biggest problem is that generally speaking, delivery personnel aren't very well educated or are too smart for their own good (think Newman from Seinfeld), and seemingly never ask for identification when delivering packages to an addressee. What's strange is that when you go to pick up an item at the UPS store, post office, or another holding or sortation facility, the clerk will always ask you for identification and proof of address to verify that you are in fact who you claim to be, because if they didn't, anyone could take a missed delivery notification sticker off a front door and misrepresent themselves as that person in order to steal their package. Contrary to that logical policy, this isn't the case whatsoever when postal and courier services deliver to a home or business, presumably because they assume that whoever answers the door and/or claims to be the intended recipient has no reason to deceive them and is always being honest. That being said, they'll often allow a spouse, another family member, a roommate, a housekeeper, or even a house guest to sign for a package that isn't specifically addressed to that individual. This is what creates a lot of the problems because the item may still be misplaced, stolen, or discarded before it gets to the actual addressee. When delivering to businesses, secretaries or mail room employees often won't even sign an actual name and will just use an ambiguous stamp with the company's name, often considered sufficient for the courier who couldn't care less what happens the the box or envelope after they leave and continue along their route. Then if the item gets lost or stolen before reaching whoever is expecting it, there's virtually no recourse or way for that person or the sender to trace is past the company's lobby (unless of course there's video surveillance throughout the premises). Speaking from experience, there have been plenty of times where my employer or a colleague of mine who is supposed to receive a package is unavailable at the time of delivery, and the courier will just pass it off to whoever answers the door. If they can't identify the name from the signature, they might ask the person to print it, but will often settle with just being given a first name so they can document it themselves, cover their own liability, and will never even ask that person for their job title or to provide actual proof that they're indeed that person whose name they gave. Therefore, there's really nothing stopping someone who is dishonest or vindictive from signing or giving a fake name to a courier when accepting a delivery be it for themselves, another member of the household, or a colleague. Unfortunately, this is what opens the floodgates for all sorts of abuse by those who might try to get double shipments or not pay for items they received and then tell the shipper/vendor to not even bother resending anything because they want to cancel their order. As far as business to business shipments go, this can create huge headaches, endless debates, and drawn out legal battles which often has to involve the postal service ombudsman whose job it is to resolve the situation when there's a stalemate dispute, and figure out what happened and who might be lying.
The trick to winning claim battles with the postal service(s) is to never give up. Pursue them relentlessly. Don't ask for resolution, demand it (politely but adamantly) The customer (you) is always right. Call daily or even multiple times per day, and eventually they'll realize that you won't drop the issue and accept defeat, which will lead them to giving you benefit of the doubt since continuously denying you the claim will be counter-productive and more costly and time consuming for them than it's worth. If you know you're right, always stand your ground. If you don't, they'll think you're weak, bully you, treat you like a pushover, and make up whatever excuse they can to deny the claim, save money, take advantage of you, and disregard the importance of your loss.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
I believe you can tell your local branch to hold mail and reserve it for you. People do this sometimes when on vacations and what not. Then you can simply go and pick it up in person. Of course this is an inconvenience of having to leave your house.
Also, you can rent a box at a USPS or mail business center where the mail can be dropped off. I suppose you could do this for high priced items.
I think the first option is better because it doesn't cost you anything, but you have to do it in advance. I'm reading online the min. hold amount of days is 3.
I just thought I'd do an update. On Friday after calling the post master for the 3rd time, he finally called around 4:30 pm and said that they found it and put it in my box. Sure enough it was there this time! The packaging was perfect; there was no problem with the Ebay seller. I left him a message and good feedback and apologized.
Right now I don't have any short term plans to fix this. But you guys have given me a lot of good ideas and I do have it on my long-term plans.
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():
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
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I recently moved back to an Apt. where I lived before. (We had to sell our home, which there were 0 mail problems in 8 months there.) We had a few problems before at this same address, but different Apt. #. The problem is this. When I have ordered cards on Ebay through Delivery Confirmation #, I have occasionally NOT received them in my box, despite the usps.com tracking saying that I did. This only happens when my regular mail lady is not here. She can't work all 7 days a week all year round. The 1st time over a year ago, I lost $170 that I paid for cards totaling $270. Right now, those cards are worth $500+ as you can see with the price spikes in Legacy and Modern staples.
This is what happened last Sat. I was supposed to receive cards from an Ebay store from the same state. Unfortunately, they came in 1 day shipping, which was Sat., the day that the regular mail lady was not working. It was said to be received at 9:30 a.m., but I had an empty box. There was nothing. There is no reason for me to lie about $40 worth of cards that I will probably end up paying for without having them anyway.
I checked at all of the local post offices. Today, I talked to the manager at my local post office. He said that he is going to talk with the mail carrier that day. He also made a mistake of agreeing with me when I described the mail carrier who I thought it was. The female mail carrier doesn't seem like an MTG player and some of her mistakes before were just leaving the DC mail outside of the box (twice before when I lived here; once I found it face down on the ground and once a 6 yr old neighbor who I didn't know personally brought it to me). Should I confront her and ask what happened? I know there's really nothing I can do but "take it up the b@#$." What would you do?
(I realize that I created a thread like this before when it happened last year.)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Did you verify the address they had? It could have the wrong apartment number or Circle instead of Street etc.
The mail carrier may be dropping it in the wrong mailbox. I had my neighbor bring a netflix movie to my house that got dropped in their mailbox.
B Lover Since '09 ~
Standard:
meh.
Modern:
Urzatron GR
Vintage:
Contol-Slaver UBR
EDH:
Drana B
Jhoira UR
Savra BG
Turned into:
Adun Oakenshield BGR
Sharuum BUW
Turned into:
Memnarch U
KiKi-Jiki R
Turned into:
Godo R
Turned into:
Aurelia RW
The Mimeoplasm UBG
Rasputin Dreamweaver UW
Turned into:
Geist of Saint Traft -French 1v1 UW
Nekusar UBR
There's also the postal inspectors:
https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/investigations/mailfraud/fraudschemes/mailtheft/ReportMailTheft.aspx
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
a year ago. Hopefully this time will be different.
Maybe I can videotape the non regular mail lady doing her rounds? It would not be tough to
set her up since she's so consistent. The sad part is that I don't want this person to touch my mail or even be any-
where near my mail for obvious reasons. At the same time, our regular mail lady is so professional and my wife and
I have even exchanged gifts with her on the holidays. She's a very nice and professional person. I have come to
notice this with certain people as I have gotten older because it's very uncommon.
Overall, the mail service has been great for me at least 99% of the time. I bought cards for $60 shipped on Ebay that would have cost me $84 at my LGS, so I will continue to use the Postal Service until there is an affordable option. Please don't tell me UPS is viable because I've had much worse headaches with them and refuse to use them. The mail service works wonderfully usually, but unfortunately it seems that these mistakes are more than coincidence when it
always happens with DC mail to my address when the same non regular mail lady is working.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I wouldn't video tape the postal workers without looking up and making sure it's not a felony. I know in most states it's now illegal to video tape police officers, it might even be a federal law. It might be highly illegal to video tape a postal worker or any federal employee.
Yeah I realize this. I actually remember talking to her before last year about the problems and I seemed unconvinced that she did something. At that time, I did not know if it was her that delivered that particular day or one of many other possibilities.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Fast forward to February 17, received the mail in my mailbox with no explanation. Was happy to receive the cards as they totaled over $100 and were cards I needed for the deck, but I definitely trust the mail much less than I used to.
And another current situation, sent a package of cards in a bubble mailer with Top Loaders and Delivery Confirmatino to someones house. It says delivered to the correct address and the post office confirmed it, but he states that the top was sliced open and the contents removed. So now I'm out the cards and there's not much I can do about it. Pretty much has ended my online trading / buying for now, it's ridiculous.
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a ruling that voided the police-recording laws. Recording a postal worker couldn't be any different from that, as they're on duty employees of a government (owned) service.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-26/news/chi-supreme-court-rejects-plea-to-prohibit-taping-of-police-20121126_1_cook-and-crawford-counties-police-officers-enforcement
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
That law has to violate freedom of the press or something, but honestly, what can you do when the only power able to overturn it isn't willing to?
Honestly, I would rank the odds of USPS stealing mail as pretty far down the list - there's a lot of items that get sent in the mail that are worth more than mtg cards, just saying.
Second paragraph: "By passing on the issue, the justices left in place a federal appeals court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free-speech rights when used against people who audiotape police officers."
The law was found to be unconstitutional. Still better to check, though. You may win in court, if it comes to it, but it would be a long and expensive fight, even with the backing of groups like the ACLU and EFF.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Sorry to read about your unfortunate situation.
I've worked for numerous companies over the years who've shipped products to clients via Canada Post, USPS, and countless other courier services including (but not limited to): Canpar, UPS, Loomis, DHL, FedEx, local bike courier services, and a few others), and from my years of experience I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Canadian and American postal services are the worst. Granted they deal with a greater volume of mail than the competition so more items may be expected to get lost in transit (albeit unjustifiably for the most part), but their reps are extremely incompetent, disorganized, and departmentally fragmented.
If you're expecting a quick resolution with an immediate refund, prepare to be very disappointed, get 'the runaround', and have a mentally exhausting, painfully long, time-consuming multi-month battle before you get any concrete information.
For starters, you'll have to contact the claims department. They'll want the sender's information as well as the receiver's (your) information. They'll also want information about the package itself (contents, weight, tracking number, insurable value, etc), and will need to know if it was shipped express or expedited. Then they'll give you a case number and tell you it could take 10-14 business days for an update, after which you'll have to pursue them with repeated phone calls, emails, and/or faxes because they almost never take the initiative to get back to you on their own when new information becomes available (let alone within that 10-14 business day time frame). Sometimes they'll give you a hard time and tell you that if you're denying receipt of the product shipped, you'll have to contact the sender and have them open the case. If you or the sender want the signature for proof of delivery, they may even try to charge you or them for that, and even if it's an unrecognizable scribble which you still deny is your proof of receipt, they'll maintain the stance that they side with their own postal employee's word over yours and hope you give up. Suffice it to say they have countless (possibly tens of thousands) of these cases which are open at any given time.
Occasionally, some cases will mysteriously get closed on their own seemingly at random with no explanation or followup to you, at which point reopening it will bring you back to square one because they have to assign a new case number which is extremely frustrating. Chances are you'll never get the same customer service or claims rep on the phone twice, so keep extremely detailed logs with names, timestamps, and extensions (if the reps are even willing to give theirs to you which they're often reluctant to, presumably to create plausible deniability on their part as a convenient delay tactic to let the case drag on indefinitely until you eventually concede that you're not getting your product). I also highly recommend that you monitor and record every call you make to them (with their knowledge), so you have some recourse when they play dumb and deny you spoke with "rep x" on "date y".
Getting a refund from the sender will be extremely difficult since they'll be reluctant to accept your story with the "proof" of delivery they're being given from USPS, and will likely suspect that you're trying to pull a fast one on them by denying having received the package which you in fact did (according to USPS). If you paid by credit card, you could contact Visa/Mastercard/Amex and ask your service provider to do a chargeback, but even though they'll usually comply because you're insured, this will open up a whole new can of worms as the sender may accuse you of attempting to commit mail fraud. If they pursue the claim after the fact and manage to convince USPS that the information provided is invalid and that the receiver (you) is still denying having signed for said shipment, USPS may eventually give in to them and refund them the basic/default insurable value of the shipment (which is usually only $100 plus the cost of shipping). Obviously this will frustrate the shipper if the cards sent had a value of $270, but their value argument will hold little if any water with USPS since they could argue that the cards had a lower value at the time of the shipment, and that the values themselves are virtual and artificially created by an unregulated secondary market because they're constantly subject to change. I know they do this because sometimes I would try to claim software which was lost in transit when being shipped to a client, and even though the software was often valued/invoiced at $500+, USPS would argue that the cost of the cd/dvd is less than a dollar and easily replaceable so they wouldn't refund the presumed value of our product which they consider inflated and arbitrary (which may or may not technically be true), completely disregarding the work put in to manufacturing the software on the physical medium, the fact that we were wasting ton of company time and money to resolve these lost shipments, and also that we would be unable to collect on the clients' invoices meanwhile without long delays since those clients would require the items they were waiting on to be reshipped before paying. As you can imagine, this happened often enough that the ripple effect was extremely costly, so we eventually just stopped using Canada Post and USPS altogether. Saying that they were unreliable is an understatement because they literally lost 2-15% of our shipments per month on average, some of which were lost repeatedly even when reshipped to addresses which were thoroughly verified.
In conclusion, I highly recommend that you never ship or have anything important and/or valuable shipped to you through the post. Your best bet is UPS followed by FedEx because despite their higher rates, the amount of packages they lose (or are reluctant to refund when they do) is honestly quite negligible by comparison.
Unfortunately, the situation is likely to get even worse (at least in Canada) because Canada Post recently announced that they're phasing out all door-to-door deliveries and installing more communal bulk mailboxes in an effort to save costs (and subsequently fire a good portion of their mail delivery staff so their salaries can undoubtedly be redistributed to high ranking entitlist executives and administrators' pockets in the form of unearned bonuses). Personally, I don't care too much since I get most of my mail electronically and am healthy enough to walk to a community mailbox on occasion when I'm expecting something beyond flyers and other junk mail. However, I definitely sympathize with the disabled and elderly who rely on door-to-door service which is already in the process of being phased out. In fact, I just read an article this morning which talked about the first areas to be affected by the change which can be read here: http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/the-11-places-canada-post-will-stop-door-to-door-delivery-first-1.1695202
The thing is that I strongly believe that I have pinpointed the problem. The problem is with ONE particular employee at the post office. It has not been a problem from where it was sent. I have watched all the cities and states that it went through to get here. But it was DELIVERY CONFIRMED with nothing in my mail box and that suggests the problem with my non regular mail carrier. Admittedly, I have seen probably 2-3 small problems that happened in other states or cities and the small package was delayed 2-5 days. Two out of 2000 isn't too bad in my opinion. The major problem I have is with the 1 person who is not delivering DC packages for whatever her reason, the fact that she won't be reprimanded, and the fact that she will continue to do so whenever given the chance. I will not be able to do anything short of me getting my payment back from her illegally.
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Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
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Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
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Currently playing Knight of the Reliquary - Retreat to Coralhelm Combo
The biggest problem is that generally speaking, delivery personnel aren't very well educated or are too smart for their own good (think Newman from Seinfeld), and seemingly never ask for identification when delivering packages to an addressee. What's strange is that when you go to pick up an item at the UPS store, post office, or another holding or sortation facility, the clerk will always ask you for identification and proof of address to verify that you are in fact who you claim to be, because if they didn't, anyone could take a missed delivery notification sticker off a front door and misrepresent themselves as that person in order to steal their package. Contrary to that logical policy, this isn't the case whatsoever when postal and courier services deliver to a home or business, presumably because they assume that whoever answers the door and/or claims to be the intended recipient has no reason to deceive them and is always being honest. That being said, they'll often allow a spouse, another family member, a roommate, a housekeeper, or even a house guest to sign for a package that isn't specifically addressed to that individual. This is what creates a lot of the problems because the item may still be misplaced, stolen, or discarded before it gets to the actual addressee. When delivering to businesses, secretaries or mail room employees often won't even sign an actual name and will just use an ambiguous stamp with the company's name, often considered sufficient for the courier who couldn't care less what happens the the box or envelope after they leave and continue along their route. Then if the item gets lost or stolen before reaching whoever is expecting it, there's virtually no recourse or way for that person or the sender to trace is past the company's lobby (unless of course there's video surveillance throughout the premises). Speaking from experience, there have been plenty of times where my employer or a colleague of mine who is supposed to receive a package is unavailable at the time of delivery, and the courier will just pass it off to whoever answers the door. If they can't identify the name from the signature, they might ask the person to print it, but will often settle with just being given a first name so they can document it themselves, cover their own liability, and will never even ask that person for their job title or to provide actual proof that they're indeed that person whose name they gave. Therefore, there's really nothing stopping someone who is dishonest or vindictive from signing or giving a fake name to a courier when accepting a delivery be it for themselves, another member of the household, or a colleague. Unfortunately, this is what opens the floodgates for all sorts of abuse by those who might try to get double shipments or not pay for items they received and then tell the shipper/vendor to not even bother resending anything because they want to cancel their order. As far as business to business shipments go, this can create huge headaches, endless debates, and drawn out legal battles which often has to involve the postal service ombudsman whose job it is to resolve the situation when there's a stalemate dispute, and figure out what happened and who might be lying.
The trick to winning claim battles with the postal service(s) is to never give up. Pursue them relentlessly. Don't ask for resolution, demand it (politely but adamantly) The customer (you) is always right. Call daily or even multiple times per day, and eventually they'll realize that you won't drop the issue and accept defeat, which will lead them to giving you benefit of the doubt since continuously denying you the claim will be counter-productive and more costly and time consuming for them than it's worth. If you know you're right, always stand your ground. If you don't, they'll think you're weak, bully you, treat you like a pushover, and make up whatever excuse they can to deny the claim, save money, take advantage of you, and disregard the importance of your loss.
Also, you can rent a box at a USPS or mail business center where the mail can be dropped off. I suppose you could do this for high priced items.
I think the first option is better because it doesn't cost you anything, but you have to do it in advance. I'm reading online the min. hold amount of days is 3.
Right now I don't have any short term plans to fix this. But you guys have given me a lot of good ideas and I do have it on my long-term plans.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
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Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)