The Yak Shack Forum

I just received a package back from the USA from a customer who had received a card from me A Flitwick auto.

The auto arrived in a reasonable amount of time but was damaged.

The envelope has what looks like tire tracks or footprints all over it

the auto inside was punctured 3 times right through the toploader I thought you would all like to see the evidence of how the post office treat our precious cards


Here it is the Murdered card

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v424/chrischidgey/auto-damage.jpg)

AAAHHHHHHHHH *faints*

Oh the injustice of it  >:(

 >:() Those damn postal idiots treating our cards like that!!

I hope your going to complain, poor Flitwick  :'(

Someone went "Postal"!! >:() >:()

what is really interesting is the fact that the Royal Mail here in the UK got fined £11.4million  penalty imposed for the amount of items they lost, damaged or was stolen
 

now maybe they are going to start delivering the items in what ever state they are in

and to answer your question i will be making a fuss about this  >:()

What on earth did they do to it to puncture it???!!!

How dare they treat ANY mail like that! >:()

It really doesn't make a difference what card it was, but imagine if it was a Ron auto... or a Legolas... or a Scully :'( >:()

Good luck with the PO! :o=

Looks like a variant to me :P  Just list it like that and put a BIN of $200.  Technically you did pull the card from the pack so call it a pack pulled variant. |:#  Really though I think you could list it as a damaged auto and start bidding at .99 someone will not really care they would just like to have a WD auto for a couple of bucks.  Or clearly list is as damaged and give it a BIN of $5 someone won't care if it is cheap.

You reckon anyone would buy that? I mean for me damaged is bent corners, creases or repaired rips (I have a FOTR Aragorn that has a repaired rip that is barely noticeable). But 3 puncture holes might be going a bit far. That auto was never worth that much in the first place either :(

Sure it might be for a dollar or two, but some people have very little to spend on cards and would be happy to get even a pretty damaged one for really cheap.  Surely not someone who would just buy the mint one for $10-$15 but the signature still is in great condition (from what I can see looking at the picture).  I bought a Melrose Place coffee mug on ebay and a spice girls lunchbox :-X so I am sure someone would want a damaged flitwick.

Crickey!! That has to be one of the worst things I've ever seen done to a card!!! :o :'(
There's no excuses for it to be handled in this manner and you're quite right Chris - the Post Office got fined very heavily just recently and this just goes to illustrate why that happened - it's disgracefull!! >:()

Good luck with getting your compensation from them and I also feel rather sorry for the buyer in all of this sorry mess too - at the end of the day they have no card do they? :-\
I could be SO much worse though Chris ... think of all the fab cards you've sold over the past few weeks/months - it could have been one of those which sustained this kind of damage! :o :'(
*shudders at the mere thought of it!* :-[

Dave .. you're beginning to sound like that ebay song ...  ;) :P :rofl:

 :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Not recently, I hope!!

I'll not ask... ;D

Whatever floats your boat matey-peeps!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
You aren't in another mega-boring meeting are you by any chance? ::) ;)
Oooooo I just had a thought - maybe he's buying these things early to send to his Secret Santa this year Jo ... waddya reckon!?! ;) 8) ;D

I think you just provided a reason for him Jules :rofl:

Although if that's not it, I don't want to know the real reason ;)

That was my thought also!!

UUMM!! Maybe I'll pass on the SS this year!! Don't want to take any chances on getting those!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Ha Ha!! Well we'll know who sent the package if we receive these items then won't we!?! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Either that or he has some fetish for the Spice Girls he wants kept quiet! :P
Over to you Dave ...
 ;)

So as Sara and I were saying this evening as she, Mark and I were hitting each other with bug catching nets whilst wearing top hats*... yes this is disgusting.

I don't think Chris is dead worried about selling the card on (are you Chris??) but I think it was just to show us what a bit of card torturing can do :rofl:

*this REALLY happened!

 :rofl:

Actually I like to think of myself as the Dwight Shrut of my work "office".  Everyone has to recognize when you walk in with your Spice Girls Lunchbox I also have a New Kids on the Block Lunchbox I got both off of ebay.  Also it helps the conservation of the Earth rather than using brown lunch bags that get thrown away.  I will try to take some pics and remember to post them of my two lunchboxes.  I don't really like the Spice Girls persay, but I do think they were pretty hot back in the day.  I guess I just like the whole variety pack: sporty, posh, ginger, baby and scary.   Spicy indeed.  What more could a guy want...Alias spice for me maybe.

Variety pack :rofl: That's the first time I've heard them called that... other variety packs spring to mind, but I won't touch THAT here! :rofl: Nice to see that you are doing your bit for the environment, albeit with questionable methods ;D


What about an Evangeline Spice, Becks? ;)

Evangeline Spice......super caliente' :-*

 :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Has this thread gone off track?  :rofl: :rofl:

Are we surprised? ::) :rofl:

Back on track - this is the reason why I ALWAYS take the insured option on high end cards! Although in this case, I don't think I would have taken that option, and probably the buyer wouldn't have either. I really didn't need to see this thread as I have a quite valuable card making it's way to me now and another in a few days time. Let's hope that Aus Post treats it's mail a bit better than the USPS! :-[

I think youre pretty safe with Aus post...they seem to be reasonably good, except when they cant find parcels in their own parcel room  ::)

Heehee... that's happened to me before as well. After turning the parcel room upside down, they finally worked out that it was in the (small) stack of unsorted parcels that was lying on the desk in front of me! ::)

Sometimes they also get stuck in the Kangaroo's pouch, then you are screwed

 :rofl:

the problem with my parcel was that they filed it under Breyer, rather than my last name way down the other end of the alpahbet  :P

You'd better watch your red cards Becks, you'll be facing some match bans soon :rofl:

Goodness me :o

This is the worst damage I've seen to a card since my film card rip :-X

I hope everyones on your side and can do something about this. Cheap card or not, all mail should be handled with care no matter how small, light, or thin the package may be >:()

Exactly Mike, and alot of the time, a $5 card looks the same as a $500 one when wrapped up :-\

I've received many parcels from the UK and Germany where holes were punched in the bubble mailer, luckily near the edge of the parce so the card was undamagedl.  I always thought that the holes were punched by the overseas post office and not by USPS since I never received any parcels from the US with holes. :-\

Maybe the package fell on the floor and they stabbed with one of those sticks with the pointy end.  The kind that you see workers using in parks to pick up the litter!  :rofl:

Nice description. ;) Exactly what happend to Chris happened to one of my envelopes from the UK some time ago. The card was hardly pointed right through the Top Loader and damaged. And it was an expensive card, a Honeydukes Candy (no variant). I had luck and got a replacement for this insured card.

And i had much more luck, because replacing would have been much harder (or impossible) if one of the other two cards in the envelope would have been damaged. So 3 cards were inside and it was nothing but fortune that the Honeydukes Candy has been damaged and not one of the others. I was so thankful.  :o= The other 2 cards in the envelope were the Triple Auto and the Pear Tree Leaves.  :o

*wince* Poor little card!

This is a good reason to continue my practice of putting cardboard around card top loaders when I ship them after a sale or a trade...  At least it offers a LITTLE more protection...

I agree 100%.  There is nothing wrong with packaging a card as if it were going to go through a war zone.....

I received an auto from the UK.  The card was in a sleeve, top loader and cardboard envelope.  I wasn't too happy to see that the card had a big crease -- both the top loader and the sleeve were creased in the same spot.  Somehow, the envelope had been folded at a sharp angle.  I didn't say anything to the seller, since it was obviously not his fault.

LOL it's really all claws out for the UK here huh? Chris - does it say where your parcel got to? Like a 'return to sender' stamp or 'not known at this address'

I have sent 1000s of parcels now and have never had such a problem... *touch wood* although now I've said that I'm going to have 100 parcels all turn up bent, driven over by a lorry and probably punctured with a hole punch, swiss army knife and also - it'll probably get used for Legolas' knife throwing target practice too...

Although I have had some delayed mail... and Sara and I can't communicate by post at all :rofl:  and one thing is missing at the moment but I have more faith in the system than some seem to here ;)

You are really lucky Roz.  The state of some of the stuff Royal Mail have delivered to me is a disgrace.  And this is stuff within the UK so it is definitely them.  I have had cards from Chris on many an occasion and for the postie to have done that much damage was a real achievement on their part, bearing in mind how well he wraps his stuff.

My favourite postman trick is when they fold a cardboard do not bend letter in half even though it is the same width as the post box  >:()

well since christmas I have had 4 items i sent lost in the post

The worst is a International Signed for package to Japan worth £350+

Yes it is insured but the post office is arguing about value they want a invoice from a manufacturer

They want me to quote a value before profit, Tax and postage so they can pay the smallest amount of the value of the items to me.

I am arguing that they are collectables and I cannot get a invoice which is true as any i send would be for boxes not cards. Also they are not replacable and profit is dificult to say as each card has a different value and so how can you say how much if anything you made on each card. With the amount of time I hold on to cards like those I probably was selling them at a loss to start with

When this happens make sure you complain to your delivery office, I do and I work for Royal Mail. If people don't complain the offending delivery staff will continue to do this sort of thing.

Chris this is just a thought.  Could you get another dealer to do you a letter / invoice stating how much this card is worth?  Either that or find a similar card on Ebay (not sure if yours was an Ebay item) and use this screen dump as proof of cost.  But at the end of the day you wouldn't have paid all that for insurance if it was not worth it!

And trust me I do complain frequently to the post office.  Our main problems started when they stopped using a regular postman for our area.  When we had one or two regulars, they knew us, we knew them and the post was delivered promptly and undamaged.

Ebay cannot be used as proof of value as they say people sometimes pay way over the value of some items


Post office makes me mad  >:()

But the value of any item is what people are willing to pay for it!

I completely agree with Cindy! ;)
How about this as a possible solution to the Post Office's stance ....
 ... what about getting hold of an up-to-date copy of NSU to see if the cards you've sold have a book price in there?
Before you shoot me for mentioning them, I thought that if the PO was shown something published by a recognised source quoting these prices, you might have more of an argument in trying to get compensation from them Chris? :-\

I sent them a price guide from NSU when i put in my claim and highlighted the items that i was claiming for but they said that I needed to provide proof of how much they cost me as a business to buy before Tax and Profit. ???

So when you insure something and it says item value that does not appear to be what they are asking
?????

Rats!!   :(
So in other words, they're asking you to present your books to show how much you paid for them?! :o
I think that's both outrageous and a bit much to ask don't you? >:(

Where do you go from here then Chris?

I phoned them and they have told me to state my case and send it in

so it is wait and see time

My final statement in my letter was

I request that you provide the insurance service for which I have paid

Good! I'm glad you put that in as it seems to me that Royal Mail isn't giving you the level of service you've paid for with these cards Chris.
I can understand their reticence as I'm sure they have more than their fair share of people who are just milking the system and getting recompense when they perhaps shouldn't do, but when you have the documentation that you have paid for the higher-level insurance then I think they ought to be helping you more than they have done to date and be a little more sympathetic too.

Have you heard whether your packages have turned up yet?
I'm just thinking of the case of the SS coin cards being sold off by the US postal service because nobody claimed them even though they did actually belong to a seller whose package had been lost in their postal system and had no idea they'd been found till another person bought them and auctioned them.
Might be an idea to keep checking to see if they turn up ... just in case ... ;)

Good luck with it and let us know how you get on won't you? ;)

This just doesn't make sense.  If someone paid a price for an item (or items), you have proof of that payment, and you insured it for that amount, there shouldn't be any question -- you should receive that amount under the insurance coverage.  The buyer has to receive the full amount back he or she paid, so what Royal Mail is saying is that you should get only what you paid to buy the item, AND THEN you as the seller has to reimburse the buyer for the rest of the money out of your own pocket.  What's the point of buying insurance if it doesn't protect both the sender and the recipient?

well that is it isn't it it seems it is pointless getting insurance in the Uk casue insuring something for it's valuse means nothing so with paypal on one side and the post office on the other it is truly SELLER BEWARE

Thanks MOB. I actually think the post office is a pretty awesome thing - if you get import taxed it's cheaper than any other deliverer, and I think that being able to send something from Southampton to Skegness for 30p (or is it 31?) is just amazing - when it will often get there the next day ;)

Not to mention that my postie himself is a bit of a star.

Although - inland post in Egypt is only 3p a letter ;) I think we're being ripped off :rofl: just kidding

I know this is nothing close to a card, but I had to share what I received in the mail.
All this is is a vet reminder for vaccinations. But what cracked me up is the bag the the post put it into!!

WE CARE!!!  :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b25/motocrossmom/we-care.jpg)

It beggars belief that they have the cheek to send you your damaged post in one of those bags when there's a very good chance they caused the damage in the first place! ::) ::) ::) :rofl:

Oh the IRONY - some say that American humour lacks Irony - clearly it's present in BUCKETLOADS at the USPS.

:rofl:

Yeah 'We care so much we tore your post in half'  ::)