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Postal Irregularities

GreenTea

GreenTea

I've been trading pepper seeds since February, and must have successfully completed about 25 trades. However, there have been a handful of cases where packages never arrived at their destinations, either to me, or to other THP members. Both in North America and internationally. They just vanished. No customs notice of seizure, nothing! Leaving me and the people I sent packages to waiting and waiting next to the mailbox.

Now, I'm not discounting the possibility that there might be a few deadbeats out there who lie to get free seed, or worse lie to get more seeds once they already received one package, but I'd prefer to think its the post offices fault. Somewhere along the lines there are many packages of seeds stuck between boxes and machinery at the postal sorting headquarters in various cities around the world. Or maybe rats smelled the seeds and carried them away.

Anyway, makes me sad that good seeds never made it into good hands. To those of you I have successfully traded with, I'm glad you got the seeds I sent, and I thank those who sent some to me.
 
Strange. I've only had 1 trade out of many hundreds not get through and I think it was because they used the name Potawie instead of my real name on my rural postal address.
Sadly, about 80%+ of the people I send seeds to I never here from again once they get their package, and a few times my seeds ended up on E-bay :(
 
I had the same problems when I was sending people coupons. I ended up starting to put a tracking number the packages. Hope you guys have better luck.
 
POTAWIE said:
Strange. I've only had 1 trade out of many hundreds not get through and I think it was because they used the name Potawie instead of my real name on my rural postal address.
Sadly, about 80%+ of the people I send seeds to I never here from again once they get their package, and a few times my seeds ended up on E-bay :(
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Indeed, you were the first person to send me seeds, and I still appreciate it to this day!

I wonder why packages never get returned to sender though. Even if its the wrong name and address, surely the return address is properly written.
 
POTAWIE said:
Strange. I've only had 1 trade out of many hundreds not get through and I think it was because they used the name Potawie instead of my real name on my rural postal address.
Sadly, about 80%+ of the people I send seeds to I never here from again once they get their package, and a few times my seeds ended up on E-bay :(
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Shame, humanity at it's finest (and maybe a little USPS). I've been pretty successful thus far, including sending/recieving seeds and everything else for that matter. Finding good people to work with is key, fool me once.. you know the rest.
 
I had one instance out of 75 or so trades where a person claimed to have sent out seeds and I never received them.
 
I have had several problems sending packages out of the USA ( mainley to canada).But I have been very impressed with the USPS within the states. My 2 bits :rolleyes:
 
In my case the problem has been cracked and crumbly seed , two cases with online venders and one case with a trade . I truly think is postal handling (machine) thats to blame.
 
For sure its the postal rollers, thats why you need bubble envelopes or some padding within the envelope
Even when seeds look crumbled they often still germinate. Give them a try
 
Yeah well I agree wit ya , its just funny the one trade was bubble wrap ... The envelop was all messed up and it also came with a we are sorry letter from the post office ... Any ways funny story
I seed some piquin seed last mondy and I wrote on the envelop (NON MACHINABLE) live pepperlover.com does and the mail man just told me thats a BIG NO NO ! Cuz Iam not a Buissnes .
Iam on my way the post office now to get this cleared up

Send not seed ! Sorry .

Like not live ! Sorry , sh.t dont know why Iam makeing gramer mistakes today .... It may be that douglah I have for dinner last night .
 
I went to the post office last week to mail off some pequin pods to 2 members here, they each had a small piece of bubblewrap protecting the pods. The lady felt the envelopes and told me they were "lumpy", I agreed but offered her no explanation as to the contents. She paused, then told me agan they were "lumpy". Having been trained in questioning people I recognized her technique, so I remained quiet. After about 30 seconds she says these "lumpy" cannot be sent as envelopes but must be sent as parcels at a cost of 2 bucks each. I retrieved the envelopes and mailed them at a mail store for 50 cents each 10 minutes later.

Can you send out USPS flat rate boxes at mail stores or do you haveto go to the post office. I am trying to limit my visits to the post office after the last "lumpy" interrogation incident.
 
when i first started sending powders i was getting lots of evvelops tore open? i guess now that the post office knows im not a drug dealer they leave them alone,havent had a problem in several months.
 
Postal inspectors are the only ones with the legal right to open a package. Customs caan open packages that cross international borders.
 
POTAWIE said:
For sure its the postal rollers, thats why you need bubble envelopes or some padding within the envelope
Even when seeds look crumbled they often still germinate. Give them a try
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Tex16 said:
I seed some piquin seed last mondy and I wrote on the envelop (NON MACHINABLE) live pepperlover.com does and the mail man just told me thats a BIG NO NO ! Cuz Iam not a Buissnes .
Iam on my way the post office now to get this cleared up
Click to expand...

I always use bubble envelopes, and I always just take them to the post office because I always seem to lose booklets of stamps. As soon as I hand over my envelope to the lady she tosses it in the non machinable bin and all is well. The first few times I think they thought I was crazy because the envelopes weigh practically nothing, got some weird looks for sure.
 
I have only had an envelope of seeds go missing once. I sent it to cmpman. He let me know and I sent another, finally after that he received the original package...post office mess up somewhere. I usually have no problems sending or receiving seeds.
 
Mailing bubble envelopes to other countries is usually a bad idea unless you do all the proper customs/declaration work. I prefer to send seeds hidden in christmas cards with a little bubble wrap for padding.
The worst place I've found to send seeds is Australia with their strict regulations, but then again I understand because many plants can become invasive in warmer climates and people could easily be spreading diseases, and other nasties without knowing
 
I've had a few issues with the post office. Back in my "barter" days I used to send single bottles in poster-tube, wrapped in bubble wrap. It worked great until one carrier (I'm guessing) winged it into the back of a truck at 140 mph. Shattered the bottle and the recipient was naturally like "wtf?" - of course I replaced it but it made the trade much less desirable. So now I just use flat-rate boxes or the shoe-box. Of course now I have a distributor/fulfillment company so they'll pack/ship everything for me.

I also had several packages correctly addressed not get to their destinations and had to resend. It tool several weeks and irritated the crap outta me though.

One I sent to Richmond, CA (about 15 miles from me) that went to Richmond, VA, and back, which took 3+ weeks. That was particularly comical - I thought that's what the ZIP CODE was for? Agh.

So so so glad the shipping & handling isn't going to be my problem any more, but we're still using USPS so I just have to hope for the best. If it gets bad we'll probably use UPS ground.
 
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