Sending Cards through the mail, Dos, Don'ts, And where is my Package

By Tony Guo

Happy Holidays.  Sorry for the delay in blogging.  I have been extremely busy with work, part time work, or oh yeah holiday work. Student loans... plus I am saving up for a trip to New York.  Holiday hours it is...

Anyways I will talk about delivery.  The perils and what to do and how to response.  I recently sent out 15 packages for around 200 dollars... which is sort of not good when you are trading for cards of the same value that you don't really need... oh addictions.  

Anyways I'm breaking this article down into two pieces, where to send and how to send.  

Where to Send

Post Net

In Texas we have a store called PostNet.  Actually Postnets can be found everywhere.  In Houston they are more common than the post office.  I prefer them to the USPS because the workers are more friendly.  Government workers are pretty much meh....  At least in my local Houston PostNet, the service is excellent, there are no long lines, and its next to a starbucks.  

USPS

Argghh.. First off, it seems that these employers just don't care at all.  Customer service is poor... very poor.  Sometimes I have nightmares about how bad the service will be... only find out that it is much worst.  

FedEx

If this wasn't so expensive, I would ship everything fedex.  But even sending basic documents can cost up to 10 dollars.  I only send cards via FedEx when the value is over 200 dollars.  I consider this the savest way to send.  Plus I love making photos at the FedEx Kinko center.  :)

How to Send 

 Delivery Confirmation 

From experience this is the safest way to send.  I always send deals worth more than 30 dollars through at least delivery confirmation. DC comes with tracking so its a nice way to prove that you sent.  Also, in my experience they handle anything with the DC sticker much better.  From my experience, I've only had one card package damaged when I sent it via DC.  And there were a few interesting circumstances around the person who received which led me to believe maybe it was the post office's fault.  

Registered Mail 

I had a horrible experience using registered mail recently.  Registered mail is 2-3 more expensive than DC.  Because of the difference in price, I expected Registered Mail to be faster.  However, it was not.  In addition to being slower, for about a week, there was no tracking.  I do not know what happened to the package, but I would guess that they lost it and then found it after a week.  My personal experience (having only used it once for a very important package) is that registered mail is slower, more expensive, and less reliable.  

Regular Mail

Oh the horror stories.  I know a lot of you guys skip out on getting DC which is 3-4 dollars.  And it may make sense not to get DC for smaller trades.  Here's the thing about regular mail, it gets lost.  And you can always resend, but the experience is frustrating on the person waiting to receive.  Plus a lot of scams happen when mail has no tracking.  On MOTL the sender must make sure that they the receiver received or have tracking.  Meaning it is the sender's responsibility.  On youtube, the rules are much less strict and defined.  This creates a tension between youtubers and a lot of scams that may not in fact be scams but lost mail.  


To Summarize, I don't like doing deals that are worth less than 20-30 dollars (unless they are gifts; i send all gifts by regular mail).  And most times I use DC.  It prevents a lot of bad things from happening.