USPS Insurance Tidbit

Engineer

You may know this but I did not. At the PO today one of the clerks told me that when buying insurance for cards you had probably better send them in a box as opposed to a bubble mailer. This came up because I was insuring a bubble mailer with cards in toploaders and sandwiched between cardboard and she noted that it was unlikely the USPS would honor the insurance for any damage because they were not boxed.

Adam B.

rana

I have had USPS honor insurance on a bubble mailer that was pierced and it ruined a PSA 9 Elway RC. It was a long and slow process, but it eventually worked. I don't know how likely it is, but it worked once for me.

EagleEyeKid

I know first of all that it's a pain in the butt to recoupe for damaged cards via
their insurance process. If the card(s) in general are expensive, I'll send it in a box.
Most stuff from I sell are from $1 - $20 and those goes in top loaders/ bubble mailer
sandwiched in cardboard. I've only had 1 damaged card, and 1 lost item within the 7 years
of selling on the bay. I was also told that the insurance won't cover graded cards if it gets
cracked or busted because the plastic is a glass like substance. Maybe that's just my post office
or the clerk is the devil herself. In general, the whole insurance scheme for sportscards is BS.
Basically just wrap it well. I only offer insurance as an option for cheap stuff for those who want
peace of mind. Regardless, they'll get it in the best packaging possible.

iamthegreatcornholio

That's ridiculous. They're quick to put the blame on you when they destroy your packages. I've never once had a postal worker argue, question, etc. when I fork over money to purchase insurance, but it's a new story when one files a claim... So far they've only stolen my cards - never broken them. The claims under $50 have been handled in a timely (or better put, "timely" by postal standards), but recently a card over $50 was stolen... 60 days to get a refund... un-freaking-real...

Brian

rbdjr1

I've had thousands of transactions, most mailed with bubble mailers. I've received a few "cracked PSA slabs", and I've shipped one or two PSA items that got cracked during shipping.

I've had three insured items lost by USPS and maybe another three or four non-insured items lost in the mail. But for the most part, I've been more than satisfied by my experience shipping and receiving from the PO.

Now, they sometimes are soooooooooooooo slow, pony express would deliver faster, but only once in a while.

Once I had an insured card (under $100) lost. Sent a refund to the buyer, waited about four months to get the "USPS insurance refund". And guess what! About a month after I received the insurance money, I got the card back from the Post Office, opened in a torn and damaged bubble mailer, but my return address was still showing. And the card was not damaged.

Now the real story, did I keep the PSA card? (I already spent the insurance money!)

rbd

mtcards

The only time I had to deal with the USPS on insurance, I had shipped a card to California and the bubble mailer got there, it was just the card inside was gone, as was the seal on the mailer. It took over 3 months to get a refund, but finally got it.

zef204

What I don't get about the process is...


A buyer buys a card for $50. If you insure the package for $50 and the card gets lost, you send the $50 back to the buyer and recoop $50 from the USPS. But YOU NO LONGER HAVE THE CARD!

I guess my question is can you insure the item for double? If the buyer pays $50 and you send a $50 card that package is worth $100. So do you insure it for $100? I have been selling for years and this has always puzzeled me but never asked anyone and luckily I have never had to file a claim. Any insite would be great!

iamthegreatcornholio

<< <i> I guess my question is can you insure the item for double? If the buyer pays $50 and you send a $50 card that package is worth $100. So do you insure it for $100? I have been selling for years and this has always puzzeled me but never asked anyone and luckily I have never had to file a claim. Any insite would be great! >>



You can, and they will gladly take your money. But when it comes down to insurance claim time, they will ONLY pay for the amount it sold for.

I'm not a lawyer, but I wonder about replacement cost vs. actual cost.

Say you buy a pop 2 card for $500, insure it for $1,000, and it gets stolen... you estimated it'd cost $1,000 to replace it since there's one left. I guess you'd have to sue them to find out the answer.

Or you buy a pack of cards for $5 pull a 1/1 send it to get graded - they'd say the card is worth $5 since that's what you paid for it...

Brian

DeutscherGeist

If your package is damaged, but insured the item you bought from ebay, all you get is what you paid for the item, not the value.

If you send a card to a friend and it get damaged. The PO has to award you the appraised value. You would need a statement from a licensed dealer to confirm the value.

That's how I have learned it works.

dallasactuary

<< <i>What I don't get about the process is...


A buyer buys a card for $50. If you insure the package for $50 and the card gets lost, you send the $50 back to the buyer and recoop $50 from the USPS. But YOU NO LONGER HAVE THE CARD!

I guess my question is can you insure the item for double? If the buyer pays $50 and you send a $50 card that package is worth $100. So do you insure it for $100? I have been selling for years and this has always puzzeled me but never asked anyone and luckily I have never had to file a claim. Any insite would be great! >>



If the buyer sends you $50 and you send him a different piece of paper worth $50, say a $50 bill, is that package worth $100? America's Funniest Home Videos would probably love to have footage of someone explaining to the P.O. that the $50 bill was worth $100.

Looked at another way, if the transaction had gone right what would you have had? $50 and no card. And that's exactly what you have after the insured transaction goes bad.

The piece of the puzzle that you're leaving out is the P.O. .... THEY bought the card from you, essentially, when they paid the insurance claim. At the end of the day, the original buyer is in the same position he was in originally - $50 in his pocket and no card. You are in the position you wanted to be in when you sold the card - $50 in your pocket and no card. The P.O. is out $50 (and one of their employees probably has the card).

CDsNuts

Here's my horror story:

Back in 1995ish, I bought a 1993 Finest Mike Piazza refractor for $750 off rec.collecting.sports.baseball (anybody remember the old newgroups?) intending to resell it for around $1000-1200. The guy sent the card in a bubble mailer and insured it at my request. I go to the PO to pick up the package and there's a slit in the top long enough to pull the card out. So I open it, the card is missing, and I tell the lady at the counter the contents of the package were empty when there should have been a $1000 baseball card in there. I fill out the paperwork and they tell me the guy only insured it for $500. On the way home I was so irrate (that was a LOT of money to me back then) I wasn't paying attention and got in a little fender bender. After arguing with the guy about why he only insured it for $500, he finally agreed to refund $250 and the rest was up to the USPS. About a month later I got the check and all was back to normal, but I was really pissed because I knew I would make at least $300 off it.

Not sure this is completely on topic but I thought I'd share.

Lee

sagard

<< <i>...rec.collecting.sports.baseball.... >>



You had to really want to collect cards online back then. It was a bitter day when there was too much apathy to split the group into vintage/modern. Good thing the World Wide Web caught on.

Southerncards

I sold a glass dish on ebay and mailed it insured. It was boxed, wrapped in bubble wrap and had peanuts added. When it arrived in Illinois (from Va.) it was totally smashed. I handled the claim here but the post office gave me the runaround because I didnt have the original item (which was now a box of broken glass). They didnt want to accept the digital photos. They would rather that I sent the insurance info to the buyer and made him file a claim in Illinois. I didnt think the buyer should be saddled with that responsibility so I did it but boy was it a hassle to get my $50.

mtcards

I remember a thread about this in the past referring to how much you could claim for insurance. Not sure how that thread turned out, but I did ask our post office about this and they told me the following.

"You are entitled to the replacement cost of the item, any packaging costs, as well as the cost of postage". I checked this with the USPS site about a year ago and pretty much read the same thing.

So from what I am understanding is if you buy a card valued at $25, but only pay the seller $10, you can still claim the $25 value if you can substantiate that it would cost that much to replace. Kind of like if you sent an old music box you found in a yard sale for $2, but it was actually valued at $300 and had it insured for that, they would have to pay the $300 regardless of what the item cost, but rather the amount it would cost to replace it