"Lost" in the mail UPDATE

PCGSPhoto

I've consigned with Jeremy in the past, and I wanted to sell some coins through him to move towards a more ancient-based collection. I've never had a problem with USPS, and so when my wife mailed the coins I suppose we just took it for granted that the coins I wanted to sell would arrive in good measure like they always tended to do.




Not so this time unfortunately. The coins never arrived. And to make matters worse the receipt with the tracking number was accidentally disposed of.




My wife tried to talk to the local PO about the matter but she, perhaps the sweetest and warmest women in the world, was chewed out, lectured and treated like garbage by the staff there (which is what I'm most upset about). Basically they told her it's her fault. Yes even though we could have taken more care, something is also clearly wrong with the post office in that they "lost" such a thing.




Any advice on what to do next? Here are the coins.























Saxony Thaler, raw.

bronzemat

Since you dont have the tracking I would say your out of luck. I have lost several coins through the mail, usually it's due to customs but 1 was within the u.s.. To this day I havent seen the coins surface on any websites or ebay.



When it comes to coins you posted, I would have made sure to insure them and such. My stuff was low value, less then $60 all times but thankfully they were buys that I got refunds on.

worldcoinguy

Sorry to see the turn of events. The arrogance of the USPS is not isolated to your location unfortunately. I hope things take a turn for the better, but it unfortunately sounds like there is a rotton apple in the service chain inside the PO.



At the least, can you add the PCGS numbers to the PCGS stolen coin tracking?

http://www.pcgs.com/SetRegistry/showcase.aspx?sc=575



How long has it been?

STLNATS

Originally posted by: bronzemat

Since you dont have the tracking I would say your out of luck.

+1.



Terrible situation to have lost such lovely coins, but I'm not sure what they can do if you don't have any documentation. In terms of the treatment you received, I thought they have district/regional offices to field customer complaints but that's probably not going to get your coins back.



I think service must vary widely by location. I've been fortunate to have had usually great experience with USPS over the years (at two different areas), from my local carriers to folks at the main office. The OL tracking is good, I think, and helps (me at least) to ameliorate some of the anxiety of watching my stuff go thru the system. Service and security seems much better than UPS/Fedex but that's just my experience.



Hope your parcel just took a scenic detour and pops up at its destination soon!

TwoKopeiki

Ouch. I believe if you had the tracking number, even if not the actual receipt, they would start an investigation. Since you don't have the number - they have no way of knowing if you actually mailed the coins and I think you might be out of luck. I'll keep an eye out if these come-up in my regular searches of certified eBay world coins, but it's a long shot.

TwoKopeiki

By the way, I would still raise a customer complaint due to how your wife was treated. There's no reason to be unprofessional.

brg5658

It would be nice to know how long of an amount of time "missing" we are talking about here.



Days? Weeks? Couple months?



If it's been less than a month, I'm still hopeful they will make it to their intended destination.

PCGSPhoto

Oh my wife was pretty quick to raise a customer complaint. Nothing's come of it though (it was mailed a month ago).



We do have the transaction record on our bank statement for the payment of the shipping, though I'm guessing the local PO rejected that out of hand.



I still have a distant hope that it's taking a long route to WA... I hear that's happening a lot lately.

asheland

I love that Groat! I'm sorry to read this.

lordmarcovan

I sure hope it's just fallen into a postal wormhole somewhere and eventually emerges safely on the other side.



Two years or so ago, I had one vanish for five months before showing up.



Makes me a little nauseous for you, seeing how lovely those are.



*crossing fingers*

CIVITAS

How was it shipped? First class or Priority? Did you use an insurance form/label, or just the automatically generated tracking from the post office cash register?

Or something else?

The reason I ask, if you keep a small stash of insurance forms on hand for shipping, they are likely in sequence. They usually skip a few numbers, but usually not more than 15 at a time. So, theoretically, if you have an unused insurance form on hand from the same batch you used to ship your package, you could go on the usps website and just start entering tracking numbers starting with the next one below your unused form and keep going down by 1 until you hit the one that matches acceptance at your post office at the time and date you shipped your package. It won't be good enough for a claim, but at least you can see what tracking says and possibly request an inquiry.

Example: You have an unused form with number: VJ386801100US

Go to usps.com and enter

VJ386801099US and see what it says. Not the right one? Then enter VJ386801098US and see the results. Keep going until you find the right one, or until you've done about 25 with no success.

But, if you either used the post office's automatically generated tracking or grabbed a single fresh form at the post office, you're probably out of luck.

SYRACUSIAN

Phil,

I'm sorry that this happened to you. If you decide to consider the coins lost or stolen, there are dozens of institutions worldwide, who have departments that will list your coins as stolen. There's a special world database that is being kept up to date, according to the fate of stolen goods and the items that are being daily added to these lists. I believe the ANA is probably among them, but there are also many international agencies, including some in Canada, as well as several in Europe. A friend of mine had lost some very rare coins from Cyprus via Fedex, and he litterally contacted every single such agency or department in the world. His coins haven't been recovered, they were probably sold via underground channels, (too rare to show up at auction, or to be offered to a dealer), but at least it gives you the peace of mind that they won't be sold publicly. Several of them have been recovered.

Every major auction house has lists of stolen coins in case any show up for consignement or for sale. This would be my advise and if you ever recover the USPS parcel, all the better, just contact these same agencies and inform them of the outcome, otherwise the sooner you declare them stolen, the better.

Ahrensdad

I don't know if this will help, but if you paid with a credit card your card company may be able to help you obtain a copy of the receipt. The tracking info is printed on the receipt. It's worth a try.

TomB

I'd imagine that inadvertently disposing of the USPS receipt with tracking information dooms you as far as an investigation within the USPS. It also reads as though there was no insurance either purchased or in place as a private matter. I would suggest you take the PCGS cert numbers and add them to a new Registry set titled something like "USPS Lost Coins" and you may even leave the set private. Then, if they are ever found or turn up and someone attempts to add them to the PCGS database, you will receive an email and can follow up on there whereabouts.



I had one coin stolen from me by a PCGS board member who was also a repeat client and I have added the cert number to my own such private Registry set. It has never turned up, but I am hopeful.

marcmoish

Some of the ideas here are really clever, and helpful.



Sure hope these coins find there way back to you.

Tookybandit

Did she pay by CC? Can you look up the date and dollar amount of the transaction on your CC statement? Bring this info with you to the PO and have them look up the transaction and find the USPS tracking number on the receipt copy that they kept. Be adamant, stay there as long as it takes for someone to pull the transaction records for that business day an get you the tracking info. It is worth making a hissy fit at the PO to see if you can make any headway.

PCGSPhoto

My wife shipped these coins on October 1st. Today, somehow, miraculously, Jeremy received them at his post office. They all arrived, safe and sound. No idea what happened, but it's quite a relief for all of us!

Zohar

GREAT news!!

TopographicOceans

I just stumbled over here from the lightside and was going to comment, but I see it all turned out OK.

Sometimes first class and priority gets mixed in with parcels and sit in trucks or at PO's along the route.

Glad it showed up - and save those receipts (and insurance can be your friend)

ajaan

Phil,

Glad to hear the coins arrived and all turned out OK.

garrynot

Great news and it was all the Postal Service's fault, as it should be.

OriginalDan

That's excellent news. I'm guessing it did a 50 state tour before landing at the intended destination.