[DrunkSmurf]

Hi ever had a package disappear in the mail? The seller (honest dealer) sent it, but it plum never cameth?

Well...

I order stuff occasionally from a place in New York. They have me on record--I've always paid by personal cheque.

My mum ordered something from them recently--she's never contacted them before, they had no idea of her address or relationship to me. She paid by paypal.

Well, the package arrived at my house! (We live in the same subdivision on similar sounding streets--both begin with "Br--")(must not be a lot of smurf buyers in St. Charles who live on streets that start with "Br" and she mistakenly connected the dots).

Whoops! I'm glad my last name isn't too common! Do any Smiths out there lose a lot of packages? This wasn't a big deal, but it shed some light on where some of those disappearing parcels might go (yes, to me--Hey, thanks everybody!)

[Gerda]

I think some of my missing packages go to my neighbors, or at least someone else in my town. I have received lots of mail that does not belong to me and I always return it, but I think some people are not as honest and just keep it or even worse,, toss it Over the years I have had at least 4 packages go astray.. very sad!!



gerda

[DrunkSmurf]

When I was a teenager, I ordered a video game that "never" arrived. We even contacted the dealer, who contacted UPS, and finally conceded by sending us another.

Six months later one of the neighbors down the street delivered the original. "Whoops, sorry, meant to bring it to you sooner..."

[Rachel]

Hi Tim, that was lucky that you did recieve the package but not really so good to hear that the company didn't bother to read the shipping info correctly. At least it turned out good.

We don't have many things go missing Thank goodness, infact our neighbours a really cool and will collect parcels for us if we are in work.

[Guest]

My Grandparents owned a pub from the 1940s through until the late 1960s. They then sold it and moved to a bungalow in the street across the road. In the late 1990s a postcard arrived at the pub addressed to my grandfather Sam Todd (he died in 1980). The postcard was postmarked 1960. My late grandmother who was then in her 90s was interviewed by the local television news because people were so amazed that this postcard had taken over 30 years to arrive.

[DrunkSmurf]

That's really amazing, Karen! Would it have been sitting on a shelf somewhere in a London post office, then some worker cleaning out his predecessor's desk found it and thought "what the he**? Better get it out!"

There's a joke in the USA about post offices being hotbeds of short fuses and "quiet desperation." There was an episode of Seinfeld in which the main character asked one of his neighbors, a postman, about why people go crazy at the post office (at the time, the USA had experienced a string of postal shootings by disgruntled employees gunning down their boss and coworkers).

The postoffice guy replied:
"Because, Jerry, the mail just keeps coming and coming. It never stops."

[SMURFYSTEVE1]

Karen, that is amazing
I just hope any smurf packages I'm expecting don't ever take as long as that to arrive or I'll go

Smurfy regards
Steve

[Guest]

Something else weird happened with the post because last year I received a postcard through my door delivered by the Royal Mail and it was addressed to my parents at our old house where they no longer live (a good 15 miles away and out of the county). The postcard had been sent by their old neighbours from Florida about 6 years before. I think maybe someone from the Post Office knew us and that's how it came to me but it still seemed odd.

[Gerda]

Thats almost creepy Karen.. like there is a post office ghost looking after you

gerda

[eggie smurf]

My Grandparents owned a pub from the 1940s through until the late 1960s. They then sold it and moved to a bungalow in the street across the road. In the late 1990s a postcard arrived at the pub addressed to my grandfather Sam Todd (he died in 1980). The postcard was postmarked 1960. My late grandmother who was then in her 90s was interviewed by the local television news because people were so amazed that this postcard had taken over 30 years to arrive.

There is a movie about a similar situation...can't remember the name...do you know what I'm talking about? It just seems vaguely familiar to me.... Was your grandmother ever in a movie?

[Guest]

Nope.. Not that I know of!

I did have a creey experience to do with her though after she died. I'm not one to believe in ghosts and stuff normally but there was one night a few years ago that I was really upset. I'd found a lump (yes in one of those) and the hospital rushed me through an appointment to get it checked out. I didn't tell my mum because I didn't want her to go through the same hell I was going through until I knew exactly what was wrong. I lay in bed crying, Stinky was asleep next to me, and I was really badly upset. Anyway, I suddenly felt this presence in the room and I can't say I saw something exactly, it was weird, it's not like I imagined it either, but I felt my grandmother there, she was a wearing a pink short sleeved knitted jumper, one of those silky ones old ladies wear. She pulled me into her arms and just before my body met hers to embrace she just disappeared and I had this overwhelming feeling of peace, for some reason bluebells came into my head, a great big patch of bluebells. I felt much better and went to sleep after that, it was the oddest feeling and I've not experienced anything like it since. The lump turned out to be a clot in a vein so it all worked out ok. I still sometimes wonder whether I dreamt it but there were a few strange things about my grandmother so maybe not.

[Gerda]

Thanks for getting me to cry Karen....

I have no doubt that your grandmother came to you that night, and I'm so glad that nothing came of the lump!! she probably knew you needed her!!!



gerda

[SA Smurfette]

Thats almost creepy Karen.. like there is a post office ghost looking after you

gerda

Lovely story about your Grandmother Karen

Raelene

[Tessa-Dennis]

Hi,

Sorry, no ghost story but a bit of insight as to where parcels go. In my spare time I drive around Rotterdam delivering parcels for a budget parcel deliverer including all small parcels from Royal mail and Deutsche Post. I am afraid several items 'disappear' in the mess of many part time drivers, many depots and low payment to the employees. Many ebay parcels come by a day and sometimes I wonder how the parcel came so far without completely falling apart. Sometimes we find small items on bottoms of the containers of parcels because items are packed in such a way the parcels rip or simply fall apart due to saving on tape or trying to get it in a small parcel box/envelope to safe cost.

I can talk here for hours on what we see and we have loads of parcels with incomplete addresses without a readable return address. And this is only one of several depots in Rotterdam so put this into the worlds perspective and it is increadible how many parcels do arrive.

Sorry for this scary information but when I started doing this in the summer I suddenly understood a lot more on what happened afetr we leave the post office.

Dennis

P.S. One of my favourites was a royal mail parcel in the form of a box with clearly a load of loose broken glass inside. Someone had taken a box, just put the piece of glass in there and instead of wrapping this glass up in paper or cloth had written on the box 'please be careful, very breakable'
Funny to see and think of the person who send it who propably thought that the person at the post office in the U.K. would deliver it personally and also that everybody reads and understand English. Funny but do feel a bit sorry for the person who I handed this over to, quite a surprised face I can say

[Syd Smurf]

That's an amazing story about the Postcard Karen....if any of my packages took that long I wouldn't be happy ....of course by that age I would of moved on from smurfs and will probably be collecting different *censored* boxes from around the world

[Guest]

I also worked for the Post Office for a while, I had to decipher the addresses on envelopes and parcels and people do write some weird and wonderful things on them. The good thing about working there was I learnt exactly how you should address a parcel, and the UK postcode should ALWAYS be on a separate line, if you put it on the same line as a town name it is more likely to get lost.

I am not sure about US postcodes, people seem to put them on the same line as a town on their paypal addresses and that confuses me, and the French never use capital letters, that confuses me as well.

[Fram]

Well, in Belgium, we are supposed to put the postal code and the community name on the same line, so I always do that for the UK as well. Oops, I'm glad everything arrived anyway

[Gerda]

In the statess we are suppose to put the zip code right after the state.. like this

Ripon WI 54971
but if the town name is too big and you run out of room I have put it at the bottom of the town already and it gets there just fine. A few years ago we got extra numbers to add after our zip code, most people do not use these (i don't) and everything still gets here.

Gerda

[Tessa-Dennis]

Hi,

Most important is probably writting the destination in large and standard letters using all available space and also clearly writing a return address somewhere. Also keep in mind the language of the mailman/woman delivering the parcel. They can not always understand what is written obn the box in the senders language, English is mostly no problem but French, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish etc, everything comes by in a weeks time.

The ZIP codes here are extremly easy. Every number in every street in every place can be addressed simply by ZIP code and house number. In Holland, if you mail something to us, 3067DC 36, would be all that is necessary:
30 Stands for Rotterdam
67 Stands for the neighbourhood
DC Stands for the row of houses
36 is our house number
Thats all.

For US mail I always write the State in full as I do not know if the mail is sorted out here and send to for instance LA, NY etc. Or if all is send to one city in the U.S. and sorted out there. When things are sorted out here I would not want them to mistake Wisconsin (Wi) for Wyoming, although an easy difference for someone who knows this in the U.S. it might be confusing for a non-US postal worker and put on the wrong plance, making delivery time so much longer.

Another tip, from experience, is for U.S. seller who ship to Holland/The Netherlands PLEASE use The Netherlands as it has happened several times now that USPS send parcels with HOLLAND on it to POLAND lookig at the postal stamps on the boxes and the very long delivery time. For Dutch buyers, please use The Netherlands for international transactions outside Europe, it can make your life easier.
An anekdote is that we were once stopped by the police while taking photos in the U.S. and the Southern Police officer said, with his accent, to the californian radio room employee "These people taking photos are from Hooland", which was changed to Poland in the radio room and before we knew it we were waiting in a room for the FBI to show up several hours later from Sacramento. WHen they saw our pasports all was OK again and we could leave after having a laugh and a coke with them. The police officers face was

Dennis

[Rachel]

Another tip, from experience, is for U.S. seller who ship to Holland/The Netherlands PLEASE use The Netherlands as it has happened several times now that USPS send parcels with HOLLAND on it to POLAND lookig at the postal stamps on the boxes and the very long delivery time.

Hi Dennis, that is excellent advice. I had never thought about the names like that, I will certainly always use The Netherlands in the future.