How Often Have Your Overseas Packages Gone Missing?

I order almost everything overseas. The only Tarot-related thing I never received was a deck from Book Depository. I believe it was because they do not charge for shipping so there's no tracking. The faul is most probably our mail's and not theirs. Once they arrive in the country, many things get stolen, lost or are simply not delivered. So far, though, I've been pretty lucky.

I have rarely not received anything in the end, I think it was worse for mail order here in the UK internally in past times. Now when you order, you can often give reviews for the stores or shops or sellers and for me it seems to happen less or they try to resolve it!

The only tarot related package for me was gregory's deck! It took a long time from printer studio compared to everyone else who ordered it, finally there was an email from them and sadly customs had seized a huge bulk order to them in Germany! They were being difficult and not giving Printer studio the reasons why and what was happening. In the end they wrote off the order and a new deck came my way in less than a week after that! I was impressed with how they dealt with a very difficult situation! The other deck was probably destroyed in the end

I think even if they go missing, normally the problem will be resolved unless you are really unlucky

I order from Europe often. The only deck I never received was the Anna K. A replacement was sent.

Have only ever had one deck not show up but they sent me a replacement straight away... and to be honest I think they just forgot to post the first one as I didn't get a shipping notification the first time.

I did send one parcel to Australia that disappeared for a few weeks, but just when I was about to refund her, her elderly neighbour from a few doors down turned up with it... it had been delivered to her address by mistake while she was on holiday.

Have had a few long waits along the way, but other than those two blips, nary a problem

ETA: Amazon Logistics is incapable of finding my house without a guide dog but that's another story

I thoroughly enjoy reading everyone's posts! The overall conclusion seems to be that shipping stuff overseas is perfectly safe whereas shipping locally is a high-risk endeavour!

As a buyer, I only did not get something once that I can remember. It was from the UK (I am in the US). In this case, no replacement or refund, so I was out of luck. It was on Etsy and they would not do anything.

As a seller I have shipped well over a thousand packages and lost ones are so rare I could probably count them on one hand, definately less than ten in six years. Never a one lost in the US that I remember but one (or two?) supposedly lost in Cypress and I think one in UK and one to Qatar supposedly confiscated for nudity on a card! One in France but it came back to my address eventually. Some of this was before the USPS tracking was improved; now most but not all countries will at least show delivery.

Delays however are common, and rarely (thankfully) they are sometimes very long ones like two months, and it is almost always due to customs being involved.

I have never lost a tracked one. One did however drop off the tracking map for 5 weeks before appearing again. It's curious how postal services take more care of things which they have to keep scanning...however the duty of care doesn't seem to extend to the UK where having been lovingly tracked across the globe, often packages are abandoned by the postie outside my front door in the rain!

Oddly the one that took AGES was tracked... and vanished for months.

Also 90% of the time tracking internationally falls over - especially FROM the UK. I well recall the terrific row I had with the post office when one FROM me to Canada vanished completely. They said what did I expect - I should have paid for datapost. I don't think so.... it is so expensive it would have cost A LOT more than the package was worth.

Now, within the UK - even tracked - I have lost quite a lot. My favourite of all time was the signed for one to renew my Canadian passport - containing all my original papers. In the end I became worried, so I phoned the High Commission - who said yes of course they had it, and the new passport was about to be mailed back to me.

Two years later it was still showing on their website as in transit

There was also a package to my daughter at Uni, which I got compensation for and which rolled up 6 months later. I did not return the compensation. She;'d been slipperless (among other things) all that time...

I have only ever had one package not turn up, I think. It was a recent trade from the USA. No idea where it went astray - but dear member Karen could get me another copy of the deck and kindly did so. I have that one but the original never got here.

But all other packages here have got through fine. And there have been Greenwoods and Ironwings and I remember my Magnus Veritas taking AGES. But I just kept myself busy knitting or crocheting or counting rosaries or god knows what. It was a nail-biting time... But you get stoical about it.

Grizabella said:

I just ordered the mass market Illuminati from the Book Depository and I think it's the UK based one, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and praying I get it. Their information says packages arrive to the US in 5 to 8 working days, so I hope it gets here this week.

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Book Depository is great, in my experience. I order from them all the time. I have had one thing not show up. I emailed them and they sent out another copy, no questions asked.