
Missing $10,000 package of PAL SNES games recovered - ryan-c
https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/found-package/
======
koolba
While I love a happy ending as much as the next guy, this is a bit troubling:

> It wasn't until the story really started to take off that on February 16th,
> finally a manager at the USPS Consumer Affairs department took note of the
> case.

> And I mean that literally: he told me straight up the reason he was
> contacting me was because of the news articles he had encountered on this
> case.

Welcome to a future where only voices that broadcast their grievances loudly
over social media get answered.

~~~
bendykstra
USPS is especially bad. Google 'how to talk to a human at USPS' for an
illustration of their approach to customer service. Then know that the advice
on the first page of links is all obsolete. USPS is plugging the 'security
flaws' in their customer support system as quickly as people can find them.
However, there are other options. When I recently had a problem with a
package, I was finally able to talk to a person by first calling Amazon. The
Amazon employee connected me using a secret number.

~~~
ars
When I had a lost package I called their regular number, and had no problems
at all.

They started a case for me, and eventually called back to tell me they spoke
with with mail carrier who was the last to scan the package, who explained
that the package was routed incorrectly, but they had it and would be
delivering it shortly.

In another case I've also had good luck simply calling the sorting station and
talking with the actual human who handled my package (there was just a backlog
and it would be delivered soon).

I did not get an "corporate vibe" either time, but rather was able to
communicate with the actual person who would know.

~~~
chrisper
I feel like this depends a lot on the location.

My mail got delivered wet a few times, so I complained. And all they said to
me is, it got wet because it was raining. They basically said that there is
nothing they can do when it is raining...

~~~
losteverything
A note about when it's raining.

Don't put out any outgoing mail. Even if yours is dry it will get wet when it
comes in contact with other mail that is wet.

If you can hold off sending a letter in the rain do so

~~~
Spellchamp
As an Irishman, this concept confuses me.

~~~
losteverything
Outgoing mail can be placed in the mail recepticle where you receive incoming
mail. Often the letters get wet. The carrier takes the outgoing letters.

If it's raining the wet letters get tossed into a bucket, then into a larger
hamper than into a machine for sorting.

Wet letters make other dry letters wet. So even if you take them to the post
office they may encounter wet letters in their way.

Ink runs.

~~~
FlyingAvatar
I think the implication was that in Ireland, it's never not raining.

~~~
losteverything
Lol. Man am I stupid.

Although I have had Canadians tell me that their postman does not pick up
outgoing mail. Thats what I thought. DUH!2

------
asveikau
I didn't comment at the time, but I found the prior comment thread a little
unsettling: people trashing on USPS and irrationally holding UPS and FedEx in
very high regard. It's not like the other guys are universally honest and
true. I had one experience a few years ago where it seemed pretty clear that a
UPS employee stole a laptop. I have seen FedEx tracking claim they did a
delivery attempt when I have a camera at my door suggesting nobody was there
all day. At one prior address I had, UPS literally never attempted any
deliveries on Saturday, and wrote "business is closed" in tracking - at my
apartment.

I think people are really quick to assume that government employees are lazy
and out to screw them, and so something like UPS or FedEx which are private
should automatically be better. In truth, I really appreciate the post office.
They work hard for us. They're our public servants.

------
rhcom2
I'm happy for a good ending. Reading this story when it first came out
definitely made me feel sorry for the people involved.

Side note, when I worked at UPS they wouldn't even accept packages wrapped in
brown paper for this exact reason. It gets stuck in the machine and ripped
off, never to been seen again. When sending a package, put the label directly
on the cardboard and write the address in marker on the side.

~~~
13of40
When I was a young hoodlum, one time I took a piece of a paper shopping bag,
wrote my home address on it, and dropped it in a mailbox. About a month later,
it was delivered to my house in a zip-lock bag, with the same note the OP got.

> When sending a package, put the label directly on the cardboard and write
> the address in marker on the side.

While you've got the marker in your hand, also make sure you black out any
barcodes on the box from previous mailings, because supposedly they can make
your package get redirected to unexpected places.

~~~
mikeash
You might enjoy this article on Postal Experiments:
[http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/po...](http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html)

They tested all sorts of wacky stuff sent through the mail, including an
unpackaged flower and a ski, both of which made it to the recipient (but
various others did not).

~~~
rhcom2
Awesome site. I shipped a few car tires when working at UPS that we just
slapped the label on and a box of rare earth magnets that was a huge pain to
ship. Also some guy's removed testicle to get tested for tumour cells was
pretty weird but it just went in a normal box.

~~~
stevekemp
My test of the UK postal service was to address a postcard to my email
address.

I figured they could lookup WHOIS on the domain, get the address, and deliver
it.

Sadly not..

------
loeg
> took them to Deutsche Post for assistance in packaging them up. They ended
> up taping my two boxes together, and then wrapping the box in thick brown
> wrapping paper.

If you've ever shipped or received anything internationally, you know packages
get really beat up. Taping two boxes together and then wrapping that makes
absolutely no sense.

I'm glad this was resolved well, but you can avoid a lot of headache by not
trying to ship homebrew packaging internationally.

~~~
stouset
It sounds like _Deutsche Post_ did this, not the original sender.

~~~
byuu
Yep. The guy is not a big-time games distributor. He's a guy with a childhood
collection that offered to lend it to me for a few weeks.

There were definitely mistakes made on our part. But what I really can't
forgive is ... once the outer wrapper came off, my address was still plainly
visible on the box.

I can't for the life of me understand why they shipped it to their
undelieverable mail / govdeals.com auction site location.

------
astrodust
What an emotional rollercoaster this has been.

It's also a lesson in not putting all your eggs in one basket. Shipping these
out incrementally, and via a system that has the proper insurance in place,
would have been a better move. Hindsight and all that.

~~~
byuu
We actually did. His collection was 400 games. I asked to split it into four
smaller shipments. But what I failed to take into account was that I really
could not afford to replace even 100 PAL SNES games. They're just too
expensive anymore.

I hate that blame is being placed on him for the shipping. He was doing me the
favor. It was my fault for requesting so many games to be sent at once.

~~~
voltagex_
Prices of SNES games have gone crazy recently. I'm seeing the same with
Gameboy/Gameboy Colour, but not with Gameboy Advance.

Anyway, I'm very happy that the games got to you eventually.

~~~
byuu
The scary part is I keep saying that each and every year.

They just keep getting more and more insane.

Even two years ago when I bought Iron Commando for the Super Famicom, the $240
asking price was insane. It's at $1500 now for a complete copy. I passed on
Pokonyan for $100, thinking that was too high, and a year and a half later
ended up paying $800 for it.

How many years can the prices keep doubling like this? How can _anyone_ afford
to collect these games at these prices?

The whole thing feels like a giant hyper-inflated bubble.

------
xupybd
"I am ashamed at having to abuse my position and ask for help in getting this
story out there. It's not something that most people can do, and in any other
circumstance, is not something that I would ever do."

No reason to be ashamed at this. All the free time invested into this project
gave the author a little fame. They used that fame to further the interests of
the project. Win win.

~~~
byuu
Thank you very kindly.

But I mean, it's not fair in the sense that other people have packages they
really care about, but can't get help on.

That and the fact that I probably took someone else's place in the queue to
find their lost package :(

~~~
xupybd
On the flip side, this media attention may help motivate the USPS to improve
their systems. So while some may have lost a place in a dysfunctional queue,
there is a chance future customers will not have to wait as long.

------
makomk
I think postal staff really don't like to lose items in general. Here in the
UK, I ordered a couple of metal pill bottles a few years ago. What I received
was a clear plastic Royal Mail bag apologising for the damage to my parcel,
contents: one loose metal container, one bubble mailer containing the other
item and a circular tear exactly the size of the loose item. Clearly one of
them had made a bid for freedom somewhere in mail processing and someone had
gone to the trouble of matching up the completely unmarked and unbranded loose
item with the corresponding hole it escaped through.

------
Humdeee
> Had this case not been escalated to the media, it likely would have gone up
> for auction in a bin with other electronics sometime in March.

I'm just picturing some guy in a back corner of an auction room hesitantly
putting up a numbered sign to an rambling auctioneer and getting the whole
package for $20 bucks.

~~~
byuu
They do it all online now, and all the big-time retro game sellers on eBay
know about govdeals.com now. The auction would have gone for thousands of
dollars, easily.

------
losteverything
Well done.

As I said. It is a government agency and upper forces will create action.

We always like to say "if it had an address it will get there. - eventually. "

Despite the awful reputation, every carrier I know takes great pride in
delivering. Most people take it for granted and remember the bad experience.

Like seeing the cop hiding in the hill once and always driving slow everytime
you pass it -even though the cop is not there 95% of the time.

------
ryanlol
>Further, I understand they can't go to these lengths for every single lost
piece of mail. But surely there has to be some sort of middle ground here? It
should not be so impossible to escalate a case when something of significant
value goes missing.

It's not. You just have to insure it for the correct value...

~~~
eridius
Insuring it doesn't help you in recovering the package. It just mitigates the
loss. I fully expect that both byuu and the donor would much prefer to have
the 100 SNES games than to have a $10k payout.

~~~
ryanlol
The higher the insurance amount is, the more likely it is that it'll be worth
it for the company to look for your package.

~~~
byuu
Yes, it was under insured. But do you feel the $1000 insurance we had was not
enough insurance for them to locate the box that has my address clearly
written on it? :/

If not, then I'm not sure $10000 would have been either.

There were many reasons we couldn't insure for $10000. That wasn't our
mistake, though. The mistake was shipping 100 games at once instead of 20 - 25
games at a time.

~~~
sigstoat
> If not, then I'm not sure $10000 would have been either.

i'm given to understand that with at least fedex, there are magical cutoff
amounts which change the handling of the package. qualitatively different
things happen with something insured for $5000 than $4999.

so, yes, i'd be willing to believe that $10k might've triggered processes that
would've gotten the package to you with less hassle.

------
Animats
_They ended up taping my two boxes together, and then wrapping the box in
thick brown wrapping paper._

Somebody failed Shipping 101.

------
nogbit
"My package was sitting in Atlanta, GA for well over a month with my address
clearly visible right on the box."

WOW, and they would just put that up for auction. That is the definition of
theft. Don't apologize for that.

~~~
ars
They did not actually put it up for auction, there is a long process before
that happens.

Don't falsely accuse people!

The post office goes to great lengths with undelivered mail they open the
boxes and try to find any kind of address, perhaps an invoice or other clues.

~~~
byuu
Do you think my address being plainly visible and highly legible right at the
top left of each box counted? Because they had it for at least 40+ days just
sitting there collecting dust. Even though I had my missing mail search in,
just idling and going nowhere.

You're right though, there's the possibility that they don't actually try to
deliver the mail properly until right before they are getting ready to auction
it.

However, I'm very glad I didn't have to find out whether or not that was the
case.

~~~
ars
Until they open it all the way (remove the brown paper) they would not have
seen the address.

They would only open it as part of the process to eventually auction it.

So I can totally imagine it sitting there waiting for someone to claim it
(like you did), without anyone seeing the address.

Stop being so negative, it's not good for you.

------
noonespecial
The owner's address was clearly on the package. They knew whose it was and
clearly did not intend to make the effort to deliver it. Until they were
publicly embarrassed. That sucks.

------
sigil
> _There is a very real issue in that [USPS 's] machines are ripping the
> labels right off of packages._

I recently sent a USPS package that "disappeared," and they offered the same
explanation. A month later it magically showed up at the receiving end. This
wasn't a brown paper package or anything -- it was packaged for me by UPS
employees in a UPS store and mailed US postal service by them.

Wondering if there's some new (flaky) label scanning tech in play at USPS?

------
Keyframe
All good that ends well! Just looking at those SNES cartridges makes me feel
good!

------
AdmiralAsshat
Congrats on locating the package.

This govdeals.com site looks nifty. I may need to peruse it for, uh, research.

~~~
Natsu
I know what you mean. Anyone need a DNA Analyzer?

[https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=296&a...](https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=296&acctid=3227)

------
overcast
Happy Valentines Day!

------
fapjacks
The USPS is something right out of a dystopian hellhole. I bristle every time
I have to deal with some awful error of theirs.

------
sml156
Are these the same SNES games that 1 or 2 weeks ago were worth $5000

~~~
mynameisvlad
It was always 10k:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13646438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13646438)

~~~
byuu
It's always been $5,000 - $10,000. It's extremely difficult to assign an exact
value because PAL game prices are extremely fluid. One day a game can go for
$50, the next day the only copies are all $200 and another copy won't show up
for three years.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Sure, I was more replying to the insinuation that the value went up now that
they've been found, by showing that it was always reported as 10k.

------
justinator
I'm a little confused. In the original story, they didn't mention that:

> Apparently, their machine ripped the shipping label right > off the box. And
> so the USPS sent me just the label in an > envelope, and proceeded to berate
> me to ship better next > time, even though I was the recipient.

They just wrote,

> As of the time of writing, February 14th, 2017 — this > package has yet to
> arrive. It has been stuck in the Jersey > City, NJ 07097 bulk mail
> processing warehouse with > absolutely no movement.

I was under the impression that the package simply vanished, rather than being
given evidence that something else was up, like damage to the packaging.

Why not just tell me about the latter, first? It does shift blame a little...

~~~
crooked-v
Presumably the author didn't get the label in the mail until after they made
the post mentioning the NJ warehouse.

~~~
justinator
The day of the first, "lost package", and receiving the letter are the same:
February 14th.

[https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/lost-
package/](https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/lost-package/):

    
    
        As of the time of writing, February 14th, 2017 — this 
        package has yet to arrive.
    

[https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/found-
package/](https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/found-package/)

    
    
        On February 14, 2017, I received the following letter 
        from USPS:
    

They totally left out this when making their initial post. Part of the package
arrived, with a letter by USPS - the package didn't mysteriously vanish. It's
a little different story. I don't know why they wouldn't have mentioned it. In
the initial story, he blamed USPS for being incompetent on taking control of
the delivery; in the second he blames Deutsche Post for a bad packaging job.

~~~
byuu
I received the letter with the torn off label about six hours after having
published that article, and after Kotaku ran the original story.

I was swamped with updates so I didn't get the chance to get to my mailbox
sooner in the day.

~~~
justinator
Personally, I think that type of transparency is important, especially when
you're asking for donations and you're publicly pressuring the USPS to do
something. Why wait 9 days?

