How do i find out where my lost post mail has gone?

Question

I've been awaiting 3 small packages (2 from US and 1 from hong kong) for the last 3 weeks. How come its taking so long? It never takes THIS long!!!!! Im certain its gone missing, or a postman has stolen it. If theres any postmen/women out there, do u 'take' peoples post?

Answer 1

First off, do you know if the packages were sent in the regular mail, or through a carrier service, like UPS, DHL, or FedEx. If they were sent via a carrier service, the sender should have a tracking number that you can use when calling the carrier service, or using their website, and you can find out exactly where your package is.

If they were sent via the regular mail, sometimes packages can take a while, especially if they are sent at the cheapest rates. I'm guessing that you are outside both the US and Hong Kong. Some postal services, like in the US, offer tracking services or additional proof of delivery / confirmation. However, I don't think they offer this on international deliveries. Some of the cheapest (and slowest) delivery options from the US, like parcel post, might take 4-6 weeks to other parts of the world.

Here's a few things that might account for the delay:
- A postal holiday in either the sending country or your country that might slow the mail down by a day or two. The US had two postal holidays in November: Veterans Day (11/11) and Thanksgiving.
- Items are not properly documented in passing through customs. If you are receiving items, did the sender fill out the customs form properly. Were they items that are permitted to be sent from the sender's country to your country?
- Items poorly addressed. If your address is incorrect or hard to read, it might not get to you.
- Theft/loss - it could be that a package gets stolen or lost while in transit - sometimes from a postal worker, and sometimes from outsiders (including someone stealing it from your mailbox after it gets delivered, but before you get home)

What you can do:
- Contact the sender to verify the date that the items were sent. If they got receipt of mailing or a tracking number, have them share that info with you. Also verify what address they used to ship to you, and what type of shipping they used (what rate they paid - was it priority mail, or airmail, or just parcel post)

If they are unfamiliar with your country's mail address system and wrote things according to their own country's system (in the US, we put name, street number, street address, (apartment number) then city, state, postal code and country, but other countries might require it in a different order, it might confuse the postal system.

- Let your mail carrier know that you are expecting a package, if you think they are reliable in your area.

Answer 2

There really is no point asking the post office where your mail is as they will have even less of an idea as to it's whereabouts than you do. Let's just consider registered post. If you send a letter by registered post and after a few days the recipient hasn't received it you ring up the post office and ask them to find out where it is. Fairly straight forward. The only problem is, the post office can't tell you where it is until it's been delivered. Need I go further. The post office is a problem and it should have been privatised years ago. I feel for you, I've lost so much stuff in the post, birthday cards, business letters. There have been several incidents where I live of post being stolen. On one particular ocassion a whole bag of mail was stolen from the back of some postman's car as he collected it in his own vehicle.

Answer 3

Contact the Post Office. Unfortunately people do take things because they have no respect for people or property. Credit cards, cd, passports use to go missing. When i use to work there i had to be very careful who i talked to in case they were 'at it'. I had to send off my birth certificate which i was happy to get back, but it could be anywhere along the line. Once i delivered what i thought was a watch and when i got back to the sorting office the person said there was nothing in it, so it could have been me, the customer or sender who lied.

Answer 4

You need to go to a Post Office and get a form (P52 I think) for lost, missing and delayed mail but I think it's designed to be fillied in by the sender, not the receiver (although I have completed them in the past and got a result).

The Post Office will advise you better:))

Answer 5

welcome to the post ofice and theyr usual mess-ups.

have the sender of the parcels to fill a form "every country in the world have them" and they should be able to find the parcels for you...

if the parcels have been sent with delivery recorded wil be easy to find, if not they will shoud show up but will take more time...


have some expertize with royal mail screw ups, but the post shows up after some time...

Answer 6

Ask the sender to put a search on it. Hopefully they mailed it with "Signature Required" by recipient.

Answer 7

get in touch with your postal sorting office or head office they will be able to help

Answer 8

snail mail need i say more