General Forum

Yesterday I sent out a PWE full of replacement cards making up for another PWE that never made it to my trade partner.  Today I received a PWE from another trade with 9 commons in it marked with $4.52 postage due!  This is officially not fun any more.  To all my great trade partners I am unfortunately out of the PWE business.  I hope to continue trading with bubble mailer trades with 75+  cards.  

Call the person out by name instead of posting these generic complaints.

There is no one to call out except USPS and PWEs.  USPS lost one PWE and the PWE I received was normal size and for whatever reason USPS slapped it with the crazy postage due amount.  The traders involved did nothing wrong.  

As always, the USPS is out to get the hard-working PWE traders on the TCDB. Makes sense now.

I had an issue like that, my local post office was trying to charge me package rate for incoming pwe, saying it was to rigid to be a letter,, I spoke to the post master and made him call other post master to confirm he was way over charging...  at the end of it, he was wrong, now back to normal..  may want to take a ride to you post office and speak to the post master there.

Yes, you got me UKBoogie.  For a moment there I thought discussing frustrations with USPS and PWEs was an appropriate topic in the forum for "broad discussions of collecting".  I don't know what I was thinking.  

Out of 100s of PWEs that I have received I have had only one with postage due.  The trader was willing to split the postage due.  One 18 cent card in a top loader in the PWE.   The odd thing was I received two PWE that day and only one had postage due.   I asked my carrier WHY would that happen?    His reply was.  They go through the machines and if they make it through everything is OK but for some reason the machines will kick them out and then a person will mark it postage due.   The same goes for the weight on the PWE a few will make it through but most will not.  
Weight is easier to do then the too rigid for the machines.

I have had a couple that did not make it to the other trader (I made it right) and a couple that did not make it to me.  (I let it go as a PIF).   I look at it is life and things happen but still frustrating.

Due to my wants and number of cards here that I need.   My trades are 1 or 2 cards at a time so doing bubble mailers are out of the question for 98% of my trades.     

Thanks budler, I have had postage due a couple times before but it was like 20 or 30 cents.  This $4.52 one was just too much to take, so I've pulled the plug on the PWEs.  I also am getting too many lost.  

And another member sees reasons why I won't trade PWE (for several years now). USPS is too inconsistent with pricing (plus lose some occasionally), shippers are too inconsistent with mailing practices, and the one thing not mentioned here: damage to the entire envelope and contents.

However, I don't set a strict card number for shipping in BMs. I will trade 25+ cards shipped in a BM as long as there is some value to them to make it worth almost $4 shipping. I'm not shipping 25 base cards in a BM, but if there are some inserts and parallels in there, that might be enough. Just last week, I did mail a single card in a BM with tracking but it was an SN20 AU card. Quality of cards being shipping is just as important to me as quantity of cards when it comes to trading through the mail. I'm still not using a PWE for any cards though.

Yep, I've seen the light.  You're the first person I thought of when I made the decision.   Looking forward to my new life as a bubble mailer only trader.   Will certainly be a lot less trades but they'll have more punch.