Good day all. Brian here. I am new to the forum as of this whole event transpiring, and wanted to follow up and clear the air. Forgive me if this gets a little lengthy but I want to give everyone some useful information regarding their shipments.
To start, my name is Brian Bell, I have been buying and reselling pallets of lost freight from the USPS, UPS, as well as airline lost luggage for over 10 years. I also happen to be a sports card collector, and regularly buy bulk merchandise from shops that are going out of business and people that are getting out of the hobby. If any of you are on any vintage groups on Facebook, or Masters of Cards razz network, you have likely seen me post and sell at some point.
Now to lost freight: When items are lost in the mail, they end up in the mail recovery center. This can happen in a number of ways, including but not limited to bad addresses, damaged goods that had insurance claims paid, items that were ripped open on a conveyor belt and separated from their label, and items requiring a signature that were not picked up within 30 days and don't have a return address. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but you get the point. Please understand when an item ends up at the MRC, there are literally thousands of items there, so to expect someone to take each one and search the net looking for the owner is beyond unreasonable. If the item has something attached to it that makes the sender or recipient identifiable, the post office will go to great lengths to return the product to the rightful owner. Many times there is nothing that would prove to whom the item belongs. When that happens, the item is deemed dead mail, and is confiscated as property of the US Postal service, who then auctions it off in bulk pallets. UPS, Fed Ex, and the airlines do the same thing they just have a 30 day process to file paperwork before they can auction because they are not government organizations. You do not have to like or agree with this process, but you do have to understand that it is 100% legal and would hold up in a court of law. From the moment the auction is finalized, the winning bidder becomes the LEGAL owner of all products on that pallet.
Now as I said, I am a card collector, I have personally lost high dollar cards in the mail before and I know it sucks. As such, when I receive high end cards, I always take the time to personally scour eBay and blowout card forums to see if I can track down the original owner. As a new member of Net54 I wills start searching here as well. I am a completely reasonable person, and will always try to reunite the card to the original owner at a fair price if the person is not completely rude and tries to work with me. I get a huge variety of merchandise including cards, electronics, video games, clothes, shoes, and all sorts of other items. Cards are the only thing that I try to unit with their original owners, because again, I am a collector and I would want that done for me. I have received a number of messages from members on this forum calling me a thief, a liar, a cheat, and making all sorts of other presumptions without first asking me in a reasonable and rational manor to explain what happened. I am neither of those things, I am a business man, and a collector.
Lastly, some tips and advice for you sending cards in the future, and tracking them down if they are lost:
- Cards that are lost in the mail that are not graded or serial numbered would be impossible to reunite with their owners. Anytime I have a card of value or scarcity that would be traceable, I make every effort to do so. If you ever lose a card and want to message me to see if I have it or can keep an eye out for it, feel free.
- Lots of things in the auctions are damaged beyond repair or use. Just this last auction I received a graded Peyton Manning Autographed rookie and a Chris Paul auto rookie that were absolutely mangled. They went straight to the trash and I do not waste my time looking up buyers of cards that have been destroyed as it would not make any kind of business sense.
- There are literally hundreds of bidders at the various auctions I go to, just because your item was lost in the mail does not mean I was the guy who won it, and even if I did if it was destroyed when I received it you would never hear from me.
- I am not under any obligation to reach out to you, or to return "your" card. I am simply a nice guy who likes tries to help anyone who is reasonable and understanding. If you failed to insure your package, and it ends up in my or any other bidders possession, making threats or demands is the surest way to get blocked and never see your card again. I have many friends that do what I do, I am the only one that is a card collector and I get made fun of all the time for reaching out to people when I am often accused of thievery for doing so.
- The best thing to do if you don't want to lose a card, or anything for that matter, in the mail is to insure it if it is valuable. Things happen, that's life. Also, if your card is graded or in a top loader, attach a sticky note that has the ship to and return to address on the card itself. This way, if your contents are separated from their packaging, you have a much greater chance of being found. This is also not fool proof if the item itself gets caught in a conveyor belt.
Hope this clears up a lot. I look forward to interacting with the group going forward and feel free to reply with follow up questions or message me if you like. I'll be happy to help where I can.