Bad luck cards
Last Updated on Wednesday, December 8, 2010 12:32 AM Written by N1WQ Tuesday, November 16, 2010 11:16 PM
Apparently USPS lost my QSL cards I’ve sent to ARRL buro in September. I’ve noticed the check I had sent is still not received by my bank, so I sent e-mail to ARRL staff yesterday. They responded quickly: no recent entries from N1WQ. Nice… I’ve used priority mail, so theoretically the package should be trackable within USPS, but the problem is I did not keep the receipt.
Well, I believe all this started much earlier, when I ordered my latest design cards from UA1OMS QSL Print. To save some money I paid for ground (actually sea) shipping, so it took a few months for the package to arrive. After opening it I found out, that a lot of “corner” cards became damaged during the shipping, so actually I saved nothing, but only got less usable cards (the air shipping method I took previous time delivered the package in much better condition).
Then I made another unpleasant discovery: the entire batch has a kind of a scratch on back side. I’ve sent e-mail to Serge, the owner of the service, and attached the pictures. He told me, that printing company says this kind of defect is possible, but not on entire batch. Well, the fact is, it is on entire batch. Serge apologized and offered me certain discount on my next order, which, of course, I accepted. By the way, Serge is very nice and courteous guy, and I believe his print service in terms of customer treatment and delivered quality is one of the best in the world, although as I can see now it is not always ideal.
And now I figured out my first 150 cards from this new batch are lost by USPS. Don’t you think these are bad luck cards?
Well, I will resend the cards, however to minimize additional expenses, I’ve decided to send part of them using GloablQSL. The rest will go via ARRL buro again, and I wish good luck all the mailmen and air pilots, who will carry them over across the world.
The worst thing is, the “not-in-the-log” returns, and most important, the cards destined to other US amateurs and delivered to me by mistake, which were also in that package, are lost forever. There is nothing I can do about it. Sorry, guys. Go and work new ones! 73!