Knife went missing in mail - HELP !!

[Jason Cutter]

I was wondering if anyone could suggest ways to go about it.

The situation. I finished a knife for a much-valued customer in Hawaii and sent it off by my local insured Air Mail service that has been very reliable so far. The package also had a cheque in it from the guy (it had details on it that needed to be changed so I could bank it).

It never arrived. It has been almost a month after posting it and no-show. It usually takes 5 working days. Needless to say, both he and I are peeved. He hasn't got the knife and I haven't got any payment. And a knife I'm very proud of is in the postal Twilight Zone.

I have the tracking numbers on the receipt and am investigating it with the post office. They have been a while getting back to me with an answer but the original suggestion is that - "It might have ended up going by sea mail if the air mail sticker fell off, etc. etc. ..."



Anyone have experience with this sort of thing ? What are my chances of seeing the knife again ? Am I totally screwed ??

Thanks in advance. Any help appreciated. Jason.

 

[mistakaroo]

If its insured, tell the Air Mail to pay you back. Tell the customer to void the check. I know youll be losing hours of labor for the knife but theres not much you can do right now.

 

[ZENGHOST]

Aw, man, Jason--that sucks big time. I can't remember how it worked when I got mine--does it go from Australia Post to US Mail? If so, you might want to have the local customer check with his local P.O. as well. If it was all USPS, then I'd say it'll show up eventually, but I'm still pretty new to the whole international shipping thing so I don't know what to tell you. Good luck, hope everything turns out well.

 

[golok]

I had a similar experience about one and a half years ago. Bought a knife from US. It went "missing". I pestered every postal office I can think of.

It finally showed up after about 13 weeks. Gave me a good scare. The package was re-taped for some reason. Made me suspicious but I didn't really mind because I got the stuff back.

The kukri was unbreakable!

 

[joeshredd]

Jason,
That's way too bad... After having such a simple system work, at least for our deal, I'd have gone the same way again... Maybe the odds are swinging... or it's sitting in a custom's house some where between Oz and Hawaii... Like Golok said, I also know stuff can take it's own sweet time in the USPS system...
Good luck to the both of you... and let us know if things work out!