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$10K Package Of Super Nintendo Games Finally Found By Post Office (eurogamer.net)
A project to preserve (and validate) every Super Nintendo game ROM had been derailed when the post office lost a package containing 100 games from the PAL region. But now Byuu, the creator of the Higan SNES emulator, reports that the package has been found. An anonymous reader writes:
Thursday Byuu finally posted photos of the unboxing for the package that was shipped to him January 5th. "I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to the USPS for assuming the worst in that these games were stolen. I should not have been so hasty to assume malicious intent." At the same time, Byuu writes that "My package was sitting in Atlanta, GA for well over a month with my address clearly visible right on the box. Had this case not been escalated to the media, it likely would have gone up for auction in a bin with other electronics sometime in March."
Byuu is now refunding donations he'd received to replace the missing games, and says he can now also resume work on the SNES Preservation Project. And going forward, according to Eurogamer, "Byuu has said he will be more cautious with shipping games in the future -- only using smaller shipments, or buying individual games to scan and archive then selling them on to get some money back."
Byuu is now refunding donations he'd received to replace the missing games, and says he can now also resume work on the SNES Preservation Project. And going forward, according to Eurogamer, "Byuu has said he will be more cautious with shipping games in the future -- only using smaller shipments, or buying individual games to scan and archive then selling them on to get some money back."
He needs to go to jail for a long time.
They lost his package and didn't care. They would have sold it and profited from it if it hadn't gotten media attention. The rest of us just lose our packages. I hope this will trigger a larger investigation of how the USPS handles these things.
you can clearly see in the photos it's not packed well. something like that you don't use paper to brace the outsides of the box. he should have bought some packing peanuts or those plastic air things that amazon and every other professional shipper uses to brace their packages
if he would have sued he would have been laughed out of court with those photos
Do you know why they are unable to deliver packages on time, without damage, and at a profit? It's because they have a monopoly to spam homes. Try opting out of junk mail. You can't. Know why? Because companies that want to sell you things are their customers. Not you. You're their product. They don't care if they lose your package becuase you can't opt out of doing business with them.
for the USPS, always use registered mail if sending something valuable. Registered mail is kept in secured, locked containers from receipt until delivery and the USPS is required to maintain full chain of custody records (every time the container with your piece in it is handed to a new person, they must sign that they received it). If lost, registered mail is traceable down to the person who lost it. If a registered mail piece is lost, the discipline in the USPS is quite strict because you know exactly who messed up.
I guess you missed where he clearly stated that it was the post office (specifically, Deutsche Post) which was responsible for the manner in which the packages were taped together, not the sendor *or* the recipient.
FTFA: "When the donor went to send me the next batch of 100 games, he reused my boxes and took them to Deutsche Post for assistance in packaging them up. They ended up taping my two boxes together, and then wrapping the box in thick brown wrapping paper. This was not ideal, but please understand that this was done at the behest of Deutsche Post. The sender was not aware of the possibility that USPS' sorting machines could rip the label off. The postal workers, who ship mail for a living, really should have advised him better."
Next time he should use a company that knows what the fuck it's doing. Never use the USPS unless there's no other choice. Their tracking is something from the nineteenth century and their employees simply do not care about doing a good job.
USPS - when it absolutely, positively has to be there sooner or later (or not at all).
Why link to fucking "eurogamer"? They don't even link to the fucking source of the information.
They QUOTE http://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/found-package/ but don't LINK to it.
This is what is wrong with online games "journalism". Copy/pasting, then acting like it's a "scoop".
I've had Christmas gifts disappear there. So has my family. Never had problems like that at any other post office. That place has crooks. Fully insure anything going to or from there.
Never EVER us the USPS to ship anything that you are not prepared to lose. They still have the government employee mentality of not giving a shit about the quality of their work. Individual mail carriers might care, but nearly everyone else in the organization doesn't give two shits about getting your package to it's destination. FedEx and UPS exist for a reason. When conducting business, one of these two carriers is always the way to go because they deliver consistently and on time.
The USPS was a great idea 240 years ago and they served their purpose for a long time, but it is high time that we fully privatize them and let them go bankrupt if they can't perform a competent service. Congress at the same time must put in place the same protections for email and other electronic correspondence that exist now for physical mail, since that is now how we communicate.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
At some point, the value of goods is so high that it makes sense to book a flight and take possession personally.
That might be difficult depending on the size of the package, of course. Airlines might lose anything put into their holds, for instance.
I suppose the lesson is to not cheap out on international shipping. The international carriers might actually be better for this than the local mail systems.
I have had several high-value packages, which I paid extra shipping for in order to get better tracking and recoup some of the most money if lost.
USPS does have a fairly good track record of finding packages when you continue to escalate. I've always done it in steps, up to and including contacting the highest levels available.
One package that was sent Priority Overnight to me did not arrive for 10 weeks. After several calls and filling out their online tracking / trace / lost package form, I finally made a phone call.
48 hours later I received a call that my package, as in this case, had just been sitting in a distribution center, unharmed with both the return address and my address on the box. Apology included.
It really can be worth it to continue to escalate until they either find the package or if you have insurance, recoup your losses.
Just my 2 cents. I've had this happen a few times and every time I followed the escalation process... eventually the item was found and delivered promptly. promptly.
I'm glad he received his games. Also, package your items carefully. I print out the return address and destination address. I jam it full of bubble-wrap. Then I use tape to completely water-proof that paper.
It seems all worked out in this case. It was kind of him to apologize.
I don't think the USPS is "out to get" anyone. They're also, to my knowledge, the only delivery service that requires a warrant to inspect a package sent within the US. My understanding is that other carrier, such as FedEx and UPS have standing agreements to allow LEO's to inspect without warrant.
73,
-sibsybcys
73! -KB3MGR
on the 18th when reported it was 5000$ worth of games, then an update to that summary put it at 8000 gbp (9968$) and now its 10,000!!!!
loose it for another couple weeks it will be worth 20!
https://games.slashdot.org/sto...
Several years ago at work someone sent us a package but it never arrived. Thankfully, they had a tracking number.
Both my mailroom guy and the sender escalated.
To be fair to the post office, the box was slightly mis-labeled - it had the wrong zip code or some such.
Anyhow, it wound up in the regional shipping center near us sitting on a carosel for several weeks. We finally got it after a several-week delay.
I had another several-week in-shipment delay several years ago on something a vendor shipped to us but I don't remember if it was the USPS or one of the other major, usually-reliable major shipping companies in the United States.
The moral of the story: Mistakes happen. Be prepared to lose items in shipment once in awhile. If it's worth it, pay extra for a trackable shipping method, insurance against loss, split the shipment up to reduce the risk of a total loss, or in extreme cases, do what museums and banks do: Arrange for a private courier who makes a living delivering high-value items from point A to point B.
While i'm grateful the box was found, Byuu should have been smarter. If you're sending anything of value ($10k worth of games seriously) , get a tracking number, insure it, and get it sent via certified/registered mail. There'a no excuse for this carelessness. He got lucky. Had he had done that he would have had a way to find where it got lost. You should always do this for anything of value.
"...Given all that's happened, I've lost a lot of trust in shipping games like this..."
You really mean to say "I've developed a more realistic appreciation of the process and how appropriate (or not) the various services are for shipping valuables, ie, not to ship something of high-value via the lowest-possible-cost method."
"...Once again, I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to the USPS for assuming the worst in that these games were stolen. I should not have been so hasty to assume malicious intent.
I'm a natural pessimist however, and if you've shared all of my disappointments in life, I suspect you might be as cynical as I am...."
You had me at the first sentence, lost me at the last. That sort of "well my life has been so hard" excuse is bullshit. If you were a NATURAL PESSIMIST you'd have been a lot more cautious about how you ship goods worth (allegedly) $thousands$ in the first place.
"...There is a very real issue in that their machines are ripping the labels right off of packages...."
You've got to be fucking kidding. I'm not a USPS employee, but to suggest that a service that handles a HALF BILLION pieces of mail every day - of how many different sizes? weights? grades? with how many different labels? address text/writing styles? - has a "very real issue" because your precious item lost a label is ridiculous. Special snowflake alert (which was obvious anyway from the immediate suspicion of theft, but I was giving him a pass on that because he was upset).
As a side note: that number of pieces is shipped by Amazon...in a YEAR. So the USPS ships roughly 300x the pieces with around 2x the staff.
"There's a very real concern in that it's damn near impossible to get help when something goes wrong unless you manage to attract a lot of media attention."
You let me know when you meet a government agency with a half-million employees distributed across 31000 locations that's any more responsive. Sorry, that's just life in the big city.
"My package was sitting in Atlanta, GA for well over a month with my address clearly visible right on the box."
If he's talking about what was handwritten on the box, basically what's on the box is disregarded unless it's a label. Do you have any idea how many people ship stuff in old boxes, with all sorts of addresses, comments, or old information that they don't cross out?
I'll be clear: I'm glad this guy got his stuff. But his narcissism is verging on solipsism. Is everyone that ignorant/pollyanish about the real challenges involved in modern shipping?
-Styopa
and a buddy of mine who's a prolific ebay seller has had dozens. As long as you insure it they pay out within a few weeks (which is better than average for any kind of insurance).
If I ship my kid a $50 dvd and it goes missing I don't care if the post office finds it. I get my money from the insurance and buy another copy. The last thing I want is the post office spending millions of dollars tracking packages full of easily replaceable crap.
It's just standard biz practice. All things being equal if it costs $100 to find something you lost and that something's worth $50 you lose $50 bucks looking for it. Unless it has something beyond it's intrinsic value or it's value is unnaturally high (like it was here) then there's no point. Like I said, I don't care if my kid's DVD goes missing as long as it gets replaced.
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USPS - Sometimes gets it there, sometimes "lost in transit". Often times the package will arrive some day as in weeks to months after the complaint is lodged.
DHL - Sometimes gets there smashed and very late after traveling some ridiculous path all around the country, sometimes never receive. Never once got something on time or without one side of the box smashed in. In other words always smashed.
UPS - Sometimes gets there with signs of severe g-force damage, sometimes arrives fine. Meticulously protecting against g-force damage before shipping helps a lot. Always on time.
FedEx - Most expensive option, but always arrives on time and in good order.
Amazon Prime - Always quick and always in good order. Sometimes a long time before the affiliate merchant decides to ship though.
Maybe figure out what shipping method works and see what you can do to route it that way. Can be a bit of a challenge when going international.
The USPS is in the constitution. If our government can not maintain a good Postal System then our government is embarrassingly incompetent. The USPS can run at a loss, it is a constitutional service unlike our standing military... neither are required to pay their own way (but the USPS does.)
The USPS is doing more business than ever before; mostly packages due to email. I knew a manager at the USPS and they do actually care and a lot of them work harder because their job is a service to their country that does not involve killing people-- a lot of PS workers in my area are vets. Altruism does motivate a lot of people; more so than bonuses. look it up.
FedEx and UPS exist because of business needs; which the USPS eventually met but has a lot of political pressure harming them; shipping insurance having always been the sticking point. They are in debt because of corrupt politicians forcing them to pay pensions for people not even born yet. Furthermore, even if the USPS beats everybody it can not address problems in foreign postal services like going private globally does.
The USPS is not global but it is much larger than FedEx or UPS - who'd not be able to beat the USPS at it's scale. They have shareholders who'd rather focus on higher margin business than daily junk mail. The USPS runs non-profit but is fully capable at running forever at a loss as it did for most of it's existence.
It ain't legal ripping ROMs down in the swamp boy
Amos Moses - Jerry Reed
A decade or two ago I was a hard core EBay re-seller, as a sort of side hobby I had Chinese movies (generally VCDs!) shipped in-mass and re-sold them in the normal mail, I used USPS and often the cheaper media mail rate. I sent hundreds (thousands?) of packages and not once, ever, did I have a problem with packages being sent in the post office getting lost or damaged. A couple times it took a week or two longer than it should.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
If they can actually track the package and after 1-2 hours on the phone don't tell you something like:
-- "Your postal worker wasn't working today."
Ok, but it was supposed to be delivered yesterday, the tracking says it was yesterday.
-- "We'll look into it, here's a case #"
Later that same day, a neighbor stops by with a package that was delivered to her two days ago. I do not waste another hour+ on the phone notifying the Post Office.
< 5 days later >
--"Our investigation shows no trace of your package. We don't know where it is."
"if he would have "
Please go back to school learn how to speak in the correct tense.
"if he would have" makes no fucking sense. You can tell it makes no sense, because you used it TWICE in the same sentence. The second usage is correct.
So, it's either: "if he HAD sued he WOULD HAVE been laughed out of court"
or just remove the redundant tenses altogether and say "if he sued he would be laughed out of court"
Is there something different or more legal about this project than past SNES scanning projects?
"My friend" has an archive of ROMs that's complete. It has every game, and even has every regional or versioned release as well (several ROMs per game). Same for NES, Genesis, and N64
.:Semper Absurda:.
Philthydelphia"? No surprise.
Don't take this observation the wrong way. But I have to be brutally honest. Post Offices with a high proportion of African-Americans are notorious for corruption and dereliction of duty. Every time that I have had a package lost or damaged it has been directly electronically tracked to a processing center largely staffed by African-Americans. I've googled this, and researched this, and that is the only conclusion a sane person can reach.
There is one notorious mail hub in western Pennsylvania that should be known as "the island of doomed packages". I deal in used books and ship and receive hundreds of books every year. I know what I'm talking about. The only reasonable way to make a living in used books is to ship via USPS media mail. Most of the time it works OK. But when its broken, the tracking always points to a handful of notorious mail centers known to be staffed by African-Americans.
There has been a national social policy to try to advance the African-American community. While seemingly worthy, it has let a lot of petty criminals and unqualified individuals to gain employment with the USPS. I can't offer any solution other that cross your fingers when you mail something via USPS.
It said Atlanta in TFS, you retard.
Matter does not simply disappear
The package went SOMEWHERE which is why you occasionally hear of letters mailed in the 1940s being delivered 70 years late - stuff gets mis-sorted, mis-routed, falls off of conveyors and lands between or behind machines etc but it does not fall through a mini wormhole into another dimension.
That said, if you are sending something rare and valuable do something minimally smart to make the postage carriers pay more attention to it: INSURE IT and track it.
They sell you package if you do not have them, sell you tape, but they do not tell you or help you make your package, when there is usually 10+ persons behind you fulminating that it is taking so much time to be done. There is on the other hand small outfit , usually at bar/tabac/dry cleaner/etc which are handled by the local shop owner and prominently state that you can leave post there. The personal there is not Deutsche Post personal. So yeah , I rather doubt the explanation is complete.
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Retard for stating the obvious?
My wife and I both take schedule II medications, and due to our insurance policy, we must purchased through mail-order else they stop paying after the third local refill. Never had an issue until MedCo became Express Scripts. MedCo always shipped UPS 2-day with signature required.
Express Scripts decided to use USPS on our first shipment after taking over. It never made it. They had pictures of it in the queue, and could only state that it was in our local post office (about 6k residents). Our normal, friendly deliveryman was off that day, and his alternate was never great (she'd leave boxes on top of our mailboxes--and we lived on the main bypass off the interstate!). Our order was mark as 'left on porch' even though there was no signature and we were home that day (was a Saturday). I suspect that status was changed after I reported it.
Due to the nature of the meds, I called both the town and State police, but neither could do nothing since it was federal. Like OP, trying to get through to a Postal Inspector is a pain. All they could assume it got lost in the local PO, but after talking to my regular mailman, he said an entire bin is received from a sorting facility and one scan of the bin means everything supposedly made it--so who knows where it really landed.
A quick Google search shows this is not atypical--the plastic bags scripts are not-so-discreetly shipped in are sometimes received with small holes as if checking contents, or big enough holes that the medicine 'falls out'.
BTW, the best part was trying to get our doctors to re-write 90-day scripts for S-II drugs. The required police reports, of which I could not attain. It took almost a month for a worker at the USPI and the local post master to provide enough informal, anecdotal documentation supporting our claims. Since it was 'delivered', it took forever to get a credit for the lost meds from Express Scripts too. Fortunately, the next and subsequent shipments came in UPS.
Other outfit MAY do that, the Deutsche post does not. I have been in many post office, small city, but city, big filliale, small one, big deposit place. And all have one thing in common : they tell you to do your package yourself. And i would bet it is a rule to avoid liabilities like in the case the package is done wrongly or damaged.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org