I never found any method of shipping PSA cards really satisfying.
I did do the ‘slap it between card board’ in bubble mailer method.
I did do the ‘just a bubble mailer’ method
And recently I start doing the ‘psa card in bubble mailer’ in bubble mailer method.
All three felt so-so, but all three ship over no damage taken.
You should use spoilers with gory updates like that, feels bad man. 
Well, last July I bought a ton-load of stuff from Japan. They “were” supposed to be a total of 12 boxes, of which 11 arrived. I opened cases, I’ve called USPS customer support, and absolutely nothing. Tracking still shows it stuck a state away from me. I am baffled that NO ONE knows where a 50-60lb Box is when its huge. I just took it as a loss for now. Kind of disappointed though as I am missing a NO RARITY Machamp I bought and it seems to be in that package 
. No insurance also so… I’m screwed
@will921 doesn’t the seller cover loss or damage?
I ship at least 10-20 a week and I always just send the PSA card in a #0000 padded envelope which is then inside another #0 padded envelope. Never has had an issue that I recall with probably ~1,000 cards sent that way. Above $250 for safety I opt for small flat rate box after putting it into two #0 padded envelopes.
Maybe I expect too much now because when I send singles I package them in toploaders/card savers between toploaders and cardboard/etc., but today I received a very minty fresh gold star Umbreon- kind of.
I’m so sad. The card would’ve been great if not for this big ol’ honking crease/bend/whatever. It was packaged in only its sleeve and card saver, wrapped in this bubble mailer inside a priority flat rate box. I’m not sure if was damaged before or during shipping, but the card was already slipping out of its sleeve and the card saver when I opened the package.
The ONLY time I had an issue with a package was when it was for a giveaway I was hosting here. The package apparently got damaged shortly after it cleared customs in Netherlands and they sent it back…
It has never made it back to me. Somewhere in the US lies a lonely, damaged?, and signed Charizard card looking for a cozy toploader to live in.
Side note: Again, I am very sorry you weren’t able to receive your prize @trainofthought. I did file a Search Request July 22 and I just received an email recently saying the search expired. So still nothing.
Never had any major issues. I think with the hundreds of orders I’ve made in the past for all kind of collectibles (mostly TCG cards and puzzles, though), I’ve had four lost packages (two from the US, one from France, one from Germany) for something I bought, and once for something I sold (about 55 euros worth of duplicated Pikachus to France, kinda a bummer… But I just refunded the buyer and took the loss).
One thing I do hate however, which only seem to happen when I buy from marktplaats.nl (and in rare occasions from French sellers on en.pokemoncardmarket.eu) is when I receive a regular letter with the card in it. Yes they are just commons, but no protection at all? Not even a gdamn sleeve?!.. I don’t care that much about the quality of my collection in most cases, but things like that just pisses me off. I’m glad most people use sleeves, toploaders and bubblewrap envelops these days…
Oh wait, I remember one more. It was the very first time I had ordered anything from outside Europe (China), and the very first puzzles I bought (basically the start of my twisty puzzles collection - and look at me now, lol…
).
In November 2012, a month before the Sint Nicholas fest (a Dutch holiday similar to Christmas), I didn’t had any ideas of what to put on my wishlist. My family and I always come together during Sint Nicholas. We each make a wishlist, put our names in a grab bag, and then buy presents and create rhymes from the wishlist. Usually I would put some of those wooden or metal burr or take apart puzzles on my wishlist, but this time I decided to put a 4x4x4 Cube on it when I saw it on some random webshop, and also saw a Pyraminx.
Because the webshop was Chinese, I bought the presents myself for my aunt who picked my name from the grab bag (since she didn’t knew how). I had never ordered from a Chinese website before, and after two weeks I was very worried! After a total of 27 days, three days before the deadline of when we would celebrate Sint Nicholas, they finally arrived. I had also ordered a Labyrinth ball (with a height of around 12 cm), and it was all put in a package with a height of around 10 cm… They forced the Labyrinth ball in, and it still has dents now (that, and because they hadn’t responded to any of my messages, is why I’ve never ordered from them ever again, and won’t mention them here).
So the very first time I ordered something from a far away part of the world was my worst experience with packaging and shipping time ever. I have had to wait for packages for up to three months before (prerelease + factory production problems), but this first one looked the longest back then. Probably because I was only waiting for one package back then, and now I have on average 5-15 packages incoming simultaneously for my various collections and other webshop purchases.
Greetz,
Quuador
I’m not sure if anyone else has been experiencing this problem with USPS but within the past few months everytime I order something from the United States (I live in Canada) the USPS tracking NEVER updates as delivered anymore. The furthest it will get is “In transit to destination” then nothing. Now usually that would mean it’s on the way to my door and maybe 1-2 days left until it arrives. But now whenever it says that, my packages just don’t show up at all. This isn’t just 1 or 2 packages either. Every single package I have been ordering, same problem. I have ordered about 8-10 within the past month, 1 arrived no problem. 2 of them I waited A MONTH while it was “In transit to destination” until I emailed USPS and filed a complaint saying my package was missing. Both times I did that for 2 separate packages I kid you not, the very next day they would “magically” show up in my mail box. It seems I literally have to file a complaint for every piece of mail being sent by USPS now and it is getting extremely frustrating. I currently have 3 packages that have been “in transit to destination” for over a week now and still nothing. Idk what’s going on, but i’m pretty sick of just plain not being able to receive my mail. To the point where I am scared to order expensive items now as I figure they will just not show up and tracking is absolutely useless as it will not update…
haha 
i cri everytime.
i feel like this package is going to be in transit to the destination for the rest of our lives.
I don‘t have any horror stories but all these stories just show me it‘s better to send with Fedex. Not saying that damaged or lost packages don‘t occur with Fedex but I think it is much safer. I paid like $300 on shipping to have a few trophy cards reholdered at PSA… it‘s worth paying more and not feeling worried.
Fedex is the way to go IMO if you’re sending expensive cards, especially internationally, they’re my preferred company.
Maybe its just me, but I dont have the best luck with canadian post to Aus. Currently awaiting some items I need for my collection and another is a pricy one, where the tracking hasnt updated at all and it should of arrived already.
I’ve got an order atm from US to AUS. I rang them earlier today as it has said in transit or something for over a week. The guy told me that they’re extremely busy atm and there’s a bit of a back log. So somethings are stuck in the depot for awhile and the tracking isn’t updated straight away.
Just call up auspost an quote your tracking number. I seemed to get more info than just searching the number on the internet.
A few times I’ve had a card shipped to me without any extra protection, or with folded binder pages inside a bubble mailer without anything sturdy inside… You know there results.
Also a few times even if the seller or company I’ve bought from has packaged the items well, they have been treated like absolute trash by postal services. Once I had one box delivered to my door which included the Mega Salamence EX Collection Box and the box where it was in was totally ruined. The post man apologized and said he received the box that way and that he hopes the items are ok… The Collection box itself was completely destroyed as well and thanks to that both of the Salamence Promos have creases. And without that garbage treatment those cards would have been PSA worthy, no white spots on corners etc… 
I once had a strange thing happen too as I ordered some Promo tins from a UK site. Usually stuff I buy from the UK arrive quite fast but this took almost a month to arrive and I was wondering why. Then my order finally arrived… Package completely destroyed with a HOLE in it. The package was placed inside a USPS plastic bag with an apology message. USPS? This tells me my package went to the US first for some reason and then arrived to Finland and that’s why it took so long it to arrive, plus it seems like USPS treated the package like crap. One of the tins had a huge wreck on it and tins aren’t so weak so imagine how they treated my package… I contacted the site I bought from and provided pictures and even though none of that was their fault as they had my address and everything correct, I got a small gift card to their site which was nice from them.
I’ve only had one other horror post story besides the more amusing dolls clothes story I shared earlier - this one was really mind blowing. So I won a bulk lot of MTG cards on eBay, couldn’t really tell what was there but there were some old cards from a set that had money cards in it so I thought I’d gamble … ended up winning the auction at something like $20 for 200-300 cards. Nothing major just a bit of fun, if it’s junk I’d just bulk lot them out anyway so it was no big deal.
Seller posts the cards to me, adds tracking to eBay and everything seems fine. I get the package a few days later and it’s one of those plastic satchels, not a padded one or anything just the sealable bag. Opened it up and the cards were literally floating around loose in the bag, no protection, just poured into the satchel lol. Most of them had obviously gotten seriously bent as you’d expect but thankfully (I guess?) it was all junk and nothing of value.
I couldn’t believe someone would just throw cards into a satchel like that though, that experience has caused me to always ask sellers to package cards carefully and protect them from damage. I don’t have faith that people will send me stuff properly packaged anymore
Funny story, the ones with the “rarer” cards I insured, which included a couple of Masaki and Web cards. These were sent via EMS. The others “not so important” I took a risk of Parcel Post (No insurance). And well, they arrived here in the States but ended up just disappearing. So I can’t really do much unfortunately.
That “In Transit to Destination” is dreaded, even here in the States. I have had the same issue with my Bulk Box that got lost. Said the same thing and NADA
spinch - if aus post ofgice says they are extremely busy now i shudder to think how they will handle nov-dec.
I know this isn’t a horror story, or at least not yet but this is the current status of a card I’ve been excited to receive over the last two weeks.
Apparently it has spent the last 5 days in Orlando, FL probably hanging out at Disney it’s making me a bit nervous lol.
