One of my worst nightmares come true
 

USPS looses one of my favorite 34" guns. No one has a clue where it is. I made the mistake of forgetting to insure it. I got in a hurry and forgot to the day I mailed it.
Tracking shows it never left Virginia in route to California for a fix of the ejectors.
Now what. Any advice/ suggestions for what to do at this point. Not at what should have been done.

John, If you do not get the gun back and soon, post the ser# on this site so people will be aware, you need to notify ATF if you have a license and do it in a timely manner. Hope you get it back. Gary

I do not have a license.
the serial # is 204008
34 " GHE 12 ga parker special steel barrels.

John,
My wife got me a ca. 1941 Hamilton wristwatch for Christmas. It was lost in the mail about two weeks before Christmas so the person she bought it from found another and sent it to her in time for Christmas. The original watch was insured, but tracking could not find it and the provider was finally paid for the lost watch. Surprisingly, the original watch showed up at our house in mid-January sent from the "postal recovery center". We returned it to the dealer and he reimbursed the post office.
Do not give up. Hopefully it will turn up regardless of the insurance status. Insurance had nothing to do with recovery of the watch.
-plc-

Lost Gun
 

Hi John,

Sorry to hear about your lost gun. Notify the police and ATF. They keep a record of stolen and lost guns. It may show up and if they don't know who it legally belongs to they won't know who to return it to.

If it does show up be sure to notify them so they take it off the list.

Cheers, Tom

So notify the police? Report it as missing/ stolen?

Police refuse to get involved. They state it is completely out of their jurisdiction.
Gov wins again.

do not give up. they may find it yet...stay in touch with your local post master. ask him or her to contact your regional consumer affairs rep for help in finding it... and next time send it via registered mail insured. good luck.

I hope you find it. We, every one of us, has made mistakes. Sometimes, miracles happen, and I hope this is one of those times.
Good Luck, and may the force be with you.

Sam Ogle, Lincoln, NE

That stink's John! How in the world could they loose a shot gun. Surely it will show up. Keep your chin up. best ch

What USPS service did you use? Registered as everyone recommends? I would take a shot at summoning your postmaster into court on a negligence suit. One of our members from your state once recommended that an actual lawsuit summoning an employee into court usually stops any argument with a car dealer over service disputes. USPS did not provide the service you paid for. Get them in front of a judge. Accuse the postmaster of negligence.

Sue a Federal employee in civil court for not adequately performing his Federally mandated obligation?... or should it be tried in a Federal Court? Isn't that like suing the Federal Gummint?

Gawd, it could take a decade...

John, I wish you the very best of luck and I sincerely hope the outcome is more than satisfactory for you.

Priority mail (2 to 3 days) with tracking and delivery confirmation.
Tracking states it was accepted and left acceptance facility on day of mailing and has been in route to a sorting facility in the same city of mailing for the past 6 days. (20 minute drive from one to the other)
I physically went to the sorting facility and they have no record of it ever arriving.
I have contacted the superivser for the acceptance facility and they are starting an investigation.
Possibly lost or stolen by an employee. It is in a 38" by 12" by 12 wooden coffin/ craft. Way to big to be over looked. Weighs in at over 23 pounds total weight.
For now I am playing their games and it would appear at their mercy.

Defnitely ones worst nightmare. Good luck John.

[QUOTE=John Truitt;62425]
Possibly lost or stolen by an employee. It is in a 38" by 12" by 12 wooden coffin/ craft. Way to big to be over looked. Weighs in at over 23 pounds total weight.
[QUOTE]

I wouldn't say possible but rather "more then likely" !

I "assume" the sorting facility you went o was in the Richmond area and if I'm not mistaken the facility in in the Sandston are around Richmond .

Anyway if that facility is anything like the one in Dullus Virginia I am surprised you found anyopne there that spoke english and could give you an answer of any type !

I've been to the Dullus facility several times over the last 10 years for buisness related things and just let me say . It was a cluster then and I can only imagine how it is now !

You would think they would have security camera's at these sort of facilities. Sorry to hear. I hope it works out.

Good luck getting your gun back. I have zero faith in our post office and ship everything by ups. Their tracking system is out of this world.

I have also switched to UPS. Had 2 guns disappear in the USPS, never to be seen again. They were delivered to post office and never left according to confirmation. Hope you get lucky and all turns out well. Dave

You're getting freaky a little too soon. Don't forget you're dealing with people who have all but given up.

The last two times I returned my Trojan to Doug Mann for his special brand of stock butchering, the USPS lost it for about a month. They showed it was received at the post office 1/4 mile from my house, then absolutely no idea where it went. I went through the usual indignation, then it suddenly appeared as intended - about a month after it was shipped.

My opinion? One of two possibilities - someone in the USPS recognizes it is a gun and stashes it away to see if anyone raises much stink over it. They're hoping they can quietly cart it home once things cool down. Or, someone on the USPS is anti-gun and does whatever he can to make things tough on gun people by purposely losing it.

I'll bet if you were shipping curtain rods they would never get lost.

Mr Holes,
Sounds like similar to my experience so far.
What action did you take if any. How was the outcome. SOL?




I dont think its too soon to have things checked out/ stir the pot. I could be cool about it for a while. But I feel the sooner I get things out in the open and the more people "informed" the better chance I have of it showing up.

USPS has the worst tracking i have seen but it will show up

I had purchased the 2 guns and paid to have them insured and confirmed. The seller had insurance in his name. 30 days went by with no show and several phone calls later he refunded my money. He was brokering guns for a widow and didn't want to refund me because he had already paid off the widow and money would be out of his pocket until insuranve paid him. I also had a gun damaged in shipping with the USPS, it was also insured. Dealing with the insurance side of the USPS is a real bad deal. By the time you jump threw thier hoops you will look for a new shipper. UPS has worked flawlessly for me. I don't like sounding like a negative Ned but good luck. Dave

We just had a shipment show up after a month
 

We just received some parts that were shipped a month ago. Post office had no explanation. So do not lose hope. Sooner or later they will probably find it. And, you wonder why they lose money ever year?

John,
I would definetely report the lost gun serial numbers to the ATF. I am pretty sure you did not need a FFL to send a gun for repairs (no transfer of ownership).

Think positive, I hope your package shows up soon!

John,

I think that your gun will eventually surface. You are dealing with the US Postal system with all its flaws. Don't give up!

Mark

Larry Angus is correct. The gun was shipped for repairs not a transfer of ownership so it did not need to go to or from a FFL holder.
Insurance or no insurance, it is a firearm and this situation should be handled responsibly. You don't want your gun used in the commission of a crime. Get ATF involved.

It is the other way with myself. I switched to using just USPS after having issues with UPS. I had UPS severly damage a set of LC Smith barrels a few years back on me and I was completely unsatisfied at how they handled the claim on it. It took forever, multiple hounding and on top of that, they would ONLY deal with the shipper on the claim. Not myself, the receiver. Good thing the shipper was very copperative. They even would only send the claim check to the shipper. And then he had to mail it to me.

Anyway... How long has it been since your package was shipped with the postal service? I have had some shipments take a while. Up to 2 weeks for Parcel post and even up to a week or more for Priority. Their tracking is not the best. The only loss I have had was that I shipped some parts to someone and some of the parts got lost. The pakage opened somehow. Half of the shipment got delivered. It was insured. I filled out a form and I has the money within 30 days. No issues on that part.

I really do hope that your gun eventually shows up.

Hang in there John. Go through the USPS channels and get the postal inspectors involved, which they may already be since it is a firearm. I shipped a gun to Dewey Vicknair one time that took a couple weeks.

We can't expect a lot from the USPS... they're going broke and we might see it all go privatized. I wonder if the USPS will ever get better? The internet e-mails are deeply affecting the USPS but I wonder why they haven't made adjustments accordingly?

Well, let's see.....take an enterprise that combines the inefficiency and red tape of the federal government and mix it with the greed and shortsightedness of the corporate world. What's there to wonder about?

John, I wish you the best of luck on this.I think Mr. Blake hit the nail on the head in his advice. We have all been there in some degree. I have had good luck with USPS and Fedex. But with that said I always pay the extra $ to get an item to the end user as fast as possible. I seems that the shorter the time in the system the better. I wish you the best John.

Sorry to read of your experience. Perhaps it will eventually show up.

John ,some 25 years ago , I shipped a Mali Pool Que back to the Manufacture to have the Ivory Ferrule replaced , I had insurance on the Que but USPS didn't want to pay quickly ," AT ALL " Any way ,I kept after them and after I had given up ,maybe 6 to 7 Months later ,it just showed up in the mail with no explanation ! Hopefully your gun will be seen sooner than this ,but don't give up and keep after them ! Good Luck to you ! Russ

Working at a Cabela's, we had a $30,000 plus double rifle shipped to our store via UPS.
When it didn't show, the tracking process showed it had arrived on the plane at Omaha. It eventually was recovered and delivered to us.
Some time later, a fellow who had been an employee at UPS said they called all the employees in, and said to them "One of you took what you may think was a shotgun"......."It is a $30,000 gun you will never be able to sell, pawn, or keep, and you know it." "If you will bring it back here by tomorrow, we will not press charges." A guy brought it back, and told them he thought it was a shotgun.......they of course, fired him, but kept their word and did not press charges.
Sam Ogle

We ship several guns every week and generally they all go UPS !
However about a month or so before Xmas 2011 we sent a very nice Weatherby Mark V West German gun to a fellow in the Dakota's . I had packed the gun well and UPS found a way to snap the stock in half at the wrist . They made good on the claim but it took 2 months . We paid the person we sold the gun for and the person buying the rifle . They sent the remains back to us and we had to wait for the refund . After the refund they left the remains with us and we ended up making about $2000 above and beyond !

As to USPS Priority Mail , a couple years ago I sent a cashiers check in a Priority envelope with a tracking number to a dealer in Anchorage Alaska and it took no less then 3 weeks for him to recieve it and the ability to track it showed me virtually NOTHING !

I sent a rifle to New York state from Virginia a couple years ago via UPS and of course it had a tracking number . That rifle made the rounds trips back and forth from VA to NY before it finally was delivered . My local driver was the main reason that one got straightened out . I was certain until it was delivered that some less then desirable had pinched it in the Laurel facility .

I had a bad experience with UPS years ago as well as Fed Ex.
USPS had served me very well up til now.
I have never had one just disappear like vapor in the wind.

Thanks for all the encouragement.

I have filed several written compliants to USPS, customer service, consumer affairs, inspector general, the local post office and the recieving sorting facility.
An experienced board member suggested contacting some other people which I will do on Monday.
I will plan to contact ATF on Monday as well. My city police department told be to basically go pound sand.
We will see. I dont have a good feeling about this one.

John, sorry to hear about the loss of a fine shotgun. As an ex cop I urge you to either persist with the police and ask them to at least take a courtesy report so the serial number is in the system OR talk to a USPS inspector. That should be done in any case. Someone should be able to at least put the serial number in the system. I agree with one of the posters about how can a 34 inch barreled gun be lost. My guess is the gun was never, "lost" but stolen. It may turn up one day in a crack house and hopefully some idiot didn't cut the barrels down to use it as a sawed off weapon. I am told that here in CA where I presently reside if your guns are not registered with a law enforcement agency and they are stolen you will not get them back when/if recovered. Even if you have receipts showing possession they will not return the gun to you. What a dumb state this is. Hopefully your state is not like that. My best wishes to a safe and sound return of your Parker.

I too have absolutely no faith in the USPS. They have lost a Nikon camera system for me years ago worth a few thousand dollars. I did have insurance but not enough to cover the entire loss. Six months ago my brother sent me a money order from CO to CA. To this day it is still not received. He got a refund of the M.O. and has since mailed me another one. I am sure Fed Ex and UPS have also lost packages but none so far for me at least.