USPS Recovers Lost Package Containing $10,000 in Rare SNES Cartridges

Amazing story. I'm glad to hear that everything was safely recovered.

Glad to see that everything turned out fine in the end. I've never had problems with the USPS that weren't weather-related, but I've heard plenty of horror stories.

Well that sounds dirty as hell, no way he shouldn't have gotten it.

Can't trust the government, not even with our mail.

Sounds like someone at USPS better start talking. I would bet anything that it was intentionally misplaced.

I was just disappointed to hear that the USPS didn't do anything until the media got a hold of the story. Byuu's post says nobody would help him or seemed to care at all until he got a call from a supervisor who explicitly mentioned all the news. It shouldn't take negative media coverage to get the USPS to act on something like this, especially when it's their fault.

So glad it's been recovered. Seriously, next time send it via UPS or FedEx with tracking and insurance.

It took news coverage for them to take action? Disgraceful and absolutely inexcusable, regardless of the very positive outcome. Someone should definitely be fired for this.

Am I understanding this right? The US postal service can lose a package through no fault of the sender or receiver, give no reimbursement to either, and then profit off of the lost goods by selling them at an auction? Christ that's awful.

The things you learn due to negative coverage. It's crazy that, even though it was obvious whose package it was, the usps did not send it to the rightful owner. I feel pretty disgusted by it all, but like everyone else I am happy it did finally get to him still in tact. (:

@HeroponRiki That really makes me upset, that feels so much like theft to me. His name was on the boxes themselves too, what a load of crap.

I am surprised the sender wouldn't have taken greater care to pack and insure it however, $10k is a huge risk to take otherwise.

I've had three orders in as many mouths not make it to me from Amazon all curtsey of USPS. All tracking has showed it made it to my mail box, yet I never received the items (games and a few other cheap things). Makes more sense now that I k ow they sell of unclaimed items... For amazons part they have never even questioned if I received the item, hers to hoping my switch doesn't get lost in transportation...

Certainly seems pretty dodgy that they won't deliver a package with its delivery address on it :/

Maybe on it's return it could maybe take a pit stop at my house. You know, for like, EVER!!! I needs me some snes goodness!!!

@HeroponRiki That is correct. He said the letter they sent him even berated him, the receiver, for not packaging it better.

Pff.. I'd sue. Where are the Tom Hanks.

Lesson is, never trust DHL or USPS

Well to make Byuu feel better at least 70% of those games won't going to work on his NTSC Super NES anyways since PAL Super NES games contain lockout chip that prevents such compatibility. He should had just bought some Super Famicom cartridges instead that is unless he had a PAL Super NES already handy.

@PlywoodStick I admit I was wrong. You have been right from the very beginning. Life lesson learned.

Do they really just sell the stuff if there's an error?

My sister sent my kids some holiday gifts one year, insured the package and everything. When the package arrived it had clearly been opened and the contents switched. It took something like 2 months for the postal service to just tell her that she wasn't getting back a cent. What is the point of paying for insurance?!

@retro_player_22 i hope youre joking... byuu has everything... hes archiving every snes game ever made. He isnt actually even using a snes to do that but a cartridge dumper, custom hardware... do you read ?

Inside job.
Trust no one Mulder!
Especially the Govt.
USPS.
United States Postal Spies.
I should add, don't trust FedEx ,
It's in the name!
FedEx Files!

The truth is out there!

@Captain_Toad sweet sound of victory

"and despite the fact that Byuu's full name and address was clearly written on the box itself, it was sent to a recovery center in Atlanta, GA to be sold on an online government auction site"

What the actual F___

I am curious if in such services there is no insurance... Here in brasil we can pay a quite small value to put an insurance with the value of our choice (being the contents actually so expensive or not) obviously I suppose it would be a little expensive to put an insurance of 10k, but, nonetheless it would be worth it. Here if you lose an insured package the mail will pay the value insured. You can bet someboy would be losing hair over this way before it turns into news if that was the case.

@zip No harm done, all's well that ends well. You weren't too far off the mark, though, considering the contents almost got auctioned, despite the intact address written on the box. Imagine if this situation hadn't been circulated? The talk made by folks like yourself is ultimately what saved it.

@HeroponRiki
Am I ever glad I'm Canadian. Thank God they recovered it before it was auctioned off.

Well, at least this story has a happy ending.

This was a wreckless way to handle this. Just to think if the address wasn't written inside the package this could've ended really bad. Maybe enough bad publicity from this will cause them to come up with an action plan to resolve this like a lost and found system. I will always put my address inside the package for future shipments to cover me after reading this. I have to say they have never lost anything I've ever sent.

Oh, thank God they're alright.

You know, I've had an entire Power Mac G5 totally smashed by USPS. Yeah. A Power Mac G5. You know the metal Apple used to use to make those things? It was so heavy, it was near indestructible. How USPS could manage to utterly put that thing to pure carnage is beyond me, bu granted, the guy we bought it from packaged it really poorly.

Regardless, USPS doesn't give a rat's bum about the safety of your packages. They love to make it evident that they don't care.

USPS has proven this many times.

"Sad." -Donald Trump

Nice

@KiWiiU_Freek Yes, the truth IS out there... and it's doing kickflips n' ballkicking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OryzwktQZY8

The only issue I've ever had with USPS was... when I was inadvertently helping someone else figure out they were receiving a counterfeit check from a business scammer. So in that case it was probably a good thing it always got screwed up by USPS.

It is possible to get tracking at First Class/Priority mail or higher, though. (For example, I've sold a copy of .hack Part 4, New and unopened, worth over $100, to someone who was apparently in the US Armed Forces in Europe, no problem. I chose Priority mailing, so it had tracking.) So there's still a couple of unsolved points lingering... Although, the situation has been resolved, so those don't matter at this point.

@stevenw45

"Someone keep me updated on this so that i can learn who's idea it was to put the SNES games on an online government auction site when they got lost in the mail."

How about you just regularly visit this site like all of us? Then, you'll be very up to date on what's what.

Also, cool! Two Wii U's! You're very lucky.

$10,000 ?!

Dang...you know someone with USPS was waiting for the auction to start up. I hope Byuu uses UPS or Fedex to send it back.

Is it being assumed that the USPS only decided to look for a missing package after negative press or actually known?
They deliver over 150 billion pieces of mail a year. A one week turn around for an international package missing doesn't seem outrageous to me.

All's well that ends well.

Thanx for the tip! I'm going to check out these auction sites.

@Captain_Toad
man I loved that game!

Huzzah! Such great news to know the cartridges were recovered!

Wait, Wait, Wait.

So if USPS somehow loses the address, our packages get sent to an online government auction site?

This makes me so happy
Glad all is well with this-- I was disgusted with the first piece of (bad) news.

If only those cartridges fell into my hands good to know they've been recovered and not lost forever!

Super cool, glad to hear

Called it.

So, are these all games that did not see an original US release? Why is he using PAL versions of these titles, aren't they going to run slower?

Outright theft. If there's auctions for 'missing' parcels you can bet a % of the post will be siphoned off for profit. Even when there's an address on the package like this time. They obviously have no fear of being prosecuted if they are so blatent.

Wait so instead of returning the parcel to the sender they were going to sell it. Wtf?

It's very hard to insure a package like this. To insurance companies, these games are not worth the potential eBay prices.

@b_willers He is trying to get clean dumps of all the snes/famicom games. There are roms out there that aren't dumped correctly. So he is just getting clean dumps for a good archive so these games will be archived for a long long time

@Claytonbob @NewAdvent @NESguy94
I don't think there is anything insidious behind this, this isn't an unusual occurrence. Last year I received $2000 worth of shoes because a label from a parcel that was heading to the company I work at rubbed off on the box with the shoes in it. We ended up receiving both boxes. I shipped the shoes to where they were supposed to go with a note.

The label scanning systems are shoddy, I've sent a demo unit off to a customer, they returned it, I sent the unit back to the supplier but it ended back at the customer because I missed removing one of the old labels. When the machine scanned that label it should have set a warning off saying that the consignment had already been delivered, but obviously it didn't.

@b_willers
It's about having copies from all regions. That's why they dump prototype carts as well, they may not be complete, or even playable, but it's important to have a record of it.

@iGen
I don't think it's a USPS thing, I think it's a courier thing. I've seen a courier kick cardboard boxes of shotgun ammunition with his steel-capped boots. The boxes were clearly marked "shotgun shells" and had warning stickers over it. He could have lost his leg, I could have lost my head.

I can't believe the dummy's had his name and address but were still auctioning the games off. sounds fishy.

Hmmmm - it was the MACHINES huh? SKYNET . .. . .

Not a surprising story, seems like postal services are the same all over the world, too lazy for fix any small mistake -w-;

Good thing media coverage exist, sometimes it's excessive, but it forced so many services all over the world to get a move and do their job.

That is a RIDICULOUS system- so literally anyone can tear off a label of something they like and have it sent off to auction, just like that??

The US government is so slimy.

@shaneoh Shame he didn't lose his head. Were you 'going postal'?

Thank god!
Government auction?? Ah look it's Trump trying to fund his Wall

@HappyMaskedGuy
Not quite, I did carefully point out why he probably shouldn't be kicking those boxes and I think he got the idea. Fortunately I've only seen him carrying ammunition once, so it was possibly a one time only delivery for him.

Soooo scummy how this automatically went to the auction place when the address was still clear. It's like if something goes wrong they put minimal effort into putting it right on purpose, because they know they can sell it. If this didn't have huge media presence it would never be seen again, and it wasn't lost at all, just the label come off! This is a regular occurrence in shipping that they are required to be able to handle, it pretty much would have been theft. As someone who works with couriers in the UK every day and sees stuff like this a lot, shippers need stricter rules on dealing with peoples' property.

Very stupid that they were about to sell it! I'm still very happy that Byuu-san received the package after all! I thought it was stolen. I even dreamed about the missing package last week...

This story is happy ending.

Well that's comforting news!

I once bought FFX for PS2 on amazon and USPS stole it from me
Tracking information said something like "unknown location".

@Petraplexity @bolt05 Understand that my comment relate to the topic in the article and not that roms bs that wasn't even mention in there. The article talks about the situation of the missing cartridges so I comment in regards to that, not the freaking things (roms) that wasn't even in the article. When an article talks about apples, I comment about the apples, not the apple juice or the freaking blender that could make the apple juice either. Okay, you understand? Cause it seems like you don't.

"Despite the fact that Byuu's full name and address was clearly written on the box itself, it was sent to a recovery center in Atlanta, GA to be sold on an online government auction site."

Dumb.

@retro_player_22 This article is the follow-up to another article that explained the whole reason behind someone sending him all those cartridges. Most of us now commenting on this follow-up and happy ending story know that, so that's why you're getting the reactions you're getting.

If you are honestly and seriously reacting to the story here in the way you did, then you apparently didn't read (or have forgotten) the original article, otherwise you would never have said what you did there, because you'd already know why he has cartridges from all regions...

Wow didn't know that was how USPS worked.
"Sorry, the label fell off and even though it has your name on it, we're just going to auction it off and make some money off of it instead of giving it to you".

Seems pretty low to auction off people's items when there's clearly an identifier. Or here's an idea, keep the item for 3 months, (because by then I'm sure someone would be calling them up asking about a lost package) then give it back to someone that calls for it. First grade lost and found systems work better than this. You don't see the teacher auctioning off hats and gloves to the kids the next day after someone loses it.

@Captain_Toad This made my day

Oh that is good news! I'm so happy for him.

@HeroponRiki 'merican dream

This is fantastic news!

" despite the fact that Byuu's full name and address was clearly written on the box itself, it was sent to a recovery center in Atlanta, GA to be sold on an online government auction site."

LOL. I mean, you can't even make this stuff up if you tried. That's pretty much the standard description of everything USPS right there.

That probably puts our conversation in perfect focus, right @shani ?

That shady dealer on eBay selling rare carts for $10,000 each with no return address and refusal to answer questions? Yep, it's the US government!

....Well while the whole mix up sucks, all's well that ends well I suppose. Next time use fedex.

That sounds expensive for a bunch of loose pal carts that can be had pretty much anywhere for dirt cheap. Looking at the two screenshots the guy posted, and bei able to identify most of those games, I cannot see any true rarity in there, although saying this I could not identify all of them, but games like Lucky Luke or Tiny Toons Buster busts loose rarely go for more than 10€ over here, with no box or booklet. Heck, I actually own myself a good portion of those games even, and then some actually rare ones. If they were worth 10 grand I'd be selling in an instant. But I know they aren't though. Could be that the guy claimed to have paid as much for those when actually he didn't. The scammer might not be who people think.

USPS is bad.... They are terrible... And second question.... did these idiots not ship it with insurance? He was all like I am going to try to reimburse the guy in Germany comma they need to use Insurance LOL

I know this is ending in a positive, but the USPS are a-holes. I'm sorry, but if their job is to deliver something, if they damage it yet there's a clear address on the box under the ripped off paper I think it would have been their job to make a couple calls, do some basic due diligence research and not just send it off to the gov't auction house in GA to make some money off it. I get there's a lot of dead mail every day but that's just lazy.

I hope that his "cautious changes" include using a bonded courier service with content insurance the next time that he asks someone to send him a package of rare games.

@shaneoh

Why on Earth would they do that?

What could possibly drive them to ruin other people's property?

Nonetheless, they are still employed by USPS, and so the company is responsible for the damage rendered. The courier's just a shothead who needs to be fired.

the machine didnt rip off the label.
it was stolen and made headlines across the damn web and the thief got scared/guilty.
case solved

@HeroponRiki My thoughts exactly! I was in disbelief when I read this. A few years ago I ordered Kirby Mass Attack through amazon and it got lost in the mail. I got refunded since it never showed up but I ultimately had to buy it again. A similar thing happened when I ordered the english version of the FE Awakening Art book (Luckily Amazon sent me another one for free). Now that I know how negligent the USPS is it makes me even more mad.

@iGen
I believe it's apathy, they really don't give a rats. It's not right.

A lot of issues I see are with people working for contract carriers, who usually have little clauses in their agreements which absolve them of their own negligence. It's unbelievable. But USPS isn't a common carrier so there should have been nothing to stop them from being held accountable for the loss of the package, particularly if it never turned up again. How they can just auction it off is beyond me.

It's good it turned up.

He should resume archiving now, and just follow a policy of informing all future donors how to insure their package from pick up to drop off.

@retro_player_22 No worries mate, this is part of a bigger story whereby Byuu is trying to catalogue all of the original SNES and Super Famicom games for posterity. There is no complete digital catalogue of this nature, not even nintendo has this - hence Byuu's intentions are not to play the games, but to preserve them digitally. Byuu wrote the code for HIGAN a SNES emulator that is essentially the only accurate method of emulating these games in their original hardware configuration albeit replicated by a modern x86 computer system.

This is the second article about this on Nintendo Life. We were just informing you of the actual situation, no harm intended.

A lot of those games look anything, but rare, though. I dunno. Maybe they are in the PAL Region.

@shaneoh He shouldn't kick the packages, but he was in no danger from the ammunition. It's a common myth that ammo will explode like a bomb when crushed or burned. Worst case it will pop and the lightweight case may hit you, but that's not a serious injury or anything.

This video below shows extensive tests regarding ammunition and what happens when it's ignited, crushed, or otherwise mishandled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c

@blackice85
I checked the video out, cheers. I wasn't really worried about a VG style bomb explosion, rather having pellets embedded in my face. Good to know my worry was unfounded.

This seemed like a nightmare situation, glad it's been resolved.

Thankfully this got a lot of media attention and it was found, I bet that's a massive relief

Good news!

I am so very glad they recovered those cartridges. My goodness.

"Have you ever lost anything valuable to the US mail system?"

No, but any time I order or send something that goes through USPS, I do feel like it's a bit of a gamble, especially when said package is coming with no tracking number from a third-party Amazon seller. In particular, I've gotten a few things from China that way. I've been lucky so far.

Some high level official needs to do a full blown investigation to see exactly what happened. Was this project in the news before this last package shipped? Maybe this was some sort of inside job to make some quick cash? Just speculation but I can't believe our USPS would willingly send that package out to auction just because the label was torn off, yet the address was still visible. I'm usually a pretty calm guy but this story makes me cry out for justice.

This is late to the article but for all the people mentioning how crappy it is for bad press to needed to get any help it's sad thing that's true for a lot of situations. There is an excellent program on CBC called Market Place that has done that for decades.

No help for the customer, client, renter, etc till the media gets involved. Nothing seems to scare a lot of shady(well known) companies as much as a reporter with a camera or negative internet buzz.

This is really gross. I had a package just a few weeks ago that arrived at my house completely mauled. As in, there was a huge gaping hole in it just patched with clear tape. My address and the shipping label were still there, but literally half of the internal contents were missing. My friend who works for the post office told me that a machine probably ate it, and they found what fell out at the end of the day and yes, auctioned it off. Meanwhile their solution was just to tape a 12"x10" gash shut with as minimal TAPE as possible.

@NESguy94
Chill everyone. They have no idea what's in it. Only tip would be insured value, but even that might be unknown if it''s label was missing. That said, I have had things "lost" multiple times. Whenever I contact them, it is always found eventually.

Problem is, if the shipping label is ripped off, even if his name is on it, how do they know it's not a re-used box? Many people do that.

The weird thing is how quickly it seems to have been relegated to auction... and that they apparently berated the sender for the packaging..... lol

I DO get annoyed that if this happens, USPS just says "uh yeah sorry" and have no actual liability for delivering a package.

Almost a decade ago my (then teenage) cousin had something stolen through the mail as well. She had been staying at my place for Christmas. It was a video game that she had purchased with her Christmas money. It was expensive (at least for her), since it was a newly released game at the time.

She had accidentally left it at my place (I live in Australia). I phoned her when she arrived home (in New Zealand) to let her know. She asked me if I could please send the game back to her through the post. So I checked the case, making sure that the game was inside of it. I then took it to the post office, got a tracking number for it and sent it to her over in New Zealand.

She phoned me days later to let me know that yes, it had arrived in the post. Except that there was no game inside of it. I let her know that I had even checked the game case before sending it off. Somehow the game itself had disappeared through the mail system somewhere between Australia and New Zealand. I went to the post office, they wanted me to fill out a form but was told "there may not be much chance of finding it, since the tracking shows that it actually was delivered". Yes, it was delivered. An empty case was delivered. Well done to you! 🙁

So hearing this story just made me sick. It sounds like outright theft to me. Especially since the package still had the address. Did the seller also include a receipt I wonder? Some sellers that I have purchased from on eBay also include a receipt (my name / what the item(s) is etc.) inside the box. That is always a good idea. 👍

Word to the wise - never trust the US Postal Service with anything truly valuable. You're better off using private companies like FedEx or UPS.

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