Posted By:
RickThank you Keith, these are good questions.
1. The only alternative for items over $5000 is registered mail.
2. There is no problem with paper or collectibles through USPS, but be extremely overly cautious when you package any item.
3. I have not had any problems with collecting on the insurance, except like everything in the government, it can take a while to get your money. We are processing more claims online, but it can still be a wait for $.
4. This is something that comes up often, especially since ebay became popular. If you purchase a card, or any other item on ebay, lets say you paid $100, which you thought was a great deal. The Standard Catalog lists the card at $250, and you mail the card and purchase $250 worth of insurance. The Postal Service will only pay the $100 that you actually paid for the item. In order to collect on the Insurance, you will need the insurance receipt from the Post Office, and either a print out of the closed auction page from ebay, or a copy of your PayPal receipt.
One of the reasons for this policy is that there are many people who try to manipulate our insurance system. They will list a computer on ebay, sell it for $250, and ship a computer that is already broken. The person on the other end will file an insurance claim saying that the computer was broken when they received it. The mailer will collect the $250 and make a good profit. We constantly run across new scams that are created to collect insurance money.
Rick