For the past year or so I’ve been selling the majority of my used books to book buying services. As I mentioned in a previous post I find it easier to bundle up books and sell them in one big group then to list them on eBay or half.com and wait for someone to buy them. I earned over $150 last year in book sales and this year I am already on target to beat that number.
If you sell enough books at once the book buying services will often provide shipping labels through FedEx or UPS. I’ve sent tons of padded envelopes and boxes through FedEx and UPS and only use the US post office when I have no other option. This was one of those months. I bundled two books into an a thick envelope, wrapped it around and around with packing tape to ensure it was secure and sent it off on it’s merry way.
Every so often I hopped online to view the tracking information and watched that little package travel down along the east coast and then west across the country. Then one day it suddenly stopped. The tracking information halted and no matter how many days passed the USPS website showed no further movement.
It seems my books will never make it to their desired location. They were lost after leaving a sorting facility in Illinois on February 24th.
The good news is that I don’t have to refund anyone any money and since I didn’t sell the items on eBay I don’t have to worry about receiving bad feedback. I’ll just have to accept the fact that sometimes things go wrong along the way.