Who's got a beef with Postcrossing. This girl!

Disclaimer: I owe a lot to Postcrossing, if not for them I would have not discovered any of the other sites I use, I wouldn't have a blog and I would not have acquired some of my new pen-pals. I am just venting. If you share my viewpoint, great, if not then that's great too. I'm not going to up and quit nor do I suggest anyone else does that if they are enjoying the site!

About 10 days ago (don't quote me on this its just a generality) Postcrossing celebrated it's 6th Birthday. Six years of random people all over the world swapping postcards to complete strangers who share a love of mail, travel, culture, experience, and fun. In order to let the sites users participate in the anniversary celebrations, the creators and administrators allowed everyone registered (whether they were new, old, constantly or sporadically active) to request 6 extra postcards to send. This must have gone over big with users, as from personal experience (yes, I went and requested mine) what normally is a quick process to request an address was a time consuming event. Also, according to the officials over at Postcrossing, a whopping 88,316 postcards were shared (normally less than 14,000 are requested per day). You can see this information at Postcrossing's Facebook Page.

Now I bet you are thinking, "What's the problem, you got to send more than usual--isn't that a GOOD thing", and my argument to you would be no. While I got to send those cards out like many others, I now have to sit dormant for 2-3 weeks while the cards get processed through various mail services and make their destinations. Normally I have at least one postcard get registered every couple of days (yes, it varies) which then enables me to send another one to another random user. However, the administrators who allowed this project didn't build in that same fail safe-so now, regardless of the fact that I have had 5 postcards arrive with in that time frame I am unable to send anymore because the site thinks I am "at my current sending limit".  My limit had just increased the day before due to the number of cards sent that were registered, so with the 5 I had traveling, the extra 1 that I was allotted for my activity and the 6 "extra" celebratory cards allowed I had 12 postcards in circulation. Five have arrived meaning I have 7 in circulation. Therefore I am at a stalemate with the site until at least 2 more clear up, which as many users know can take anywhere from 3 days to 3 months (the cards I have traveling are all to foreign countries).

So I say to the administrators over at Postcrossing, that while I love your site, there was nothing extra or special actually given to your users. We were, at least to some degree,  given a postcard advance
similar to a credit card cash advance, whose interest we are paying in the form of time and not being able to participate.

Comments, questions, and counterpoints are welcome.


****Mail up-date to come this evening***