A Tale Of Caution

I feel your pain. I've been ripped off too. When I send coins for grading I always send them Overnight Insured. These are tracked very well and gets there fast. Registered Mail can take as long as 3 weeks. And always use a box. I sent a coin once to a customer using an envelope and the envelope came back to me from the USPS. It was shredded but fortunately, the coin was taped to the outside of the envelope. I'm surprise nobody stole it. The Post Office would not give me free shipping back to the customer. It was their fault the package was shredded but my responsibility to pay to have it resent. BS. Total BS.

Couldn't the copy of the invoice to NGC be used as proof of package contents and a source of evaluation for value of the contents?

Next time I send coins to PCGS I'll take photos and have a receipt made for their value. This all works great as the sender but what happens when the package is attacked and robbed on the way back to you/us? Anybody ever have this happen or know somebody it has happened to?

NGC will not accept drive up drop offs anymore unless you belong to the local "Coin" Click. I just ask my dealer to submit them for me, they are in North Port which is 15 minutes from Sarasota. He does all the work, I pay him $5.00 for his fee's on top of the grading service and I am done. He calls when it comes back.
Saves me money in the long run.

Somewhat unrelated, but I am new to coin sales on ebay, and I listed some junk grade NFLD small cents, all of which sold, with two buyers splitting the lot.

The first was from Russia. I thought it was neat, and mailed them off. I thought it was strange that he asked me for a quote to send each in a separate envelope...fast forward 3 months later, he has not gotten the coins. Unbeknownst to me, apparently the level of corruption in the Russian postal system is legendary. It was not a huge transaction, I told him if they did not show up in a week that I would refund the order. I will never ship outside North America/1st world countries ever again.

The second buyer was in Afganistahn. I have yet to hear from him.

I'm sorry to hear this. Did you send the coins in an envelope? I made the mistake of mailing coins in business envelopes twice simultaneously. I'm lucky I was mailing junk silver and less than $1 face.

From what I've heard, USPS insurance will not work for coins. It may be different for bullion but that's what I've heard.

When shipping make sure you reinforce the package and use enough tape and then some, and then some more, and to be safe use 1 more roll just for extra security.

Again I'm really sorry, this story is painful and I wish you the best of luck.

~JobIII

as far as the return shipping, it is listed on their website that it depends on the value of the coin(s)
it lists priority/express/& registered as the return methods

Just another example of why this awful organization leaks $4 Billion very quarter. Go ther every day until you get resolution.

BTW the damage was minimal and didn't take away much from the coin itself.

Update:
I went online to check the status of my claim yesterday and it was DENIED! I called them, waited on hold for 33 minutes, and finally got through to someone. I was informed that the PO mailed NGC a letter informing them to bring the package into the post office for inspection. Since they did not get the package in time, they denied the claim. The only problem, NGC returned the package to me, so I have it. They never informed me that they needed to inspect the package. So I filed an appeal and I brought the packafe to the PO today and the postmaster there said she didn't know how to fill out the paperwork and she had to contact consumer affairs. So now I guess I will play the waiting game for another month.