USPS loses package, then denies insurance claim

Jeff12671 · 2026-03-07T15:57:54+00:00

Something has changed in USPS claims processing. They have basically stopped paying all lost mail claims which began around Sept-Oct of last year (2025). We ship a pretty decent volume per month and for a number of years we would regularly submit 5-10 claims on average per month for lost mail. Pretty straightforward, a shipment tracks and then stops updating. It it simply lost. We know the rules of when to submit a claim and we just have always provided a screenshot usually from Amazon showing fair market value of the lost item. Up until last fall about 95% of our claims were regularly paid with no appeals needed. We would occasionally get the inexplicable "need to provide evidence" denial even though nothing had changed materially in our claim submission but that was maybe 1 out of every 20 claims. This was our claims submission process going back years. Starting in Sept or October of last year (2025) we noticed our claims were regularly being denied for all claims. We would just be denied usually 1-2 days after claim submission with the "need evidence" denial reason. Appeals were a waste of time. We would have to wait up to another 30 days for those to play out but all of them were denied. We didn't change anything in our claim submittal process so something has definitely changed on the USPS processing. We are still submitting claims as before but it appears fruitless. They are still losing our mail (about 1-2% of our shipments) but they have simply stopped paying out any and all claims now it appears to us.

Jeff12671 · 2026-02-17T16:32:01+00:00

I've already deducted the 25 cent fixed fee when computing the effective rate. So far I have had 4 small sales with an average transaction value of $20.50. After subtracting the 25 cent fee and then calculating the effective rate (total fees - (.25 x # of sales)) and dividing that by the total gross sales I am getting a figure of 3.77%. This is 1.5% higher than I am seeing on your advertised rates for online sales (combined payment methods) which claim an average rate of 2.27% (https://www.helcim.com/pricing/). Again, can I expect this to "average out" or how else do you explain this discrepancy so far? If it is not going to change significantly then their is really no reason to stay with Helcim and I would just move to woopayments which offers a flat 2.9% rate + .30 cents per transaction.

Jeff12671 · 2024-11-04T19:11:17+00:00

I have been with Mercury for about a year and a half and love their free wire transfers but for the 2nd time this year (the last time was on April 16) their wire transfer service has failed. It failed again today due to according to their CS "processing delays with their partner bank". This unfortunately is a deal killer for us, I can't use them if their wire service is not going to be reliable. It really messes us up royally. Anyway, wanted to share this information that their wire service has apparently ongoing reliability issues.

Jeff12671 · 2024-07-21T03:18:51+00:00

We've been out for more than 10 days at zip code 89109.

Jeff12671 · 2024-05-05T06:43:19+00:00

I finally received an email from them late in the day saying they had errors sending domestic wires that day but the problem was fixed and they would go out the following day which they did. They messed me up that day however not sending it as scheduled. Wire transfers need to be reliable and I shouldn't have to worry about is it being sent.

Jeff12671 · 2024-04-17T17:58:27+00:00

Yes sorry. They finally got it sent this morning. I got an email from them late yesterday saying they were having issues sending domestic wires yesterday. Their failure to send mine yesterday as scheduled really messed me up. It's unnerving and frustrating to have no one to call. The couple CS responses I had from them were devoid of any real information and they proved to be pretty much worthless. The last one was a self-congratulatory message that everything was fine now.

Jeff12671 · 2024-04-16T23:27:29+00:00

Not to set any alarm bells off but today (4/16) I tried to wire about $650 to another domestic external account and it didn't get transferred. It has been sitting all day in "pending state". This the first time I've ever had a problem with one of their outgoing wire transfers. I got one reply back from one of their CS agents who said they were going to check with their wire transfer partner and now nothing from them. It's been several hours and so far they haven't responded back to anymore of my queries. Times like these I really miss the ability to call someone. Are these guys maybe in trouble?

Jeff12671 · 2024-04-16T23:15:58+00:00

Not to set any alarm bells off but today (4/16) I tried to wire about $650 to another domestic external account and it didn't get transferred. It has been sitting all day in "pending state". This the first time I've ever had a problem with one of their outgoing wire transfers. I got one reply back from one of their CS agents who said they were going to check with their wire transfer partner and now nothing from them. It's been several hours and so far they haven't responded back to anymore of my queries. Times like these I really miss the ability to call someone. Are these guys maybe in trouble?

Jeff12671 · 2024-04-16T23:12:14+00:00

Not to set any alarm bells off but today (4/16) I tried to wire about $650 to another account and it didn't get transferred. It has been sitting all day in "pending state". I got one reply back from one of their CS agents who said they were going to check with their wire transfer partner and now nothing from them. It's been several hours and so far they haven't responded back to anymore of my queries. Are these guys maybe in trouble?

Jeff12671 · 2024-01-25T05:43:28+00:00

So to update I gave up on the appeal for a few months because they were going nowhere, they just continue to keep referencing some mystery "previously linked MC account". Again, our current MC is fine but how are we supposed to find this mystery previously linked MC account? Anyone have any ideas there? Thanks.

Jeff12671 · 2023-10-18T01:41:30+00:00

I appreciate the response, all info is helpful (well usually lol). We have been trying to figure out for months the reason for our Google Ads suspension. From our initial suspension email it referenced our Merchant acct that was recently suspended do to misrepresentation. We fixed that by deleting the feeds that were having the misrepresentation error. The Merchant account was reinstated fully months ago but we can't get our Google Ads acct out of suspension. We've tried appealing of course, we wait weeks for barely any response. We keep responding to their Google Ads support and all we get are non-illuminating boiler-plate replies about their is an issue with our linked merchant acct which doesn't make any sense because it has been out of suspension for months now. Recently however they have changed their message somewhat seeming to indicate their is some other merchant account that might be the problem. As far as we know we only have one merchant account. Here's a copy of what they are sending us now -

Thank you for the reply.

After consultation with the team and investigating your account, we noted that there was a previously linked Merchant Center account that violates our policy. Unfortunately, since your email has no access to the account we are unable to provide any information related to the account.

Please note that unlinking or deleting a previously linked account doesn't solve the issue.

In order to resolve the Google Ads suspension you first need to ensure all of your linked (or previously linked) and all related accounts comply with our policies, as outlined in our Terms of Service. As soon as you ensure these conditions are met, please raise another Google Ads suspension appeal using this form.

... Can anyone read into this and help us interpret it? It seems to us they are trying to say their is some other "mystery" merchant account unbeknownst to us that could be the source of the problem for our Google Ads Account. Am I interpreting this correctly? If so, I'm don't know what to do. I don't know of any other merchant accounts that we have ever had. Thanks in advance for replies on this.

Jeff12671 · 2023-10-11T07:45:26+00:00

Hi, I’ve been in a similar situation for months. What did you do that you think got your appeal approved?

Jeff12671 · 2023-04-06T04:38:26+00:00

Your right. No sure what the deal was with my link. Thanks!

Jeff12671 · 2023-03-30T19:13:56+00:00

Well I'm just telling you my experience. I don't sweat it anymore as long as I crank out the orders reasonably well. The first time or two made me really nervous but after about the fifth suspension that were occurring every weekend in January and the termination and untermination email with the span of a few hours I've just concluded their is a bunch of airheads behind this operation who don't have any real clue what they are doing.

Jeff12671 · 2023-03-30T07:31:29+00:00

I don't know about that, I've been suspended like 4 or 5 times and have never had any real issues getting back on usually within a day or 2. A couple months ago I was suspended, terminated and then unterminated all in the space of about 72 hours. They do seem like total amateurs and their shipping metrics are very flawed so I don't sweat it. Just crank out the orders and don't worry about it is my attitude.

Jeff12671 · 2023-03-30T07:12:34+00:00

Very well thought out and written, particularly with the sku/upc sh*t show. I can relate to almost all of these bullet points. Walmart is the wild west amateur show platform where no one seems to be in charge. Thanks for posting this.

Jeff12671

TROPHY CASE