SNES Preservation Project Dead After USPS Loses $10K Of Cartridges

[dlevere]

This amateur archivist had 100 cartridges shipped to him so he could dump their contents, but nobody has a clue where they are now. I guess the lesson here is that paying for shipping insurance may not be such a bad idea after all. A Nintendo fan's project to digitally preserve every SNES game has ended in defeat after the US Postal Service (USPS) lost a package containing 100 cartridges. The parcel contained between $7,500 and $10,000 worth of vintage games, which were en route to amateur archivist Byuu.

The package made the journey from Frankfurt to Byuu's home state of New Jersey, but after this was lost by the USPS. It was the second of five planned shipments of games from a European collector, who has now been left without a large chunk of their collection.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...sd10k-of-games

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2017/02/...0k_cartridges/

[nensondubois]

"This amateur archivist" - Can I punch the person in the face for writing this piece?

I have been loosely following the event on twitter and I can do is hope that byuu finds some way to hold USPS accountable for their negligence. I thought DHL (Deliveries Hastily Lost) were incompetent; this sets a new low.

[dnawrkshp]

"This amateur archivist" - Can I punch the person in the face for writing this piece?

I was about to post the same thing.
Hope his cartridges get recovered somehow.

[soprano1]

Why didn't byuu pay for shipping insurance on such a valuable parcel?

[dlevere]

"This amateur archivist"

I didn't say that, this guy did.

[Knight of Time]

I had something similar happen to me, but it wasn't a video game that I didn't receive; it was actually an external hard drive for my computer.

I was tracking it online via Canada Post, and right when I thought it had arrived in the capital city of my home province (which is close to where I live), it wasn't there. Thankfully that only happened once, but one thing's for sure, I didn't exactly enjoy the process of having to order it again (first I got a refund, which was good, but then I had so much difficulty re-ordering the external hard drive from Amazon Canada that I eventually decided to order it on eBay instead, but for a slightly higher price.

I just hope this guy gets back as many of the games as possible, if not all of them. As a serious gamer, this story is painful for me to read.

[nensondubois]

#byuu
".@USPS @USPSHelp Thanks, I found my missing package ... label. Your employees ripped it off the box and stole a $10,000 package from me."

https://twitter.com/byuu_san/status/832074375646048256
USPS Fucklarks.

[dlevere]

Reddit Thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/c...e_package_was/

[benafreedom02]

Don't Ship Anything Valuable Using USPS

I know that I am new here, but I felt the need to comment on this. Somebody has to be crazy to ship something worth that much using USPS. With the USPS, which is part of the US Government (the USPS' web address in the 1990s was usps.gov), if it gets lost in the mail, it's your problem. Plus, you will have better luck finding the Social Security numbers of current and former US Presidents then you will finding the USPS lost mail stats. I live in Baltimore, MD, USA and I don't even ship my own packages through the USPS, I go to the Fedex Office store and ship them Fedex Ground. Sure, I'm paying a little more, but they give me a tracking number that I can use to see where the package is at using ether my smartphone or laptop (I am on my laptop right now) and they take responsibility if your package gets lost, damaged, or stolen while in transit and the store employees professionally box them up so they don't get damaged. The USPS only gives you a delivery confirmation number, and you have to pay extra for it. If you want it to get lost, ship it USPS.

[Knight of Time]

Hmm, it makes me wonder if any of the games in the lost shipment were games with a special chip (e.g. Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby Super Star, Super Mario RPG, or Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)...as it makes me highly curious to wonder how he would have digitally preserved any of those four games if any of them were among the lost games?

[MathUser]

Well, the reason the correct value wasn't claimed on the package was cause the guy could get in trouble if welfare found out he had something so valuable. Just being kinda paranoid. I think he only had insurance with DHL mail and USPS is the one that "lost" the package. That could mean they can't collect insurance on it. They are looking into it. Byuu said he's gonna try to sue USPS for it tho, and he started some kinda fundraiser. If the games turn up he can refund everybody.

[nensondubois]

https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/found-package/ - Well they were recovered at least.

Still, this raises quite a few questions on USPS machines and resource management.

Also, USPS is illegally selling your mail!
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...ctioned-online

[soprano1]

I hope byuu learned a lesson here.

[MathUser]

I'm sure it's legal to sell lost packages. Cause the only other option would be to throw it away. If the package is insured they kinda pay back the person who is getting the item anyway.

I don't know if someone stole the package or not. But the sender did make the mistake of wrapping the package in paper. That could be how the label would get ripped off. I'm sure the buyer and sender did learn a hard lesson tho. The guy should properly insure his packages now, and byuu said he's gonna only allow smaller shipments. I guess shipping USPS was a bad idea too, tho I'm not sure if they actually did anything wrong.