SNES preservation project on hold due to missing $10,000 package

I was just checking DHL web site over here in Germany for the cost but found something that may be interesting:

Aufgrund der Streiks bei Lufthansa im Dezember 2016 wurden für Sendungen in die USA Ableitungen über alternative Transportrouten notwendig. Unter anderem über den Seeweg. Das führt aktuell noch zu stärkeren Verzögerungen bei der Zustellung von Economy Paketen in die USA.

Translation:

Due to a strike at Lufthansa in december 2016 packages with destination USA need to be redirected using alternate transport routes, amongst other by ship. This results in even bigger delays delivering economy packets into USA.

Source: https://www.dhl.de/de/privatkunden/pakete-versenden/weltweit...

If you have the DHL tracking number you should try tracking.

There's also the DHL facebook page where you can start a facebook chat, with good luck your supporter will speak english. (Just try!) https://www.facebook.com/DHLPaket/app/1609168226005546/

From what it looks there's a high chance your package is on a ship somewhere. And even more importantly, the sender should create a "Nachforschungsauftrag" with DHL (ha, one of our bureaucratic german words I can't even find a translation for - it's a request for inquiry of a lost package). Even with domestic packages over here the tracking information sometimes is plain wrong, and I expect it even more so to be wrong if they don't use their usual ways of transport. (No tracking of all those packages in a shipping container on a freighter.)

Good luck. (Btw, once I have given up on a package from the US to Germany after 6 months. The day after I gave up and purchased an alternative product my packet arrived ... UGH).

I would hope a "particularly bad location" wouldn't encompass the entire Salt Lake metro area (+1M pop) but my experience has been the same throughout the many places I've lived in the valley. You'd think a bad location would be isolated to a particular post office. By the stats on this page I'm in one of the better locations though (SLC).

I agree shipping in the US is awesome. I'm still amazed how well it works. USPS delivers the vast majority of packages I get through them without issue so perhaps they are a lot better than other countries in that respect. I guess my issue with them is more about their handling of exceptional situations. They mostly do their job fine but if something goes wrong it feels like it's the first time USPS has ever seen a package delivery problem. Perhaps UPS and FedEx are just as bad. I've just never had them lose a package so I haven't had to experience it.

I do, however, often feel like USPS costs me more than UPS and FedEx just because I have to spend time each day throwing 95% of what I get from them in the recycle bin (and that's after I've opted out of everything I can).

DHL says the package is already in USPS' hands stateside, so it's not on a ship.

I guarantee you the contract you have with shipping companies doesn't let you (successfully) sue them simply because the package didn't get delivered. No shipping company would still exist today if that were the case, they would have been sued into the ground long ago.

I'm a developer at USPS; if you send me the tracking number I can try to pass this along to someone.