I just completed my fourth refund in the past week to a buyer whose shipment (his was air-mailed 28 February to Wisconsin, for pity's sake. I could have walked it there by now) has not yet arrived.
Luckily, all but one of these were small, low-cost shipments. One, unhappily, was a tiny shipment for which I used International Letter Post, so buh-bye to that (no refund available from Canada Post).
I also learned that the first date at which one can launch an investigation with Canada Post is 75 days after shipment for surface mail, although it's 45 days for air.
This topic of lost or slow shipments has been discussed a lot recently -- does anyone have a rule of thumb for how many I should expect to lose? Right now I'm at about 2% (I do expect the LetterPost one to arrive eventually -- it was going to Israel, and had made two false starts before it even left).
I've taken femmefan1946's advice to heart, and have started a metaphorical or penny-jar "slush fund" for lost items, and I know that we are covered by the Small Packet or Expedited insurance, so I'm not really worried about the loss financially, but I am curious to know whether we've just been unlucky.
