Found this page regarding lost packages in the US (USPS)

[Jkay]

So lost packages are opened, and if they are worthless and the owner can not be determined from the contents of the mail piece, they are destroyed. Items of estimated value over $25 are held for 3 months, then auctioned. Registered Mail, Express Mail, and and Insured packages are held for 6 months then auctioned.

It's all held in two warehouses, and catalouged so if you head to your post office and apply for a "USPS Mail Recovery Center Search Request" they will search the warehouse catalog for your stuff.

read here

http://blog.stamps.com/2012/05/29/how-to-find-a-lost-usps-letter-or-package/

[Member X]

Interesting!

[woof*]

Yes, just like those reality tv shows "storage wars" people buy them.

[KB]

so let me get this straight.

You mail an item through usps,

that item gets losts because of..well..usps,

usps then opens the mail belonging to you that they lost and they determine whether the item has value, say goodbye to a trinket from a loved one, or a last letter from a recently deceased etc..

if the item does have value though, usps can auction it and keep the proceeds..

Sounds like a nice little scam to me.

Ken

[Ephry73]

You got that right ken!

[sneed12]

Sounds like a nice little scam to me.

These offices hold all mail that cannot be delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender, usually because the address is either illegible or missing.

If valuable items are present inside the package, it is then opened to determine if there are any clues to the delivery address.

They only sell the contents if there is no indication of who it should go (or go back) to. What else are they supposed to do? Use telepathy?

[panerai153]

Interesting article. I had no idea, although the USPS must have some place like the airlines where lost packages go to die! I suppose one way to prevent this would be to enclose something with your address and phone number inside the package. I do know that labels etc come off because my wife had a package lost for about 2 months. Package was going to Europe, but obviously the clear plastic envelope with the customs declaration got torn off, the package went to a zip code in the USA that was close to the one she was sending to in Europe, I suppose it shuttled around for a month or so between post offices in the area of the zip code, then finally it was returned to us with a label "No Such Zip Code" it took them over a months to figure that out? Crazy thing, even though the package never got delivered, we still had to pay the postage again when we sent it the second time !!.