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Do you ever worry that the postman is stealing your autographs? I'm in a real dry spell at the moment despite having around 40 outstanding requests. Some of them went to theatres and I'm really surprised that none of them came back. I had to complain to Royal Mail a couple of months ago because envelopes marked as 'Please do not bend' were being deliberately bent, almost folded, ruining the pictures inside. Since then, I've hardly received any where I was getting a few each week.

My strategy now is to send a board-backed envelope to myself with a note inside telling whoever reads it that I know they are stealing post and that if they don't return my photos, I will contact the police. It'll be interesting to see if it even turns up.

Of course, this could all be paranoia as all my other post arrives OK but I do worry as you can't track autograph requests. I send all requests with board backed envelopes so it's pretty obvious what they are. Has anyone else had this problem?

P.S. Don't bother sending Obi-Wan pictures to Ewan McGregor to sign, he has called Star Wars fans asking for autographs, 'parasitic' and 'f*cking w*nkers' in a recent interview!

Yeah everyone has these thoughts and it is very possible since you complained about the bending lol Kind of like in a restaurant when you complain then they spit on your food. I do exactly what you are doing I occasionally go to a diff city and mail something to myself that looks just like my autograph envelopes with a similar note as you mentioned inside, I do this about once every 3 to 6 months just to keep my mailman honest and I have sent to myself about half a dozen times and so far got them all so sometimes yes its just paranoia but this hobby will sometimes do that to you lol Let me know if you get the envelope you mail to yourself and be sure and mail it from a diff city or they might catch on and it will look like a trap lol Never hurts to do this because don't forget it might not be your postman it could also be someone at the sorting facility or anywhere else in the postal system. Years ago before I even collected autographs we had a mailman that was stealing anything that looked like a birthday or xmas card I guess hoping for money inside and a lot of people complained about missing cards and soon after that mailman disappeared haha So you are not always just paranoid.

I got the envelope I posted to myself so I guess that proves they don't all go missing. However, it did look like someone had tried to open it as the flap was partially folded back. I had drawn some lines under the flap so it would show if it was opened and maybe someone saw these and decided not to risk it? So I'm still not sure if something fishy is going on.

wayne8942 wrote:I got the envelope I posted to myself so I guess that proves they don't all go missing. However, it did look like someone had tried to open it as the flap was partially folded back. I had drawn some lines under the flap so it would show if it was opened and maybe someone saw these and decided not to risk it? So I'm still not sure if something fishy is going on.

If you genuinely believe your mail is being intercepted then contact the mailing office, and say you have contacted them before taking it to the police.

See what they say, if you're genuinely worried, sometimes I've thought this but had a stack of mail show up all at once, perhaps you're just unlucky and not having many replies lately or people are taking longer as the Christmas season is coming in.

Be careful before making specific allegations too. There are many people involved between the posting and receiving of something. It could be that your postman isn't responsible, even if something is being stolen.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks this. I had two envelopes come back to me completely torn in to. One was my Josh Hamilton success which the envelope was literally ripped in half, I didn't think much of it until my wife pointed out that the half that was missing had most of my address on it so how would the mailman know where to deliver it unless he did it himself. When I first started I would put the celebrities name on the return address, that may have been a really rookie move of me, since I got paranoid I stopped including their names in the return address.

OK, I have now put in another complaint to Royal Mail as I haven't received a single thing in two months now. I have worded it carefully so that I'm not accusing anyone of nicking, just querying if there's any reason why they're not turning up any more. I could just be unlucky but I think I may submit some more requests via a different address and see if anything turns up.

wayne8942 wrote:OK, I have now put in another complaint to Royal Mail as I haven't received a single thing in two months now. I have worded it carefully so that I'm not accusing anyone of nicking, just querying if there's any reason why they're not turning up any more. I could just be unlucky but I think I may submit some more requests via a different address and see if anything turns up.

I think that's highly suspicious on your part really, perhaps being over zealous?

The people you're waiting on responses from, are they located in the same country or over seas?

If over seas, I would assume to wait longer, if in your own country, I would assume also to wait longer, maybe 3-4 months, sometimes people are busy, and it's getting to the silly season faster now so you could assume many celebrities might not have the time they generally do during the year.

Of course this is just my opinion.

I have around 50 requests outstanding now and was receiving replies roughly twice a week. Since complaining about the bent envelopes to RM, they have stopped completely so perhaps I am being paranoid but it seems odd when I was getting them pretty consistently beforehand. Very frustrating, especially with theatre requests as I'd had a 100% response rate before. Now I haven't received a single one back.

wayne8942 wrote:OK, I have now put in another complaint to Royal Mail as I haven't received a single thing in two months now. I have worded it carefully so that I'm not accusing anyone of nicking, just querying if there's any reason why they're not turning up any more. I could just be unlucky but I think I may submit some more requests via a different address and see if anything turns up.

Yeah but you did get back the one you sent to yourself so honestly I think you are just overly paranoid but I think complaining about it is the worst thing you could do because now you have drawn negative attention to yourself with the post office and mailman and they also probably know now that you collect autographs so if they weren't actually taking then before who knows now lol I personally would never complain to the post office unless it was things I purchased or knew were coming and didn't but with autographs you don't know if you were suppose to get anything or not so complaining to the post office is not a smart thing to do because its very possible you just have not been lucky lately I mean I have had times where I get 1 or more autographs a week for a month and other times I get nothing for 2 months and I always send roughly the same amount of requests out on average.