I work for the United States Postal Service. I am a city letter carrier [mailman]. I would just like to say YEAHAW!!! One less Ebayer to deal with. More time for me to get the junk mail delivered so I can go home with only 10 hours of work today.
All kidding aside, I feel for your loss. However, hopefully I can say a few things here that may help. The carrier that you talked to had the deer in the headlights look because we are not allowed to tell you to [beeep] off you fat red bastard to your face. We are just the messengers, if your carrier did not help you then go to the supervision of your local office. If he/she is no help then go to the station manager. If he/she = no help...go to the postmaster. If no help then go over their head and go to the district then region then postmaster general. Phone calls = no help. emails = no help. In person gets results.
I am offended that you automatically think that this was/is a theft issue. Dude, I don't have time and it is not worth losing a job for 30$ worth of whatever it is. A guy in our office was suspect of theft, the PI's came in and baited a parcel, he opened it and a sensor went off and he was unemployed 30 minutes later. I am not saying that it doesn't happen because it does, in every job everywhere. That is just the nature of the world that we live in now. I doubt anyone here would have taken your stuff because we don't get enough time off to go trapping.
If it was not insured then you apparently have no concern for its value. If you ask for [I believe,I am no clerk] $50 insurance the clerk puts on a red ink stamp. If you want the package tracked as it travels you pay extra and get the barcode and you can state a dollar value. If you did none of this then you are most likely out of chances for a financial reimbursement.
My sugestion is talking to a real person preferably of management. Ask them to contact the offices or plants that the parcel passed through and see if they have any snare type stuff there. We don't just throw it away. Hopefully you can get somewhere doing this as right now the bosses are so damned concerned about getting every piece of mail delivered even if it means loosing money. It is a wonder they have a budget to pay our paychecks.
Is there any reason that the recipient of the package might be to blame? Was the tape cut open, torn, crushed? Did they get their stuff and reship the box? Or could this just be a parcel hungry machine that got the box? I am sorry for the loss. On my route I have 450 individual stops to make every day,I get @1200 letters,650 magazines,300 misc pieces, usually a full covering of junkmail, and @15 parcels and @20 small chunks[like checkbooks] every single day. My route is "the small route" in the office. My co-carriers get up to @1000 stops a day. Do the math. That is a S-load of stuff to go through on a daily bassis. Times that by 300million americans and your parcel [not to belittle it] becomes a non issue just due to logistics. So NO do not insure the stuff you send from theft,although it is one of the casualties of deliveries, but insure it from theft/dammage/loss/misdelivery/theft from your "neighbors" as some parcels are just left on the front porch [by all courier companies]and just a simple peace of mind and ease of recovery if necessary.
I hope this will help [that is what you asked for]. I know it made sense in my head but might not have made it to the keyboard. If I could help further please PM me. Thanks.
P.S. The U.S.P.S. is a federal position and such, however it is under a private contract and not a government entity or subsidy. In other words I get off all the good holidays but none of your taxes pay my/our way. Right now we are waiting and watching to see what the new contract will be as we are currently working without a contract [contract ended Dec. 2006] What you should be woried about is what management is trying to do now. They want to hire out work to independant contractors to deliver your mail. That means rural routes and city carriers still work but any new additions wherever they may be will be carried by someone not held accountable for doing the work. Now that scares me and if that happens, well, I will not even ship through our service because there is no telling what will happen on the other end of the delivery. thank you and good night.