The USPS is by far the most reliable carrier in the US

Mail carriers do not give a fuck. They're just as overworked as anyone, and mostly just want to get though their shift, which means busting out all the deliveries. The only time I've ever had a package stolen, it was from my porch by random people. It'll be fine.

Stolen? I wouldn't worry about that.

Smashed to shit because it got mishandled? Definitely a valid concern.

I've never had any problems with USPS, and from what I can see online Valve sends a return label with insurance for RMA requests, so if it did "get lost" then they'll be covered either way.

The USPS is good, actually

USPS is not nearly as bad as a lot of people seem to think in my experience

I have an acquaintance ( he would call me friend I never corrected him on that so I guess thats my fault) Anyways....this "Friend" is American.

sorry to use anime terms but look at you being all tsundere though, you're out here asking near strangers for advice to help this person, they're your friend 🙄stop trying to play it cool, you won't impress me 🙄

People say "don't send money through the mail" but I'm not even sure how true it is that anyone can feel the texture of money through an envelope. Any more elaborate allegation than that is total bullshit.

The Steam Deck should be just fine in the USPS's handling. What's more of a concern is whether your friend trusts his neighbors.

I've never had a package stolen by the postal service. Once in a while shit gets misdelivered but even then usually it turns up because whoever got it saw that it was not for them and brings it back

Brainworms for sure, if he just packs it properly nothing to worry about

The mail system is one of the only things we have left. Why the Republicans are gunning for it so hard.

I've never had a package stolen. Most of the drugs I did as a teen was delivered by USPS. He'll be fine if I can get fucking LSD and mushrooms delivered by mail lmao

Homie, USPS delivers most of the drugs in the USA. I've seen drug packs get stolen by postal workers, but it is 99% at the point of origin, in an area known for shipping contraband, and another red flag or two besides (fake return address, overnight shipping, etc).

All that to say: USPS is pretty great, generally. Pack it up tight and tidy. Pay for insurance if you're super paranoid about your steam deck.

The postal service is the only public service that people generally trust in the US, mailing something in it's not likely to get stolen. Private companies like UPS are fine here too. The main risk of shipping is packages being stolen from your door when they are delivered, but you can pick it up at the post office or a UPS pick-up location usually.

I’ve only ever had two packages disappear in my life: one was coffee, and the other was a not insignificant amount of methylone (prior to US analogue act).

Homies steam deck will be fine as long as they package it well.

He can pay a bit extra on the shipping to get it insured and get tracking with it that way in the unlikely case that it does get stolen he should get reimbursed.

I don’t ship much so don’t know all the details but did it once in a while for eBay stuff I sold back in the day.

Some burgers are unduly paranoid about "porch pirates", but that wouldn't be affected using USPS vs Fedex/UPS. Especially if the destination is some commercial facility.

i wouldn't worry, but there's a "hold for pickup" option where they'll keep the package at the post office and tell the recipient to come get it (instead of delivering it to your mailbox/doorstep, which is the only leg of the trip where i'd be even a little bit concerned about theft)

afaik it's something the sender requests though, so idk how you'd set it up for something you send out and then have returned to you

Im not American but I've used USPS for forwarding stuff from US from/to my own country, never had any issue. I've found the tracking to be reliable.

I think half of porch pirate bullshit Americans face could be fixed if they didn't place boxes outside and required signatures.

Yes. Immigrant space Jews from Mexico will steal it and use it to sacrifice an innocent republican house wife at the altar of the democratic demon-god, Lucifer.

Bill Clinton will also be there.

it’s unlikely for usps workers to even know what’s inside

The US postal service is extremely reliable and secure.

yeah I agree with @DogThatWentGorp@hexbear.net, I think thefts in the postal system are fairly rare and he could also pay for insurance if he were really worried

but, as Doggo Gorpo said, mishandling is the default for shipments in America. Everything gets put into boxes and then packed into semi trucks and every step of loading and unloading is basically someone paid 70% of a living wage to throw boxes into or out of, and i literally mean throw

I think as long as it's packaged in a box with VOID FILLING (packing peanuts, air packs, whatever) so that it CAN'T MOVE and then packed into another, larger box around it, with similar void filling, it would 100% be fine

you could probably pack it less securely but then it wouldn't be 100% fine

Stolen, naw. Lost in the maze of the repair company, maybe.

Probably not. However if anything bad happens you would expect to not get any help about it. I don't know if that is true, in fact I think it isn't. However, vibes wise, it feels like the odds of never seeing it again are high.

If anything happened to it he might be fucked since it's out of stock on Steam here. Maybe they keep a bunch of them around in case something doesn't work out but it would be hard to say for sure. Valve isn't the most communicative company out there.

Not from the US but as long as he doesn't put it in a suspiciously Steam Deck shaped box with "STEAM DECK: DO NOT NICK!!!" written on it, he should be fine.

Bubble wrap that shit

if he lives in an apartment and they just leave it by the external door it's pretty high-risk, but whatever the risk is it works out that the cable company mailing you a modem just rolls the dice.

presumably he had it mailed to him, i don't see why this would be different.