Lost/Damaged EMS lost dolls

Sorry if a thread like this exists, but I'm sort of freaking out and nothing seems to match.

In early September 2021 I submitted a parcel through my taobao agent (superbuy) to be delivered to me in the US. I chose EMS, and it cost almost $200 to ship since I decided to ship multiple items together and it was pretty heavy. In this parcel was a doll and 4 artist heads, amongst other items like clothes and wigs.

It's January 12, 2022, and today my agent finally confirmed that the package is lost. The last update, on September 3, was "Guangzhou City, has been handed over to the carrier for transportation". It seems that my parcel never made it out of China, and my agent has been telling me since October that it was supposedly waiting for a flight.

Now my agent is trying to offer me the lost item insurance that I bought, but I'm terrified that taking this insurance will be the nail in the coffin for this package. Is it possible that they will ever find it? And if they do, will they destroy or sell off its contents since I accepted the insurance? I don't even know if the insurance is through my agent or the shipping service so I don't know if it would have any effect on anything.

I'm devastated, since these artist heads were very short run and the artists show no signs of selling them again. On top of that, EMS is charging me the full $173 shipping fee for losing my items which just feels like a kick in the teeth. I've never faced such a huge loss in this hobby... I've been waiting for some of these heads since January 2021.

Has anyone been in any sort of situation like this? Is there any hope of my parcel miraculously showing up someday? Is accepting my lost parcel insurance a death sentence for my items? This past few months seems like a perfect storm (The supply chain disaster, covid spikes, and the holidays to put a cherry on top of the shit sundae) so I'm guessing not many people have been in this exact situation, but I figured it was worth a try.

Even if not... thanks for listening to my bitching, anyways.

 

Thanks for the input guys, its helped ease my mind a bit. I'm waiting for a response from my agent right now, since I think a lot of what I do next hinges on their policies.

@NineOneThree That is crazy that your package got stuck at almost the exact same time! I am suspicious that the Omicron outbreak played a major part in my package getting lost, so I'm really hoping that it's just very backed up.

@poisonapple88 I'm not sure why I assumed that getting insurance would be forfeiting my package, but it's nice to know that's probably not the case. I'm really hoping at this point that mail is just really really slow. I've definitely learned my lesson when it comes to EMS shipping... only DHL from now on.

 

Sort of a non-update... It's April 7th 2022 now, and there has been no movement on this package at all. That's over 7 months. I got the insurance on the parcel, so my agent now seems completely unwilling to help any further. I also have another EMS package that is similarly dead for about 4 months, and I don't have high hopes for that one either.

I've given up.

This whole experience has definitely put a huge damper on the collecting side of the hobby for me. This would have been just a little annoying if it had been clothes or something, but the fact that it was artist heads I can't replace really upsets me. But there's nothing that can be done about it but learn from it... and I've learned that I'll never be shipping anything via EMS ever again.

 

@Mistress_Wish I wouldn't worry too much yet- I think that level of delay is just normal these days Especially since (iirc) Guangzhou has been hit pretty hard by covid in the past month or so and there have been lockdowns as a result. I think I just have really bad luck with packages. Hopefully yours starts moving again before too much longer.