WHAS11 coverage

(WHAS11) -What if you sent a gift card to someone this holiday and it didn’t make it?

The post office says it happened to a number of people.

The Louisville Post Office says that a number of gift cards intended for mailboxes are still sitting at the post office and won’t likely ever get to their destination.

The Postal Service says they have logged dozens of complaints, and that’s not including the people who will call after seeing this story.

They say it’s because when gift cards are too thick, the envelope isn’t flexible enough to bend through postal machinery.

Whatever the cause, hundreds of gift cards are in limbo at the post office.

One of Chris Rabeneck’s clients at her St. Matthews hair salon had sent her two $25 Target gift cards, but all she got was the client’s Christmas card and an apology from the postal service.

“I find it hard to believe that a machine did this,” says Rabeneck.

But the postal service blames an inordinate number of problems with the holiday mail on people cramming too much into one envelope or the inferior paper of cheap envelopes.

Cathy Snyder with the Postal Service offers an explanation: “What happens is the machinery has to have a certain force of suction to get these to go through quickly and the paper is so thin, that it’s literally sucking the card through the paper. In some cases they are slit all the way around.”

The main Post Office says they’ve never seen anything like it.

In December, thousands of envelopes spilled their contents during sorting there.

These gift cards are set to be destroyed in thirty days unless someone can specifically identify them to claim them.

“We’re trying our best to reunite them all with their rightful owners,” says Snyder. “But we can’t legally do anything else with them.”

Snyder also says they might extend the thirty day deadline. 

To lodge a complaint, you can call 800-ASK-USPS and provide any identifying information, such as names on the gift card and denominations.

The post office suggests if you are mailing more than one gift card, or if a gift card is in its own envelope, to use a padded envelope.

The Louisville Post Office has reported the issue to Washington. They suspect it could be part of a bigger problem.

Snyder says theft by postal workers is very rare, but if there was an investigation it would be conducted by the inspector general, a separate office.