Postal stuff

We receive orders and when required send them by the SA Post Service,to date we have never lost an item,they may take some time but the goods have always arrived.The risk,once we have posted is tranfered to the customer,a tracking number service can be supplied at and extra fee. Once we have handed the goods over to the post office,the order is fully executed and is then to the buyers risk.

Late last december 2011 we had a parcel to ship to a customer in the USA,the postage was about R1580,to me,thats a lot of money,this was on 7.6 kgs near enough. Weeks went by and still the parcel had not arrived,using the USPS the customer could track it had been to US customs and cleared to USPS and that was the last we heard of the parcel.

Then it turns up where we sent it from,Hout Bays Post Office here in South Africa!

The returned parcel as collected,we had to pay a further R30 to get it back too.

I was expecting some fault or other but as you can see,while the parcel was a little knocked about, it was near enough intact,the contents were perfect,nothing lost or damaged,having done packing for years,we pack well.

The SA post office had added some yellow tape to secure one edge,at least they were doing a decent job but why the returned parcel?

I was really lost for an answer,then I saw it.

This folks,is the US Customs arrival sticker,the customs stuck it over the delivery address,imagine!

So when the USPS got the parcel they could not see who to deliver it to.They did not try too hard did they?

By either moving the customs sticker,or opening the plastic envelope on the side of the box with our invoice and buyers order,would have shown the delivery address.

HOW HARD CAN THIS BE!

Now we send by Fedex,lets hope the valued customer gets the goods.

R McB