*weeps*

[iradney]

So, SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed - aka Mom) sent a package for me from Canada to SA. A buddy of hers was flying to SA and brought the package with.

His lovely wife then couriered it to me. On Monday.
It is now Thursday.
It hasn't arrived.

I get the Tracking Number from Mrs Buddy and call the Courier Company to find out where the hell this package is.
They cannot find this tracking number

Still calm at this point - yelling at the call centre person will get the both of us nowhere. I get the sup's number, and call him.

PLEASE PLEASE FIND MY PACKAGE! very nice chap, who is rather surprised that this package has dropped off the face of the earth.

I give him the location from where it was posted, and the address that it must arrive at. He also needs the receipt, and Mrs Buddy will fax it through to him as soon as she's near a fax machine (lovely lady!). Once she's done that, she'll phone me to let me know it's done, and then I'll phone him.

So we get off the phone, and I'm . This is an INSURED package. How the hell do they have no trace of it?

CCSup calls me back about 20 mins later - he spoke with the branch manager of Origin Location, and she looked at the packages sent out on Monday AND Tuesday. She couldn't find my package
But CCSup assures me that once he has the receipt, he'll be able to dig deeper and find it for me.

I have to be honest here. I've been polite and civil to CCAgents and CCSup because it is not their fault. But if I find out Origin Location dropped the ball...I will get the number from the CCSup and Unleash The Beast That Is Iradney's Dark Side. And when SWMBO hears about this, they'll probably get to experience her wrath as well.

Put it to you this way - when I get angry, I could make someone pee their pants.
SWMBO has had YEARS of practice (she's not an SC, she's just had to deal with some very sucky people). She can make someone pee their pants, fudge their jockeys, chew off their leg and ask for more.

So I'm REALLY hoping they find the package. I have NO IDEA what's in it - SWMBO sends a care package once a year with little goodies for TTO and I, but it's mostly the sentimental "awwww" emotion that goes with opening it that I'm missing here.

Please hold thumbs!!!

[Evil Queen]

I hope they find it and I really hope it's all in one piece!

[ditchdj]

Sorry to break it to you but the package is likely gone for good.

Clicking the link below will tell you what's going on down there.....

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw...1303&sn=Detail

[Aethian]

My Aussie sent me a package for Christmas last year...it made it to the states and then...dissapeared. Really sad to as he said he sent me whole bunch of anime.

[draggar]

Not to sound rude but are you sure the wife gave it to the courier company?

No sign of it and you seem to be having trouble getting a receipt.

[One-Fang]

Sorry to break it to you but the package is likely gone for good.

Clicking the link below will tell you what's going on down there.....

The Post Office are rife with fraud and theft? It appears this package was sent by courier, so I'm not entirely sure this article really sheds any particular light on it.

Unless the local PO do the couriers, too. But then, Amazon is still shipping there by courier, so I'm guessing not.

If anything, it really just shows that courier shipment in SA is considered (by Amazon) to be reliable enough that packages will get through - a bare minimum, but not explaining how come the OP's package has disappeared.

[iradney]

Not to sound rude but are you sure the wife gave it to the courier company?

No sign of it and you seem to be having trouble getting a receipt.

DING DING DING!!! Draggar is a winner!

The wife has NEVER sent a package before, so she had the lady at the post office counter fill in the form.

Now, POL (Post Office Lady) is an SE for the following reasons:

a) She sent it Counter to Counter, instead of Counter to Door
b) The address given to her was a STREET Address
c) NO Contact number was given
d) She gave the WRONG TRACKING NUMBER! (The one she gave started with a TA, the actual number? PA!!!!)
e) Mrs Buddy said to her "I'd like to courier this parcel please"

*sigh*
Well, once all is said and done, CCSup tracked down the package () and I picked it up yesterday

[Aethian]

Counter to counter?! What kind of tracking number was it? This was the usps was it?! I have a feeling I've missed a bunch of this story in misunderstanding.

[Dreamstalker]

Glad everything worked out for you!

I'm still waiting on a gaming-miniatures trade that was supposedly sent by my trade partner almost three weeks ago (the first time it was returned because he screwed up my address, it was resent and I can't get a tracking number out of him). I trust the guy, but it was almost $100 worth of miniatures and I'm betting he didn't get it insured (there was also cash in the box which I didn't know about until it was already in the mail system, so it could have gone poof). He could have mailed it illegally via media mail (IIRC toys don't qualify), in which case it could be gone for good if it got inspected.

Aethian, customs can be strange with anime. I've gotten a few packages from Japan that had been opened and once an item was missing (store sent a replacement at no charge, I never did find out what happened to the original).

[DeltaSierra]

So glad you finally got it! I sent a package from here in B.C. to my friend in NH last August. It never arrived. I had insured it, so had that claim go through, got reimbursed. Fast forward to March of this year. Package arrives in NH. Stamp on it shows it had been opened by Customs AUSTRALIA!!!!! He sent me back the packaging with the customs stamp, just so I could show my friend at the local PO (who was there when I sent it originally.) We had a good laugh but even she has no idea how it got sent to Australia when it was very clearly addressed to New Hampshire, USA.

[iradney]

Counter to counter?! What kind of tracking number was it? This was the usps was it?! I have a feeling I've missed a bunch of this story in misunderstanding.

*points to location* I'm in deepest darkest Africa, so it was the SAPO. You know, the one that was blacklisted by Amazon.com for all the thefts??

[reimero]

I was living in Austria during my high school years. My parents had returned to the US when I was 16, but were letting me stay to finish up over there. Anyway, they'd send a care package sometime in October or November for Christmas. It would usually arrive mid-December to mid-January. No biggie.

Except one year: December and January came and went, no package, and I just accepted that it was probably lost in transit. Oh well. Until one day in May, it arrives, stamped "Missent to Melbourne (Australia)."

This, of course, was the same US Postal Service who insisted that Liechtenstein is not a country, and demanded that letters be addressed to Liechtenstein, Germany.

[Dreamstalker]

I once sold a widget on ebay to a buyer in VA. At the time I was living in NM. A smallish Priority Mail box took almost a month to get from NM to VA. Thanks to the tracking the buyer had wisely requested, we figured out most of its route:

1. Santa Fe to Albuqerque (origination)
2. ABQ to Denver (looks normal so far)
3. Somehow it teleported to CA, from where it went to Chicago (understandable but why did it go west in the first place?)
4. Chicago to TX (what the--?!)
5. Sat in TX for a while, it was probably our joint inquiry that shook it loose to travel to NH
6. Finally ended up in VA

The buyer and I were seriously waiting for it to pop up overseas. The contents were 2 Zuni bat carvings, theory was that they were just following the mosquitoes ^_^

[Kogarashi]

I haven't had anything quite this interesting, sadly (or happily?). Closest was when something went three states in the wrong direction before heading in the right direction again.

Though there've been a few times at our current home where something I've ordered has arrived in the "distribution depot" or whatever one town over...and sat there for three days. In the middle of the week. It got to the point where I was thinking, "Look, I just live fifteen minutes away! I'll drive over there and get it myself!"

[Imogene]

I bought some boots on a website once, had them sent overnight... and start watching my tracking info... three days later, the package claims it has arrived... but I have no package in my hands. And bro and I were both at home the entirety of the day previous... so, I'm outside, heading for some shopping of some sort, and I notice a box, sitting on the porch! Whoever delivered it didn't even bother ringing the doorbell to let us know, "Hey, you've got box..."