Problems with items sent to USA

Mandles

Is anyone else having problems with stuff sent to america .I have had my only 3 buyers from the USA(this month) all email me saying that items havent arrived yet.Items sent different dates and by airmail and should be with them by now. I have certificate of posting but thats all.Is it just me? Do you reckon royal mail will reimburse me?(i dont) Do i still have to repay buyer?..Im really mad as it totals 50 quid and i cant afford to lose that.

Ems!

Hi, I sent a small package to USA (florida) via air mail abt 2 weeks ago - they received it within a week, so as far as I know, no probs with USA. Sorry, I don't know the answers to ur other quns... sure some1 will come along soon!

Em.

buglawton

You can definitely assume they ae stuck in Customs. True recent story: a relative of mine sent 2 large bars of famous English brand soap to USA as a gift. What arrived was a pack of 20 or so tiny hotel soaps of exactly the same brand! It took a while for the difference to be confirmed (some confused phone calls) and a letter to US Customs who admitted having detroyed the original soap while searching it, then replaced it without informing anyone!

Mandles

i can see the problem with soap as they might be trying to hide the smell of drugs from sniffer dogs etc.But these are computer games, why would they hold them in customs?

buglawton

They are just stuck in the queue while everything is sorted and checked.

bleugh

royal mail says 4 weeks!

LULUBELLE_2

I've never had any problems posting to the U.S., things have always been there in 7/8 working days. But I posted a CD last Monday (16th) and by Thursday (19th) the buyer was getting really twitchy - even though I warned him about the length of time that it would take.

donstermonster

Normal post to US can take up to 56 days before you can complain,

I always send intrenational signed for, it costs an extra £3.30 but i have never had it take longer than 5 days to arrive and it is also insured, i usually pay some of the cost myself just to save any hassle , even for items less than a tenner i will take a £1 - £1.50 hit

nightswimmer

My stuff to the US seems to be taking the usual amount of time (4 - 7 days) at the moment.

OllieLong

donstermonster wrote:

Normal post to US can take up to 56 days before you can complain,

Thats surface mail which I'm sure hardly anyone uses. Airmail should take about 5 days but it does vary quite a bit.

blue_monkey_2

I send about 50 parcels a week to the USA and occassionally they will get stuck in customs, but when they do it will be those send around the same time. They do not hold everything, I am told that the occassional cage of stuff will get stopped so you probably just got unlucky. I had a package help up for 2 weeks because I sent my friend a bar of chocolate for her birthday in with some other items I sent. They told me that they had to destroy it (eat it I bet) or the whole package under the Bio-Terrorism Act. I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself when I was told!!

The buyer should be aware that Internation Posting could take up to 6 weeks - after 5 weeks you can fill in a missing mail form with the Post Office, the label for postage could have come unstuck this would cause it to go via Surfacemail and it can then take up to 56 days.

As for Interntational Signed for that is the biggest money spinner I have ever heard and is useless. I often have these go 'missing' only for them to arrive after I have chased it up - which you cannot do until 6 weeks has passed. I tell my customers it is a complete waste of money - only Air Sure will make sure (if you are lucky) that it arrives.

The Post Office does not tell you this but if you go to https://www.usps.com and enter your ISF tracking number you will be able to see where the item is and whether delivery has been attempted (US only) and if it has been delivered which is quite good. I only found this out recently by chance when someone told me their item had not arrived and I thought I would give it a go as the RM website did not have any information on it. When I have had to call to complain about parcel being missing the RM have been useless and told me that it takes 3 weeks for them to gain the info about who has signed for it and when. I would say unless very valuable, take your chance, get Proof of Postage which covers you for £30 and claim with that (you get this for every transaction on Smartstamp so do not let them tell you different), the extra £3.30 on ISF does not mean you get anything extra than being able to track the delivery on USPS website (Uinited States Postal Service) but this is not something the Post Office will ever inform you about, I found out by sheer chance when someone mailed me to say their package had not arrived and I thought I would give it a try!!

Basically all you can do is tell your customer to check that it is not at the sorting office or in customs (again my customers have been told no but the packages have arrived a week or so later having been openeing by customs!!) and to be patient. Any cusomter buying overseas will have to be more patient as they take this chance when buying.