[heatherslightbox]

Perhaps I will just for you. At this point, I don't have much left to sell, though.

BTW, interesting avatar. Is that a couple of Gummi Bears holding up that pretzel?

Heather

[Deni]

I've never shipped abroad, but stuff that arrives here in Albania gets processed within a day. That is, if the electronic tracking said the item arrived on Monday, on Tuesday morning I get the call from the mailman.

Never ever had problems with Albanian customs, provided I had to pay when the item was over $300 shipping included.

[ftpaddict]

Perhaps I will just for you. At this point, I don't have much left to sell, though.

BTW, interesting avatar. Is that a couple of Gummi Bears holding up that pretzel?

Heather

Maybe you will sell something later on... I'll be on the lookout.

Cute gummy bears, aren't they?


Sharing a smile | K100D + FA J 28-80.

[davealta]

If it's over $50 I insist on insured shipping and the buyer must pay (it's expensive). This has saved me so far. These services are USPS Priority International and EMS in the USA and are trackable, insured, and they also return undeliverable items. Standard insurance covers to about $65 ($100 for EMS) for most countries, so one must usually buy extra insurance. USPS EMS is the best -- bullet proof.

[JCSullivan]

Snottyness not percieved...

I was thinking more that you could rule out buyer dis-reputability by sending a prepaid receipt card, and was unsure how it was known absolutely that buyer(s) had not taken delivery of the item.

I'm happy to pay for a receipt card, it does make things easy from my end if the item is claimed not delivered, and there is no receipt. I send them with any item shipped either in Aus or OS including Canada. (I'll soon be able to add Pete's signature to my collection I hope.)

To the subject at hand, I have a couple of mates out here from Germany, I'll ask about their experiences in mailing stuff back home.

Dale

That would be known as the AR Card - officially known as the Ackonowledgement of Receipt. Internationally, it is usually Pink with a big AR on it - in the States it is Green for some reason.

The Letter Carrier (aka Postie) usually knows how close neighbours are and will certainly not leave a parcel with a neighbour unless there is a written request.

[rparmar]

If it's over $50 I insist on insured shipping and the buyer must pay (it's expensive). This has saved me so far. These services are USPS Priority International and EMS in the USA and are trackable, insured, and they also return undeliverable items. Standard insurance covers to about $65 ($100 for EMS) for most countries, so one must usually buy extra insurance. USPS EMS is the best -- bullet proof.

I would comment that sometimes regular parcel delivery is better than courier delivery. This seems counter-intuitive but I have experienced it.

One of the reasons is that the regular postal delivery folk generally have far more knowledge of where they are delivering to. They also often have pass keys to apartment complexes in order to get to centralised mail boxes. I have had many courier dudes simply fail to ring doorbells, use intercoms etc. And if there's nowhere to leave a pickup notice they send one out by mail. This can easily mean an extra week's delay in getting a parcel.

[skaktuss]

That irritates me so much, people who ask me to cheat on the customs forms. I simply won't do it. I don't cheat on my income taxes, so why would I do something like that so that they don't have to pay taxes that they really owe?

Heather

If I sell a lens to my friend, none of us pays VAT. But I have to pay VAT, if that is my source of income and I do it for living. Why can't you imagine that european is Your friend? This is not an ebay, this is pentaxforums, the most friendly site ever!
You paid taxes for Your lens in US. Then one day You decide to sell it to EU and we have to pay taxes for used lens that we are going to use for non-commercial purposes!? Do You think it is fairly? Just because it is imposible to tell, which lens is for commercial use those fat EU parliament guys decided to apply taxes to everything.
I'm sorry Heather, but I'm very hapy, that there are still some friends at PF. They realy helped me to get few lenses that cost much more in Europe.

[hessenwulf]

Well they say that Italy is bad for delivery and lost parcels. I've shipped there 6 times without issue. France has a bad rap too but 3 shipments there made it.

Germany, now that's a black hole. 3 shipments and 3 items lost with the 3rd in dispute. That's a 43mm, 77mm, FA50/1.4 that have disappeared and now an FA24-50/4 that's in limbo. Not saying anything against the people there but somebody is a thief in either customs or the delivery end of things.
Sorry to the buyers there but I'm warning other sellers this is a dangerous place to ship to from outside the EU. I would have thought exactly the opposite would be true.

I have over 600 Ebay transactions (and about 15 sales here) and have always shipped everywhere. Places like Thailand and Indonesia always worried me but the packages always arrived. Worldwide Germany is the only country I've EVER lost anything and we're batting 3-3 now.

Well, Peter is talking about me never getting the 43mm and the 77mm. These items have been shipped uninsured upon my request. I had to pay the price for taking the risk. And of course I never blamed Peter for anything, but I know that when something like this happens you're always in a bad mood, even if this isn't your fault.

With insured items I've never had a problem receiving insured (and therefore trackable) items from all over the world, a teleconverter from Japan being the latest.

Maybe German users should insist on insurance, sad, but true!

[rparmar]

Well, Peter is talking about me never getting the 43mm and the 77mm. These items have been shipped uninsured upon my request. I had to pay the price for taking the risk.

I have taken this risk myself, several times. I will cross my fingers that the packages return from whatever limbo they are in!

[creampuff]

I have received packages from Germany but I can't understand the astronomical cost of shipping from there. Deutsche Post is the cheapest option but it is still very expensive from my experience.

I've sent items to Italy with no issues though someone I know who has a eBay store selling watches has encountered some issues of missing items and customs related hold-ups.

Actually the package I received that took the longest time was from... Canada! For some reason, a small item took 2 months to reach Singapore.

[J.Scott]

Actually the package I received that took the longest time was from... Canada! For some reason, a small item took 2 months to reach Singapore.

Probably fell off the shipping dock and got buried in a snow bank. Spring came, snow thawed, they found it and sent it right away and actually took only 2 days to ship!

[Peter Zack]

You're right about shipping from Canada. If the seller ships cheap and uses surface, the item will have a birthday somewhere between it's old home and the new home. Insist on airmail from Canada and it will be about 2 weeks most of the time. The exception is the USA. American and Canadian customs are brutal sometimes. I've waited a week on some deals and a month on others. It's the same going either way between our 2 countries.

I ordered a lens from the USA and another from Australia on the same day. The one from AU arrived in 14 days and the USA one showed up 11 days later. Both had the same date on the shipping label.

[Arpe]

We have recently received 2 packages from Germany. The first took about 2 months to get here, we thought it wouldn't arrive. The 2nd took 1 week!

Maybe there's hope for yours yet.

[barondla]

Peter Zack, surprised at your luck with Canada/USA shipping. Living in USA I ordered (twice) from Canadian HiFi company Sonic Frontiers (now Parts Connexion). They sent it air (only weighed about 4 lbs). Ordered it late 4:30pm, arrived next morning by 9am. Was totally shocked. They managed this two different times. I don't live on the border either. Live in the middle of the USA. The amount of paper work that came with the unit was amazing. Don't see how they filled it out by the next day.
Used to have a Canadian sales rep call on the store (API speakers). He was surprised by two things.
1. We could have guns hanging on the wall for sale, and that people could carry them legally all over the place.
2. It was easier for him to enter our country (took about 45 min) vs rentering his own country (2 hrs or more). This may have changed since 911.
He was a great guy. Sorry to see him move on. Made me want to visit our northern neighbors.
thanks
barondla

[falconeye]

I was sorta hoping a few people that live there could offer some insight.

I cannot offer much insight, though.
I am as shocked as everybody else here. I received goods from the US and elsewhere many times (DHL, USPS), with only one problem when a toy car was sent as ordinary letter from ... Switzerland.

There is a reason why hessenwulf waived insurance. But I agree with him, insurance probably is a good thing anyway.


The thing with "delivered to the neighbor"... Yes, this is common practice. You get a sticker that a neighbor or local shop received an item for you. The sender can annotate "personal delivery only" to override the practice. Point is that post officers actually know the neighborhoods pretty well (even in the biggest cities!), they will typically recognize you on the street after a couple of months. A colleague of mine received a collector's item to "Oliver, 80469 Munich" and it arrived (80469 Munich is 200,000 people...)! If its not safe its not deliverd to the neighbor. This is not the cause of your problem.


3 times in a row, this makes me suspicious. Which carrier was it? Was it the same each time? Are you known locally for shipping valuables? There shoudn't be too many people which must have handled all three deliveries. Maybe a reason for an investigation?