Time taken by post going to Italy

[Pickles]

<Rant mode on>We needed to send a small item to an address in a major city in Italy. The item in question was the size and weight of a single DVD case, in a Jiffy bubble-pack postal envelope. We wanted to track its arrival so we paid 8€60 for prioritaire "Lettre Recommandée" (ie the item has to be signed for at the other end but we don't get an avis de reception back through the post: previous experience indicates that LRAR doesn't work across international boundaries). We dropped it in at the post office in Montpellier on Friday 5th, sat back and waited for the updates from the on-line tracking system. On the 5th it managed to make the arduous journey to the local sorting office according to the update. Then nothing until Tuesday 9th, when we received the update "Départ de France  ROISSY COURRIER INTERNATIONAL PIC (93)". Doesn't the French postal service work weekends?

Next update: Friday 12th: "Arrivée pays de destination ITALIE (IT)"

What the heck happened between the 9th and the 12th? Did the carrier pigeon get lost?

Next update: Tuesday 16th: "Distribué

ITALIE (IT)" - however this update only appeared on the system on Thursday 18th, which is when the item actually arrived at its destination.

A day short of TWO WEEKS in total, to go from Southern France to Northern Italy. If I'd have known it was going to take THAT long, I would have waited until we'd come back to the UK and sent it from here.<rant mode off>

[suein56]

It is just as bad the other way too. Our son sent us a postcard whilst he was on holiday in Italy. 3 weeks later he asked why we hadn't commented on said card; I said because we hadn't received it yet.

Eventually, it took so long I forget the time delay, we rec'd a plastic package with a mangled postcard in it and a pro-forma letter in Italian. Apparently, according to the letter, due to an immense amount of rain the card had become damaged; the Italian post office apologised for the state of the card and hoped we were happy to receive what remained. We could make out it was a town scene, our son's signature and our address but little else.

I concluded from this maybe the Italian postal services are not-so-brilliant.

Sue

[HoneySuckleDreams]

Apparently, a lot of Ebay sellers will not post to Italy. I read somewhere that 40% of small packages go "missing".

[Pickles]

[quote user="HoneySuckleDreams"]Apparently, a lot of Ebay sellers will not post to Italy. I read somewhere that 40% of small packages go "missing".[/quote]

NOW you tell me!

I wish I'd known that BEFORE we had the stupid idea of sending stuff over there!

[Quillan]

Always ask in the Ebay Community about these things. I am afraid HoneySuckleDreams was a bit under, it seems around 50% don't get through.

http://community.ebay.co.uk/search.jspa?q=posting+to+Italy&objID=c3&cID=3

Warning there are 26 pages on problems about posting to Italy, could be a good bedtime read. [:(]

[Pickles]

[quote user="Quillan"]Always ask in the Ebay Community about these things. I am afraid HoneySuckleDreams was a bit under, it seems around 50% don't get through.

http://community.ebay.co.uk/search.jspa?q=posting+to+Italy&objID=c3&cID=3

Warning there are 26 pages on problems about posting to Italy, could be a good bedtime read. [:(][/quote]

So, what you and HSD are saying in effect is that I ought to feel lucky that the package arrived AT ALL! EEEEKKK!

[Quillan]

Well I have no experience of sending stuff to Italy but I heard Spain was the same. I checked on the Ebay Community and some people have problems with Spain but I have not so far, fingers crossed. America has problems sending stuff to France apparently yet the UK does not. Stuff from the UK sent to us takes around three days and we are well down in the south.

[Pickles]

[quote user="Quillan"]Well I have no experience of sending stuff to Italy but I heard Spain was the same. I checked on the Ebay Community and some people have problems with Spain but I have not so far, fingers crossed. America has problems sending stuff to France apparently yet the UK does not. Stuff from the UK sent to us takes around three days and we are well down in the south.[/quote]

We have sent stuff over to France via Parcel2ship (basically through Royal Mail Parcelforce) and they have always arrived in 3 days. Similarly stuff that we have had sent from Germany has been delivered to France quickly.

[HoneySuckleDreams]

I think the EBAY numbers are slightly misleading. I wouldn't put all the "missing" parcels down to the postal service. I would think a large proportion are buyers who say that they never receive the item, even though they have. It means they get to keep the item, and get their money back, and the seller recoups the costs against insurance (assuming they have insurance). Some motor factor people I have dealt with won't deal with spain or italy because of the dishonesty of the recipients.

I too have been tracking stuff being delivered to me, and the weekends are mostly ignored. Things arrive at a depot on friday evening and then don't move again until monday morning.

We had some radiators being delivered, from Northern France to us in the south. Tracked all the way, which was great. It arrived in Tarbes early Friday morning. We got a call Friday afternoon to ask if Monday afternoon was ok for the final stretch. When I queried why it hadn't made it to us for the afternoon (I had specifically flown home that weekend to fit the blighters), the lady said that the delivery guy had finished for the week, he had done his 35hours by 11am friday morning so had buggereddd off for the weekend. We borrowed a trailor and went to pick them up ourselves friday evening.

[Quillan]

Yes there are some nasty people about and we have been caught twice in about 15 years, one was Swiss and the other French. The way to limit this is to send them 'recorded delivery', EBay are quite good at checking these things as they have had an agreement with La Poste for some years now. Basically you can weigh your parcel, enter the details in to EBay and it will take the money from your PayPal account and you print of the recorded delivery letter or package document which saves you time doing it by hand either at home or at the post office.