Esterval's Order Near Miss!

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greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
I placed an order online at Esterval's exactly 28 days ago. Naturally I've been following the progress of the package with the tracking number. The only update I got was that it appeared at the Frankfurt Airport, 10 days after being sent out. Then suddenly yesterday (May 25th) it appears at the USPS metropolitan sorting and distribution center. I use a web content alarm to keep me apprised of tracking number updates. When items arrive at the distribution hub they usually show up here the next day, so I kept an eye out.

At 4:30pm I get a web alert ping, and an updated tracking number notification: "Return to Sender .... could not be delivered as addressed" with a time stamp 10:30am. I threw on my shoes and ran the 5 blocks to the neighborhood post office, on the off chance that the package hadn't departed on its way back to Germany (back to Germany... after almost a month of travel just to get here).

Well as luck would have it the outgoing mail hadn't left yet. The box was indeed on its way back to Germany--had I noticed 15 minutes later it almost certainly would have departed. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the address, and no conceivable reason why it was labeled "undeliverable."

thumbnail_IMG_20200526_163251_2.jpgthumbnail_IMG_20200526_165738_2.jpg
 

Casual

Lifer
Oct 3, 2019
2,577
9,420
NL, CA
I feel for you, having to use an unreliable service.

I am so happy that Canada Post is as reliable as it is. Because I have exactly zero ability to exert any sort of pressure if it becomes unreliable.
 
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greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
I feel for you, having to use an unreliable service.

I am so happy that Canada Post is as reliable as it is. Because I have exactly zero ability to exert any sort of pressure if it becomes unreliable.
It was reliable enough during its international journey, in the hands of DHL. My trouble came during the last (literally) stretch of its journey, at the hands of the USPS.
 

saltedplug

Lifer
Aug 20, 2013
5,194
5,097
Once I tracked down my mail carrier by calling the post office and getting an estimate of where he would be on his route. I found him and the pipes he had for me. i don't recall why I didn't wait for delivery. He was good-natured about it.
 
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BROBS

Lifer
Nov 13, 2019
11,765
40,026
IA
Sounds to me like they didn’t even try to deliver it. Most likely the carrier being lazy. Is it an apartment? I’ve noticed UPS and USPS avoiding apartments recently.

also you have to sign for it since it’s international .. were you home at every time of delivery? They should have left a note though, obviously.
 

greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
I was home, sitting in front of the mail slot on the front porch all day waiting for this package.

Looks to me lately that the mail is split up by type. The fellow who delivered the letters looked like he was high or suffering from a terrible hangover. Then later a second USPS carrier came to drop off packages, and left my Mars order (Whiskey Twist, Highland Targe).

With the tobacco safely at home I can focus my attention on two packages of pipes, from Russia and Denmark, that have been "on their way here" for 42 and 53 days, respectively.

I think the postal services are improving after the initial pandemic scare, since I've received items from abroad relatively quickly recently, but I think that there may be a backlog of items, including those I mention above which were despatched close to the peak of the scare.
 
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BROBS

Lifer
Nov 13, 2019
11,765
40,026
IA
I think I would have asked to see the manager and demand to know why this package was being returned to sender. At least you might understand what was wrong stop the problem doesn't crop up again in the future.
I agree. Something here isn’t right. I also wasn’t trying to say you did anything wrong just racking my brain trying to figure out why it wouldn’t have been delivered. I’d be quite perturbed if I were you.
 
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greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
I think I would have asked to see the manager and demand to know why this package was being returned to sender. At least you might understand what was wrong stop the problem doesn't crop up again in the future.
I think that with any other place of business I would have done that, but I think that the United States Post Office is somewhat different. I think that they are considerably decentralized in their approach to operations and accountability, and intentionally so. There are many "weak links" at various steps along the journey of a package, and no one employee or manager seems to have much influence or authority over these various cogs (or knowledge, even), yet they're all adept at fielding complaints of various types and promptly ignoring them or otherwise shrugging them off.

I have a friend who lost box containing a large amount of very expensive tobacco. The "dead zone" was likely an Atlanta distribution center. I've tried calling, I've tried initiating all sorts of investigations, and I believe at this point that there is nothing that can be done about it. There are various telephone numbers (none of them published anywhere, officially) for agents and investigators, and there is a "dead end" warehouse where packages without a destination end up. All of this I found out by speaking to various post office employees, and being handed off from one "agent" to another. It's all very arcane and there's no transparency at all.

In my case, for example, if it had been FedEx or UPS, I'm sure that anyone along the service line could simply have called "the exchange" and requested that the package be returned or held at any point along its route. From what I can tell the USPS doesn't work that way. The USPS seems to operate on the principle of "passing the package along" rather than maintaining a realtime report of the package's progress. Scanning the tracking number at any one of those points doesn't seem to be a means of quality control either. It's more of a "freebie" that happens, or it doesn't, which in any case has little bearing on the package's movement.

This is why I ran to the post office in the first place. I knew that if I attempted anything over the telephone (who even has the actual phone number of their local post office anyway?) or the internet, the package would probably be halfway across the Atlantic before anyone lifted a pencil or telephone to do anything about it.
 
Jan 28, 2018
12,952
134,578
66
Sarasota, FL
That's one way to look at it. My view is if everyone just accepts their mediocre or poor performance without challenging it, how are they to even know they have a problem? What would happen if more people demanded an explanation? What would happen if everyone who deserved it filled a claim against their insurance? And when they denied the claim, sisterly dragged their sorry asses into small claims court? The downfall of this country, in large part, has been the apathy towards mediocrity.
 
May 2, 2020
4,664
23,771
Louisiana
I’ve had similar things happen with both USPS and UPS. I’ll be home, expecting a package, and get a failed delivery notification for some extenuating circumstance that never happened. The most common one with UPS is “no one home to sign for package,“ or some such, even though there was nary a knock on the door. I chalk it up to a lazy/late delivery man who doesn’t feel like walking from my driveway to my door. Our USPS mail lady is either blind or illiterate. I get mail for addresses that don’t even resemble mine. I can’t tell you how many packages I have had to go and deliver to the appropriate house, especially around Christmas time. So far none of this has happened with an international delivery. I would be madder than a wet hen if I had a package get redirected all the way back to Europe.
 

peregrinus

Lifer
Aug 4, 2019
1,205
3,787
Pacific Northwest
"Return to Sender .... could not be delivered as addressed"
Similar experience today.
I placed an order with Estervals nearly a month ago and as of Friday it was supposedly still in Germany. This morning, Tuesday, I get a call from my local Post Office letting me know they have a package for me from Germany. Further, it is undeliverable as addressed and was slated to be returned to sender in 48 hours if I didn’t make arrangements.
Naturally I drove the 1 mile to the Post Office and picked it up myself not trusting that the right thing would happen.
Once iI got the package I checked the address and... it was perfect, absolutely perfectly addressed by Estervals.
I can only surmise that local P.O.didn’t feel inclined to deliver it for some reason.
Anyway, all ended well but I would have been very disappointed if it had been returned.
 

renfield

Lifer
Oct 16, 2011
4,231
31,380
Kansas
When I lived in Atlanta I and fellow dwellers in the same apartment complex had video and still images of the postal carrier separating out the magazines he liked and stealing them on many occasions. We took our evidence to the USPS. Instead of being fired the carrier was merely assigned to a different route. They’re a government agency, the USPS doesn’t have to perform or be responsive. It doesn’t matter what people do or don’t do, unfortunately.
 
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