So I must have bought a YoYo....... USPS

[Kunama]

Tunnel............................. ....End of tunnel............................. ................................... ................................... ................................... ..(darkness, only darkness....)

One has to wonder about the modern mail system...Here is USPS's latest effort:

I bought an item from Starlight Instruments at the start of the month ...
It was eventually posted mid-month, since then it has had a tour of the Continental USA for a week.

It must have gotten bored as it then decided to spend two days in Hawaii before returning to Kentucky to collect some personal item.....

Then it was back to Hawaii for another two days before arriving in rainy Sydney.
Having spent two days in Sydney it was deported back to Kentucky once again via Hawaii.... It's currently resting in Louisville.......

I wonder if it will eventually make its way back to the sender....

SO MUCH FOR PAYING FOR EXPEDITED SHIPPING :mad2:

[casstony]

That would be especially annoying when it's from Starlight Instruments...……..not like it's a pair of socks getting lost in the mail.
(On a side note, I noticed that their prices jumped between 16-21% recently).

We have had a few items visit Austria on the way to Australia.

[Kunama]

I noticed the big price hike as well.....:shrug:
DHL... not much better, 21 days from APM in Germany to Sydney for my latest gadgets... Perhaps the CEOs of USPS, DHL and AusPost should go and spend a week with EMS to learn how to run a delivery business....

[Atmos]

I wonder if your parcel has collected a stamp from every location, could be worth putting up on a mantel ;)

[Kunama]

My worry is that it will arrive sunburnt from all the time it is spending visiting Hawaii.......:help:

[Wavytone]

Hi Matt, my tripod (Berlebach) went round the world twice and took 8 months to arrive, I had long given it up as lost for good as all attempts to track it failed.

Someone in DHL swapped the apartment and street number and the idiot courier here tried to deliver to what is a park (!) and it didn’t occur to him the numbers might be swapped. So it went back to Australia Post where the morons there decided to ship it back to Germany - without so much as a courtesy phone call, SMS or email - all my details were on the package.

Second trip, DHL lost it somewhere in transit and it showed up somewhere in Holland... the the USA, and finally here.. all by seafreight it seemed.

I was ultimately rather surprised when it did actually show up.

[LewisM]

...and yet my regular low cost parcel from Michigan to me arrived ten minutes ago - it was posted on Friday last week.

Makes NIL sense.

[Paul Haese]

Oh I know this scenario. Yes, they employ idiots (for lack of getting quality staff) to do these jobs because everyone wants to be a app developer now or so other sit on your butt job. I must say that my scope did not get as many frequent flyer miles as yours Matt, but it did go from Singapore back to Belgium because I am sure someone thought it really needed to go to Austria and not Australia. And, like you I paid for expedited all the way and then they stick it on a truck to get from Melbourne to Adelaide. I wonder if I will see it this week?????

[LewisM]

I sure hope it doesn't arrive like the last shattered OO mirror I saw... :(

[Paul Haese]

Yeah me either.

[Kunama]

Yet EMS managed to bring my erecting mirror system from Japan to Canberra in three days from me pressing enter on the paypal screen....

[FlashDrive]

I'm having problems with Aust' Post ... AGAIN

I ordered an item from OPT on the 5th June .... OPT posted it the next day .( see tracking info )

Tracking says it arrived and scanned in Australia on the 10th June this month

17 days have passed since then.

I contacted Aust' Post regarding this matter ... their answer .... never arrived... mustn't have been put on the Aircraft ... take it up with the company you ordered the item from.

She ( the Aussie Mail person on the end of the phone ) told me :eyepop: that the latest tracking info ( see pic ) was a ' guess ' at when it would arrive in Aussie Land , so don't rely on it. :shrug:
I just hung up .... couldn't believe any of it :mad2:

Anyway ... contacted OPT...they said ... have to wait 30 days before they can investigate for a claim or try and track it down and find out where my parcel is.

Looks like one cannot ' trust ' tracking anymore ... or was she ' fobbing ' me off and telling LIES

Col.

[AndyG]

AustPost tracking often tells me my product arrives... 3 days after it did. No comment.

I was once engaged in a disagreement with a customer of the shop I managed some years ago. He was (somewhat rightfully) upset that something he ordered did not appear 1 day after we took a deposit. We used Toll pallets from Brisbane to Townsville, and usually things were evernight... usually.

Anyway, he arc'd up and claimed that as a branch manager of Australia Post, he could guarantee that such a parcel would arrive next day, every time... .. After I picked myself up off the floor, convulsed in laughter, I replied. "No you couldn't".

He had no comeback, and he knew it.

[Ausrock]

Approx., five years ago we (work) ordered a few items from a company in Sydney, not unfairly we expected to see them in Newcastle (160klm north) within a few days........... six weeks later they turned up after having a trip to Perth on their way to N'cle and this was not Aust., Post.

I've brought a fair bit of gear in from the US using both the postal system (USPS and A/Post) and DHL and have never had a problem.

[csb]

So possibly Expedited Delivery may work similar to putting a FRAGILE sticker on a parcel :2thumbs:

Amazing journey Matt.

[GrahamL]

Weathers looking nice in hawaii end of week hopefully it wont chill there for a couple days on the way back.

[darrellx]

I feel your pain FlashDrive. It took Aus Post 14 days to get me an item from Chullora to the Gold Coast. It took less than 36 hours to get from the supplier in China to Chullora.

But I have also ordered recently from OPT in CA. The item was picked up on Sat morning our time, and arrive at my door on Wednesday. So on that point I cannot complain.

Now here is another test for Aus post. Today, for the first time I am trying to send an item overseas. I am actually returning an item to OPT. I delivered it to the local Post Office this morning at 9:30 am. I was told it will be delivered in 5 days. Lets see if OPT get the parcel by Tuesday morning.

Darrell

[dpastern]

Never had an issue with DHL - my US proxy postal address (Comgateway) uses them - gets here within 4 working days, 100% delivery success rate (over 50+ deliveries over the past 6 or so years). Tracking is accurate, customer service has been very good from DHL Australia. I'd say I've probably had more deliveries from DHL than anyone in this thread...



Col - I know exactly what has happened. The item was taken delivery by Australian Customs. 100% guaranteed. They can hold the item for as long as they want, with no responsibility for timeliness. Once Australia Post hands the item off to customs, it is basically invisible to Australia Post. Worse, Australian customs are taking longer and longer to process items on average, unless you go through a courier broker like FedEx or DHL etc, who can pull strings and expedite matters. If it's a private import via USPS/Australia Post, you're screwed.

I had a book that i ordered from Amazon US back in October last year do exactly what you've described. I filed a claim with Amazon, they shipped me a 2nd book, at no cost, via expedited delivery (not standard delivery), which I got 5 days later. Guess what turned up 3 months after the first book arrived...yup...the original book.

There is an extreme lack of accountability with customs - you can't contact them, you can't follow up with them on goods. It is absolutely outrageous.

What can we expect with these new GST laws on all foreign purchased goods? 100% of items arriving from overseas will go to customs. Wait times will approach 12-18 months for processing, and customs will "lose" a lot of stuff, legally unrecoverable by the recipient, as customs is above the law in Australia. There's the real issue - no government department should EVER be above the law. In fact, scrutiny should be EVEN stronger on them, since the ability to engage in corrupt behaviour is even stronger imho. Many of these "missing" goods will be resold behind closed doors by the Australian government for extra income. Mark my words.

[FlashDrive]

I can believe that .... was a mess we have at the Border.

Col....

[Oddity]

My order from Agena (who are based in LA) has spent the past week holidaying in LA, repeatedly going into and out of what appears to be the same regional processing facility there. Must be visiting Hollywood, or maybe up to Mt Wilson to do some viewing of its own. :eyepop:

[FlashDrive]

:lol:

[dpastern]

lol! Mt Palomar here it comes!

[GrahamL]

I found the opposite when i knew customs had my item and had waited a week blindly believing they would send some info , I was able to contact aus post with the tracking no this took a bit to get the right area but they knew my item was being held by customs and were able to give me the customs referance no straight up , handed to a broker my item was on its way in 24 hours, had i waited for customs to advise it would of been 3/4 weeks , and you wonder if due to the long delay somone didn't decide the item wasnt required and they send it back from whence it came.

[dpastern]

OK, when I say invisible, I mean Australia Post has no idea what is happening when said item has been taken by customs. Australia Post was also able to provide me with a customs tracking number. It's of zero use to you though, since there is no way that I could find for an individual to ring customs, quote said reference number, and find out what the hell was going on. One word:

TRANSPARENCY

Australian customs has NONE. They are a law unto themselves. I despise government bodies that are a law unto themselves. It's a pity Australians are too stupid to allow this to continue to happen.

[Kunama]

Tunnel..................End of Tunnel...Light:thumbsup:

My parcel must have run out of spending money overseas, so after its third stop in Hawaii, it has decided to come to wintry Australia again...

Arriving yesterday afternoon at Sydney Kingsford Smith it then diverted to Australian Customs and I received a message from Customs that the item was "being held in Australian Customs"......

I woke this morning to another message stating the item had cleared Customs and was heading to its final destination...:shrug: I hope that is here in Canberra.

The parcel's itinerary on Endicia reads over two and half pages!!! I wish I could afford an overseas trip like that....

[glend]

At least it cleared Customs before 1 July.

[julianh72]

I thought it was well known that ALL consumer-grade astronomical equipment has to spend some time at a major observatory before it is shipped, so it can be filled with stars.

The bigger the aperture and / or the more sensitive the sensor, the longer it takes to fill up. If you need the item in a rush, you should be able to specify that it is intended for use within the southern hemisphere only - that way, they can omit the northern hemisphere stars from the download, and ship it in about half the time.

:rofl:

[Atmos]

:rofl:

[dpastern]

lol!!!! :rofl:

[FlashDrive]

Today I received my item from OPT .... arrived in Australia on the 10th June and IT TOOK AUST' POST 4 WEEKS TO DELIVER THE PARCEL TO ME.

5 Days from the US to AU ..... 29 Days for AP to get to my mail box :shrug:

There was no GST applied ( got here before the deadline ).....no wonder people are fed up with our postal system.

Col...

[Kunama]

My parcel arrived..... Tanned and exhausted.... Aloha....

[FlashDrive]

:lol2:

[Londoner]

Australia Post must have the worst parcel delivery service record in the world.
I also have had items sitting in Chullora NSW for over a week before heading to Qld.
I had an Express delivery package that took over a week to get from WA to Qld.

Mick

[raymo]

It wouldn't surprise me if they deliberately take for ever to deliver
standard parcels, in order to get you to use their express service,
[which in my experience is pretty good]. My latest parcel took three
days to get from Adelaide to Perth[o.k.], and five days to get from Perth to me [a 2hr 45m drive].
raymo

[Ric]

I've been waiting over a month for three water filters to come from Adelaide to Queanbeyan.

The dealer rang me the other day to confirm my address as it was returned to saying address unknown. I've had the same PO box for 25 years and been buying filters from him for the last ten years.

He has now resent it, currently still at Adelaide PO since Monday.

The dealer reckons this is the tenth shipment so far this year that has either been returned or lost.

[Kunama]

I now use Express Post satchels where possible, least likely to get lost and less handling...

[ab1963]

I have been extremely lucky both sending and receiving parcels through Australia post and have sent quite a few,Today was the first time i have ever sent one express post ,The only close call i have had was a Vixen zoom to NZ tracking said it had been delivered and hadn't so i chased it up for the buyer and it landed a week or so late after already being scanning delivered , Figure that one out.....

[OICURMT]

Ordered two text books for my son.

1) Local AU book dealer - SYD -> ADL - 36 days
2) US - Amazon.com -> ADL - 13 days


I know both went through AusPost, but honestly... can both be delivered within say... even a week of each other?