while im here postal has been better than courier for me every single time. couriers are more thorough
#shipping-customs 2025-04-05
Saturday37 messages8 participantstimes are UTC
Highlights from this day
- apob_over_ldl — in the overwhelming majority of what gets reported in here, that is the end of it. you lost the parcel and that is the cost 15:03
- tenpence — and we are not going to speculate beyond what people have actually reported. nobody here is a lawyer and nobody here should pretend to be 15:29
- sharps_bin_sid — ask the vendor. some reship once, some split the loss, some do nothing, and all three are defensible depending on what you agreed 15:55
- tarpit_tam — reship policy correlates with how much of a repeat customer you are, more than with the vendor's generosity in the abstract 16:40
- tarpit_tam — a single-item consignment looks like a purchase. six items looks like an inventory. that is genuinely how it reads on a manifest 17:02
thats the end of it
✅15📈4🧊1
paying for a faster service does not speed up customs. it speeds up the legs either side of customs
signature requirements slow things down and do not obviously reduce loss
no wording advice here
thats a stock split
tracking has been dark for 9 days, at what point do i worry
got a letter. parcel detained, contents liable to forfeiture, no further action required from me
i have been quietly terrified for four days
read the last part of that sentence again. no further action required from you
in the overwhelming majority of what gets reported in here, that is the end of it. you lost the parcel and that is the cost
does anything else usually happen
in three years of this archive, the answer for a personal-quantity parcel has been: a letter, and nothing after it
and we are not going to speculate beyond what people have actually reported. nobody here is a lawyer and nobody here should pretend to be
so what do i do about the money
ask the vendor. some reship once, some split the loss, some do nothing, and all three are defensible depending on what you agreed
sangonbio.com. i asked and they replied in two days
they said they will reship at 50 percent of the original cost, once, on a different lane
that is a normal and fair policy. a full free reship on a border loss is a gift, not a right
JEEP reshipped mine free last year, no argument, but i had ordered from them four times before
reship policy correlates with how much of a repeat customer you are, more than with the vendor's generosity in the abstract
does asking make it worse
no. ask once, politely, with the letter reference and the tracking number, and accept the answer
arguing with a sales desk about a customs decision they had no part in gets you nowhere and costs you the relationship
what should i change next time
what actually reduces border losses, from the reports in here:
- smaller consignments, more often (a big box is a bigger target)
- courier rather than postal on lanes with heavy postal screening
- accurate declaration and matching names
- a plain outer box with no branding
- not ordering four different compounds in one parcel
what does not help:
- clever wording
- a lower declared value (this makes a claim harder and helps nothing)the four compounds one is exactly what i did
a single-item consignment looks like a purchase. six items looks like an inventory. that is genuinely how it reads on a manifest
💡14✅6
TFC split my last order into two parcels unprompted for that reason and told me they were doing it
which is a good vendor behaviour and worth naming
how long until you know a parcel is lost rather than slow
if there has been no scan for fourteen days and the last scan was at a port of entry, start assuming. before that, wait
mine went dark for nine days before the letter
which is the normal sequence. the letter comes after the silence, not during it
accepting the 50 percent reship. thanks for talking me down
the terror is the worst part and it is almost always disproportionate to what happens
and if you are reading this months later with the same letter in your hand — that is why we keep these logs