Missing SAPO Parcels and Letters

bigicy said:
Good luck with Dealextreme and the Post Office. Half of all my orders never make it to me. Luckily Dealextreme is willing to send me a replacement order (although that happens after 2/3 months after I place my initial order as Dealextreme normally wants to wait to see if the order finally gets delivered to you). The post office employees always steals my stuff.

When I ordered from Delaextreme and got it posted to Australia whilst I was there. My order arrived within a week and that was normal postage. I wish they could fix the rampant theft at the Post Office!
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Post Office theft is peanuts compared to the theft by SARS. In SA you're officially only allowed R400 in gifts per year, while abroad it's usually something like $2000 before your parcel attracts customs or tax charges. Never mind that you must register with SARS if you wanna buy more than 3 items per year from ebay or amazon. This last bit is truly uniquely South African and I don't believe that happens elsewhere outside of Cuba and North Korea.
 
B.O.F.H. said:
I've got a similar thing going on I think...

Had stuff sent to be my Royal AirMail (so no tracking number)... was supposed to take 5 - 7 days to get to me... its now 21 days later and nothing.. and of course I can hunt it down :(
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Royal Mail registered mail is trackable thru http://ems.sapo.co.za/EmsWebSite/IPSTracking.aspx
Ask your sender if there really wasn't a tracking number. I know USPS puts tracking numbers on even the cheapest of options. It's usually a CQ or a CP....US number. It works at the site above if the item arrived in SA.
 
Grimspoon said:
I have 2 packages that I ordered at the begging of the year off e-bay and haven't arrived. I just gave up hope of them ever showing up :(
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You should have filed an item not arrived dispute through PayPal. The cut off period is 45 days.
 
yesterday I went into the post office to get my 600D canon.I step in, give the girl at the counter the tracking number and my id.Now she puts it in there track trace system and it should be there. She open the book and goes thru it.She asked me if I am mnr Cor##### and I said yes.She goes and gets the package, but when she came back it was so small I wondered.So anyway she asked please sign here for the package.Before I sign I asked her to give me the book and that package.To my shock it wasn't even the same tracking number on the package, that I give her nor was it mine.It was a other MNR COR****.Was a takealot package to.If I went on I could have walked away with that poor oaks package. Anyway mine should be there today sigh
 
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Space_Chief said:
You should have filed an item not arrived dispute through PayPal. The cut off period is 45 days.
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45 days is too short, many parcels take longer than that.

I have just tried to report a missing parcel, but it was over 45 days. Guess that it must have been redistributed.
 
Jola said:
45 days is too short, many parcels take longer than that.

I have just tried to report a missing parcel, but it was over 45 days. Guess that it must have been redistributed.
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45 days to start the case. Some more time passes as Paypal considers your case and requests the seller to respond, they give a few more days for that. Airmail should arrive within 2-3 weeks. Surface mail - well that can take up to 3-4 months.
 
Space_Chief said:
Post Office theft is peanuts compared to the theft by SARS. In SA you're officially only allowed R400 in gifts per year, while abroad it's usually something like $2000 before your parcel attracts customs or tax charges. Never mind that you must register with SARS if you wanna buy more than 3 items per year from ebay or amazon. This last bit is truly uniquely South African and I don't believe that happens elsewhere outside of Cuba and North Korea.
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While this is the law it is not enforced.. I've ordered many more items than 3 per anunnum and have had no problems! I've also very rarely been charged duties in my items, some of very high value!
 
Space_Chief said:
45 days to start the case. Some more time passes as Paypal considers your case and requests the seller to respond, they give a few more days for that. Airmail should arrive within 2-3 weeks. Surface mail - well that can take up to 3-4 months.
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Well, I missed the 45 day deadline, now about 60 days, and the SAPO says that the parcel has not arrived in SA yet - it does have a tracking number !

So now we have a bit of a stalemate !
 
In the past 3 months, have had 9 undelivered items sent from Shenzhen in China, all through Alli-Express. So far, 7 have been refunded. Then, a parcel date stamped on 30th May turned up on 6th September. Contacted Alli-Express to tell them, so probably will have to pay again.

Refunds during the last 3 weeks score since the US$/Rand exchange rate is beneficial to the US$, about 12% up
 
I have ordered various items from China in the past two months - 5 have arrived, taking between 21 and 36 days - 4 are still outstanding, the oldest for 60 days now....

Maybe somebody should get SARS involved as well, as the items that are "stolen" must have a negative Tax implication for SA
 
Space_Chief said:
Post Office theft is peanuts compared to the theft by SARS. In SA you're officially only allowed R400 in gifts per year, while abroad it's usually something like $2000 before your parcel attracts customs or tax charges. Never mind that you must register with SARS if you wanna buy more than 3 items per year from ebay or amazon. This last bit is truly uniquely South African and I don't believe that happens elsewhere outside of Cuba and North Korea.
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You'd have to be more specific about exactly which country allows $2000. Last time I checked it was something like £40 in the UK in regard to VAT and a hundred and something Pounds for duties (but VAT's the real killer usually anyway). I'd expect European countries to be similar.

I don't know a single individual that has ever registered to be able to import regularly for personal use. The rule may be there, but they've never bothered much with enforcing it. And of course you can easily just register if you're concerned.
 
noxibox said:
I don't know a single individual that has ever registered to be able to import regularly for personal use. The rule may be there, but they've never bothered much with enforcing it. And of course you can easily just register if you're concerned.
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3 years back Fedex delayed releasing my item until I was able to provide them with an importers code. Twice in the past DHL has phoned me for my importers code. Although these items were free samples of IC's from semi-conductor companies and I did use work name as company.

SAPO has not made a request though, my only two customs payments had the invoice attached on the outside and it was processed on that amount. All ebay items did not come with invoice (marked as gift) and did not attract this charge. When I asked the PO why not ($70) they said I was lucky that time.
 
I received two items on Friday that I ordered in June.
I had completely given up on them
 
Vis1/0N said:
3 years back Fedex delayed releasing my item until I was able to provide them with an importers code. Twice in the past DHL has phoned me for my importers code. Although these items were free samples of IC's from semi-conductor companies and I did use work name as company.

SAPO has not made a request though, my only two customs payments had the invoice attached on the outside and it was processed on that amount. All ebay items did not come with invoice (marked as gift) and did not attract this charge. When I asked the PO why not () they said I was lucky that time.
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If they think it's for a company they might ask. You just say it's not for a company and that should be the end of it.

Marking items as gifts doesn't remove the requirement to include an invoice showing the value. In the absence of one customs may contact you to request it. They don't check every item coming into the country though, and small parcels particularly will often simply slip by.
 
I also received one parcel two weeks back and the second one arrived at my post office this morning. They were posted one day apart - end of June!!!

The link to sapo ems is fantastic. As soon as your parcel arrives in SA, it starts tracking it!
 
The Chinese suppliers blame the SAPO, the SAPO blames the Chinese Post Office

From staying in Hong Kong and experiencing how they work, I cannot imagine that the HK Aipost is inefficient. I think the parcels from HK sit on the floor in Jhb for a few weeks before they are scanned in and this gives them the excuse to blame the Chinese. In 2008, a sample from Hong Kong could be tracked at 15h00 on a Monday, be shipped at 19h00 that same day, arrive in Jhb at 01h00 the next day, scanned in at 16h00 the same day and be in Cape Town Mail 3 days later, on a Friday. Then it might be sent from Cape Mail to Plumstead on Sunday and I would go into the Post Office at 08h30 on Monday and fetch it. Now from 1 week, it can be 10 or even longer. HK Airpost handle 12 million items a day and is 95% automated.
 
chrisc4290 said:
From staying in Hong Kong and experiencing how they work, I cannot imagine that the HK Aipost is inefficient. I think the parcels from HK sit on the floor in Jhb for a few weeks before they are scanned in and this gives them the excuse to blame the Chinese.
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I am fairly certain that this is what happens !
 
YIP, if it's not Apartheid, it's the Chinese...
 
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