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Oversize shipping

Hello All Not sure if this is the best place to ask this question but here goes. I am located in Australia and recently I purchased some Atlas 40" O Scale 2-rail track from a US based company on ebay. I also purchased a number of rolling stock items. The seller then sent the items to me via USPS's Global express mail service. The package never arrived and after I emailed the seller he tried to send another package the same as the first however this time the post ofice would not accept the package as it was oversize so he split the package up into two and resent the packages. The package with the rolling stock items arrived but not the track even though it was under the length limit set by USPS. After repeated emails to the seller asking for the tracking numbers he eventually refunded the money I paid for the track. There are a couple of things that don't add up in this deal.

1) Why did the post office accept the first parcel but not the second. 2) If the two missing parcels were stopped somewhere why were they not returned to the sender? 3) If the sender sent them USPS global express then why couldn't the packages be tracked?

After the first package went missing and the second one was rejected then I started to doubt the sellers honesty, however there are three things that point to the seller being honest and these are

1) His ebay feedback was over 2000 and 99% positive 2) One parcel did actually arrive 3) He refunded the money spent on the track. If he was dishonest he would not have done the above.

I have contacted both UPS, USPS and Australia Post and they all say that any oversized packages would be rejected at the Post Office the package was sent from but I believe that in the US the postal service picks up from some vendors is this correct?

Has anyone else had similar problems to this and found a solution?

Regards

Phil

Reply to
PC
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On 14 Dec 2005 02:16:33 -0800, "PC" purred

The USPS can be a quirky bunch. One time a location will accept something and another time refuse it. Regulations are enforced capriciously. When shipping oversized sometimes an item will be accepted at the location but stopped somewhere along the line and this can take months before it is returned as rejected. sometimes it vanishes altogether (though with FAR less frequency than DHL and the private US based carriers) I often have to ship oddly sized and shaped items that absolutely MUST get to a specific location at a specific time. The only service I have found that is 100% reliable is Yamamoto Freight. I Have never had the slightest problem with them. I know they ship from the US to NZ as I have shipped a ton of stuff there for a recent picture (opening soon worldwide and it is GREAT!) and all arrived in perfect shape and very fast. I am sure if they ship there they ship to Australia. That may be the solution. they are the only international shipper I trust. (besides with their logo, you've got to love 'em)

cat

Reply to
cat

Having had a similar problem recently, I was told that there had been a change in the package size that Australia Post would accept. This change may not have filtered down to all the US Post Offices and it is possible that the local US Post Office accepted the parcel for it to be "bounced" at a later stage, and it is slowly filtering its way back up the line aagin.

See above

They could be. What sort of timeframe are we talking here. I have had parcels posted at the same time and arrive 3 weeks apart (one in 7 weeks, the other 10 weeks)

I think that the tracking only applies to insured parcels.

Fotunately, all parcels sent USPS have arrived safely.

Also, for those not aware, there is a very big difference between UPS and USPS.

As far as we in Oz are concerned, think of USPS as Australia Post. USPS offer air mail (good for small things, about a week from the US) and surface mail (bigger things, anywhere between 7 and 10 weeks). UPS is the same as FedEx. Basically a gobal airfreight company. The major difference between USPS and UPS/FedEx is that the parcels sent through the postal system do not get hit with customs charges, whereas UPS/FedEx put ALL their shipments through customs (at Sydney airport) and hit you with a $50 handling fee plus 10% GST (on the CIF value).

Reply to
Robert Small

Hello Bob That is not entirely true. There is a certain value for each carrier that needs to be exceeded before customs duties are payable. For USPS it is $1000.00US and for private carriers such as UPS it drops to $250.00US. Global Express Mail is actually shipped using UPS. I found out this the hard way. I purchased over $250.00 worth thinking the threshold with USPS would be $1000.00 only to be hit with customs duties and UPS charges when it arrived via UPS. Keep the value under $250.00 and no problem.

The timeframe we are talking about is around six months.

Tracking applies to all Global Express Gauranteed and Global Express Mail services but is not applicable to surface or normal air freight

One more thing in my initial post I forgot to point out that the first single shipment was accepted. The second single shipment was rejected but the third double shipment was accepted. So if they rejected the second shipment then they should have rejected half of the third shipment.

This to me is a mystery that can only be explained by the USPS.

Regards

Phil

Reply to
PC

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