Think before posting a cybook

[solodoc]

Just thought I'd advise people to think

Originally Posted by CJBarrow

Bookeen replied withing minutes to my request for repairs and asked me to send it back.
Now my item appears to be lost in the post because they never received it, luckily it was insured so will see how I get on claiming from the post office, no doubt they will expect me to jump through hoops to claim for a refund.

And my experience

Originally Posted by solodoc

I'm sorry you've lost it.

I learnt that when you send something in France, don't send it via post.

I sent mine and though our service was able to track it till it left...the french were abysmal on their side.

The website was in French, the phone number I was given to contact denied any knowledge of tracking overseas parcels, even though our postal service said the French would track it.I tried 5-6 international numbers.

Finally, according to people with experience, the French postman will attempt to deliver it, not leave a message if there is nobody there.(It is alleged some don't even get of their vehicles!)
It would be up to the addressee to contact the local post office.

After a couple of emails to Bookeen with the tracking number and asking them to contact the PO, they finally received it!

The whole process took 2 weeks for priority, insured, airmail over just 400 miles!

I would have posted this sooner if I thought other people might do it, I thought I made a mistake, but didn't think others would.

Given that Bookeen will only reimburse you to the tune of 16 Euros.....I can now see that others would post it!

[zelda_pinwheel]

hmm, well i would definitely advise anyone posting something as valuable as a cybook to use registered mail, but that doesn't mean that the french post will automatically lose any package they are given.

for an individual, if they are not at home when the postman tries to deliver the package, he will leave a slip of paper in the mailbox which you present with your id card in your local post office to retrieve your package.

for a company, mail is delivered during normal business hours so there is always someone there to receive the packages, and as long as the address is correct it should not pose a problem.

i have ordered things online which were shipped from the US several times, and the average shipping time is one week.

having said all this :

- once i sent a birthday present to a friend in the US, and it took over 2 months to get there (by airmail...). it did arrive in perfect condition however. who knows where on the route the delay occurred, since i did not send it registered or with a trackable system.

- a couple of years ago, the post office took a full month to deliver my income declaration to the tax office. i had posted it on time (the day before the deadline in fact), but of course it was received late, and by a *shocking* coincidence there was no postmark on it to prove my good faith, so i had to pay the fine. i should mention, the tax office is a 20 minute walk from my house, and most mail within paris is delivered the day after you post it, and sometimes the *same* day if you post it directly at the post office early in the morning. since then i post my taxes by registered mail.

in other words, the postal service in france (like most postal services in the world, i expect) is usually fairly reliable, but every once in a while they will do something staggeringly irresponsible.

which brings me back to my first point :
anything as valuable as a cybook should always be posted registered with a tracking number.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

for an individual, if they are not at home when the postman tries to deliver the package, he will leave a slip of paper in the mailbox which you present with your id card in your local post office to retrieve your package.

I've lived in France for a couple of years, and this is true (it's also true in Spain, at least). Once it happened that I was not at home and the postman left the parcel at the next door neighbour's. Yet another time it was the opposite, and I got a package for the neighbour.

in other words, the postal service in france (like most postal services in the world, i expect) is usually fairly reliable, but every once in a while they will do something staggeringly irresponsible.

That's my experience as well, except that once some friends told me they had send a gift for me by mail... and it never arrived But the fault could be in another country, as it came from abroad.

[HarryT]

I run my own business and mail a lot of parcels all over Europe. The only country I don't use the postal service for is Italy (we found that about 1 in 3 packages sent there went missing, which apparently is not at all unusual), but France is just fine - it's as reliable as anywhere else.

The key things are to:

1. Use a postage method which allows you to track the package.
2. Make sure that you have insurance equal to the full value of the Gen3, "just in case".

[solodoc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I run my own business and mail a lot of parcels all over Europe. The only country I don't use the postal service for is Italy (we found that about 1 in 3 packages sent there went missing, which apparently is not at all unusual), but France is just fine - it's as reliable as anywhere else.

The key things are to:

1. Use a postage method which allows you to track the package.
2. Make sure that you have insurance equal to the full value of the Gen3, "just in case".

Dude

I did use a tracking mechanism....it just didn't translate into anything usable....BTW what tracking mechanism do you use when you post things to France and how do you track it?

Oh.....yeah...I didn't say La Poste lost things either and my package got delivered after 2 weeks and I used the fastest method and the next most expensive method I considered was a courier, so I actually used a reasonably expensive method....but thanks for the advice