Following the Dream

Christian March 10th, 2008

The Begining

We were in Buenos Aires when we finally decided that we want our first package on the road.  This package would consist of a couple of camera cards, a full size laptop  (to edit photos), a dress for Casey, a pair of her jeans and a few other odds and ends.  US Postal Service gave us the cheapest rate, however we decided to go with DHL for 6 times the price because they promised to get it to Mendoza the quickest and seemed to be the most reliable while also having a strong presence down here.  On the website it says that they have customs brokers in over 140 counties and can expedite the customs processing to a matter of minutes or hours.  I called the internacional shipping call center to make sure everything would be fine.  The rep assured me that what I was shipping would not be a problem at all since they are used items.  The package was sent late on Wednesday the 27th of February from outside of Philadelphia.  By the next day, it was already in Miami.  On Friday the 29th it was in Buenos Aires.  What Speed!  Then on Monday the 3rd the package showed customs delay.  We figured this was due to the weekend that just had ended.  Then we checked again on Tuesday for the status of the package online.  Then we got the news.

Something is wrong

We got a call from my parents saying that DHL had called and my package was stuck in the customs office in Buenos Aires and that I had to call them.  After calling DHL USA, DHL Argentina each at least three times, being transferred tons of times, and going to the local DHL office in Mendoza where my package was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, I was told a few things.

-My package was stuck in Buenos Aires and I needed to hire and pay an outside broker          to release my shipment.

-I had to go down to Buenos Aires with my passport and bail it out.

-I had to fill out an electronic safety form at customs.

-My package was stopped due to the battery being in the laptop.

-I had to have customs release my package and forward it on to our next destination, Chile.

-I had to have the customs office send my package back to the United States.

-It was stuck at customs due to not having only “personal effects” under contents.  (We listed out the contents as instructed by DHL)

After all of this, we had three options.  Option one would be to go back to Buenos Aires and get the package out.  This is the equivelant of going on a bus from Philadelphia to Georgia.   Option two consisted of us sending the package home.  Option three was to have to pacakge forwarded to Santiago.  These are the options that I seemed to have had after talking with everyone for hours.  However, Option three was not an option after talking with the lady at the DHL  office in Mendoza.  She said that I was unable to forward it to another country.  I did call back DHL and they assigned me a “Case Specialist”.  They were out of the office for the day but it was promised  that they would call me back by 12 Argentina time the next day.  I was patient.  I waited until 1:30 to call.  He informed me that Argentina is a very tough country to ship to. After talking with him it turns out my only option became going to Buenos Aires and getting it my  self.  According to him, having it sent back to the US would not be easy.  He said that there would be a $1000 fee from customs in Argentina and that I may not even see my package after paying it.  So back to damn Buenos Aires it was.  We booked an overnight bus that same day on Wednesday the 5th. So we came 560 miles, just to tun around. Since we notified our hostel so late, they did not refund the money that we had paid for the room for the night.  The bus cost us $100.  Then we had to pay for our room at $50 a night (the only accomidation that we could find that was decent at such short notice).  When we got to Buenos Aires the next morning, we dropped our bags and headed out to the DHL office we were told to go to across the city.  We get there and the lady instructs us to go to another office from the side of the city that we just came from.  She said that we would need to fill out the electronics safety form at the customs office as well.  We then hiked all the way to the other side of the city back to the other DHL office.  There they charged us $72 for the  original shipping slip to take to customs for the package.  $72 more to them for their mistake.  We get the slip and run back to the hostel for our flight stubs.

On To Customs

Our hostel called a driver for us.  He would take us to the airport and wait for us and take us back.  We get to the customs office and sit in line  for an hour and a half while the customs agents eat lunch while we all watch.  It was insane there.  It took us 3.5 hours at customs for something that should have taken 20 minutes.  We went to office #2 first for initial paperwork.  Then we were sent to office #3 for a stamp, which then sent us to office #2 again for another stamp.  Then we had to g oto office #1 where they signed something and had someone  get our package (the 10 minutes turned into an hour).  They  found the package and a customs officer opened it in front of us.  He asked if everything was used, which I said “YES”.  Looked through it for less than 5 seconds.  We were then sent back to office #3, where he wrote on a piece of paper, “personal effects”.  We were then sent back to office #1, where we had to pay a $40 storage fee.  Then back to office #3 to show we paid the storage fee, they signed something and sent us back to office #1.  It was insane and sucked really bad.  Each time you went to an office you had to wait in line again.

Sucess!!!!

We finally did get our package.  There was no special paperwork needed.The driver charged us around $60 for the 30km each way to and from the airport and waiting almost four hours.  He was great though, without him we would never have figured out where to go.  Since we are now behind on our Schedule to get to Quito by April 9th, we bought plane tickets to go straight up to

La Paz Bolivia tomorrow, Saturday the 8th of March.  We now have to skip Chile.  These tickets cost us $360 each.  In the end, it cost us $372 with DHL for the paperwork and shipping fees; the $40 for storage, as well as $900 in travel expenses; not to mention the $120 in lodging and time spent on days when we could have been seeing more of Mendoza.  We learned that there was no possible way fo the backage to make it to Mendoza.  DHL failed horribly on this one.  They did not deliver, and I am going to do everything I can to get my $372 back at the least.  They did not help at all when it came to getting my package.  It would not be acceptible for them to send a package going to Philadelphia to Georgia and tell the receipient to pick it up there.

So in the end we learned something…Do Not Ship Anything To Argentina and Do Not Use DHL (even if DHL says it will get there fine, our postcards sent via DHL over a month ago from Buenos Aires still have not reached home)

 

Sorry for the rant….

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