Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sistersarah]

I've sent several packages home to friends in Canada this year. I use airmail and it's pretty affordable and up til now, reliable. The last package I sent was to my best friend. It took me months to compile, full of stuff I had picked up here and there, about 6 or 7 items, including some photos.
---That was a month ago! Usually it only takes a week a half! So I'm really upset that my package didn't arrive.

Has anyone here ever had anything like this happen? just wonding if it's common, because if so, i'll refrain from mailing anything home again.
Or, is there a chance it could just show up one day out of the blue?

-sister

[peppermint]

I had a package from home come a month and a half after it was expected- apparently customs got suspicious of some Halloween candy.

I woudn't send anything too precious by Canada post. I used to work as a security guard at the central sorting depot and when I reported a couple of incidents that looked like stealing to my superiors, I was laughed at.

[Hollywoodaction]

Your story about Canada Post reminds me of a scene in the movie 'Les Invasions Barbares' (Barbarian Invasions) where one of the main characters 'loses' his laptop computer at the hospital after having left it in his father's room. Security guards tell him they are powerless to help him, and that they cops are unwilling to investigate crimes commited at hospitals. So, he goes the hospital workers' union office for help in locating his computer. After so time, a guy from the union returns his computer. The guy asks "Did someone find my computer?", the man from the union replies "Yeah, something like that."

(And to answer your question, one out of three parcels sent to me from Canada goes missing).

[bucheon bum]

didn't accidently send it via surface mail did you? a friend of mine did that once. Instead of taking 10 days, it took 100 days (or around that).

[trevorcollins]

Sometimes in Korea the air mail option and the surface mail option are interchangeable. My ex speaks near fluent Korean and she'd still get shafted. Urgent tax documents taking 3 months to get back, and stupid ceramic kimchee pots arriving in 5 days. Probably that's what's happened, the stuff's on some cargo ship in the middle of the pacific. Even if it is surface mail if you sent it a month ago it should be back in the US in a few weeks from now. Don't panic.....at least not yet.

[oneiros]

I've heard it from a source in Canada that Canadian customs is opening all packages sent from foreign countries, and there's about an eight week backlog. It might take a while to get there.

[trevorcollins]

[law]

I read about the backlog in the Vancouver Sun. Apparently, all foreign packages destined to the US is now routed through Vancouver. That has created a huge backlog. If I remember correctly, Canada Post is expecting to clear up the backlog by Christmas.

[justagirl]

I've only had 1 package in 3 years "NOT make it" to the US. I sent it in May...and she never got it. However, in October, I got the package back as being "undeliverable" even though the address, etc. was correct. So I guess it did get there...

On the flip side, we've had several things not make it to Korea...or at least not all the way to our home. My birthday present last year, a Christmas box, a computer game. Once, a friend in the same city gave me one of my boxes and said the postal worker just handed it to him on the street. Another time, a postal worker asked me to call a number on a package an English-speaker had sent because he couldn't find the address. I called the guy up and he asked me to sign for his package and mail it to his new address in Seoul. Strange.

The only postal thing that has been a sure thing since we started using it, is the $9 envelopes that can be stuffed with up to 4 lbs of stuff. They never get opened and we've never had one lost that's been sent to us. (from the US to Korea). Let your folk, etc. know about it. A box costs about $6/lb to send, and the envelope is $9/4lb as long as you can seal the sticky stip thing at the top. It takes less than 10 days to get here.

[Cedar]

Living in Korea since 1996, and I have NEVER had anything not make it to where I was sending it... NEVER. The Korean post rules. If something is going wrong, it's not on this end.

[sadsac]

Never had a problem. Sent and received lots of stuff to and from Oz. Sometimes there is a signifigant time delay, but it always arrives.

[oneiros]

[tomwaits]

[komtengi]

I've had a pair of Nikes lost in the mail sent from Korea to Oz.
and clothes sent from Oz to here as well

as long as you insure it, it seems to get there... no insurance both those times and they got lost. Every time after that no problems getting to their destination.

[Ilsanman]

I put a handphone charm in an envelope and sent it to China to my girlfriend. It never made it. Out of 10 letters I sent her, that one never made it. I don't know if it got stopped because of Korea or China's mail system. I suspect the commies..........