Registered Mail

[East_TN_Patriot]

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with shipping time for USPS Registered Mail coming from Europe. I ordered some wood pistol grips from a fellow in Hungary. He shipped them on December 20th. The last transaction recorded by USPS was

"Foreign International Dispatch, December 23, 2010, 9:45 pm, BUDAPEST 1005, HUNGARY"

Well, it's now over a month later and no progress. I spoke with the local post office and the Postmaster told me that Registered Mail can take as much as 60 days for overseas shipments. 60 DAYS!?!?!? Nothing takes that long in today's world. Heck, I could swim across the ocean in that amount of time. So has anyone else had this type of experience?

[LagerHead]

I haven't, but I imagine anywhere there's government involvement there's a roughly 110% chance that it will be much slower and less efficient than can be done by a group of semi-motivated kindergartners.

[Guest glock20]

i deal with overseas stuff all the time.registered mail can take that long.coming from hungary i bet it will take awhile.also you have wait on customs to clear the package.i always use express.that way you can track it every step of the way.customs makes express mail packs priority because they are time sensitive.i bet its in customs and there taking there sweet time.i would call jfk customs and give them the number and see what they say if you have a tracking number

[VERO1]

As mentioned above, the real problem is most likely with customs. Also registered mail is slower than regular or express service. Every person that handles a registered item in the mail stream is required to sign for its acceptance. That way, if it comes up missing, they go to the last person who signed for it, and they are held fully responsible for the value of the lost item.

[East_TN_Patriot]

OK... the customs hold-up is probably the issue. The fellow notes on his website that he is now required to attach the customs paperwork to the shipments; that must be why. Good to know in case I ever need to ship anything overseas. I'll use Express Mail (and request to pay for the service) in the future.

It was rather entertaining when I talked with the Postmaster about it though. I said - as seriously as I could - that the delay was kind of a problem because the package contains a kidney I bought from someone in Budapest and I'm not sure how much longer I could wait for it since I needed a transplant immediately. There was stunned silence on the other end of the phone, then she started to stammer "Um... sir... I don't think you would want to use a kidney that's been in the mail for over a month." I told her that I thought it would be ok since they probably wrapped it in plastic first. Then I let her off the hook.

Edited January 26, 2011 by East_TN_Patriot