In early mid-October we contacted the jeweler who made my engagement ring to get information on resizing it and fitting a wedding band to it since we didn't do that when we got married. I had wanted to order it ahead of time so that I could have it shipped back to France before we left for our US visit in mid-December. However, due to miscommunication between the jeweler and myself the ring wasn't bought until the end of October and we didn't want to push our luck hoping it would get done in time. Now it's time to ship the ring.
Jeremy goes to the post office who says that they won't insure something of such high value. Whether they didn't tell him or Jeremy just couldn't understand them properly, they failed to mention that they work with Chronopost who does ship high value things internationally. Jeremy figured that out himself a few days later and got the appropriate paperwork ready and then had to wait. You see the post office enjoys opening and closing at regular business time hours and closing for two hours during lunch so that it's impossible for a working person to try and go there during the week day. On Saturday it's open but he had already made other plans that he couldn't cancel. I felt secure and safe about using Chronopost because I have received many packages from them and they're always on time and in great condition.
He finally manages to send it out on Thursday, Nov 10, after going in to work early so he could leave early. He spent 45 minutes with the manager making sure everything was filled out perfectly and sent it out. So this Friday for fun I went online to see where it is in it's journey since it has now been traveling for a week. Would it be in Paris? Crossing the ocean? Maybe it was even in the US! .... No, it was in a town close to Besançon sitting in a Chronopost office.
"Hey, what gives?" I thought. So I scrolled down the page to take a closer look. It had made it to Paris and then was being returned to the sender for improper documentation. Well, the rest of Friday passes and Saturday too with no delivery or even phone contact from Chronopost. Of course to make things more hectic, Jeremy is leaving on a business trip to Germany on Monday, but luckily his train doesn't leave until 11 am so hopefully we can take care of it Monday morning.
Which brings us to today's whirlwind of adventure. And by adventure I mean anxiety, stress, tears, and disbelief. Because if you thought the aforementioned was bad enough, buckle up. We get to the post office and explain our situation. The woman looks over the paperwork and doesn't see anything wrong to explain why it was returned. She disappears to call Chronopost and comes back saying that the only answer they could come up with was that it wasn't marked with a commercial value. In France if you're sending a retail item to or from France above a certain value, they will tax you on top of the tax you have already paid on it. However, this is not a retail item it's a personal used item that I have had for years therefore it has no commercial value and is marked as such on the paperwork.
Well, that's the only answer she can give us and we need to go to this Chronopost office, pick up the ring, bring it back to the post office, and they will send it out again. Besides the fact that this doesn't fix our improper documentation issue, this brings up a whole new issue; we don't have a car to get to this office and no buses go there because it's a podunk little town consisting of 1,500 inhabitants. She calls them again to see if they can ship it to our apartment or the post office and they won't, apparently "return to sender" actually means "ship to Chronopost office moderately close to sender, don't contact them about it, let them figure it out on their own when their package never arrives to it's final destination, and pick it up themselves". Thank goodness I decided to follow my package online for fun!
So she has us sit aside while her manager tries to figure things out as the line behind us is now almost out the door. After about 10 minutes he comes to us and says, "Do you know a Nassar?" What is this about now? No, we don't know a Nassar. "Because a Chronopost deliverer delivered your ring to your address and someone named Nassar signed for it and took it." I think I scared him a little because my eyes practically popped out of my head. He realizes quickly that some weird shit went down after a few more questions about the way our apartment building is set out and disappears again to figure it out. I am freaking out. First the woman tells us it's at a Chronopost office, now he is telling us someone has potentially stolen our ring. I don't even know how that's possible because our apartment building is private. You can only be let in if you have a key or buzz a tenant's name and they let you in. I was home all day and I was never buzzed but sometimes if a delivery person has multiple packages he'll just buzz one tenant, be let in, and go to the other tenant's doors and ring that way. But my door never rang. Did someone in the hallway just say "Oh yes, that's mine!" or something and he didn't check to see if the name matched on a highly insured package?
The manager tentatively pops his head out of his door and asks Jeremy, "Do you work at Parkeon?" "Uh, yeah?" replies Jeremy as I wonder what the heck this has to do with anything and how he knows where Jeremy works. The manager looks physically relieved upon hearing this and comes fully out from the protection of his door. "Okay, because the delivery person saw that the package was taped up using Parkeon packing tape and returned it to Parkeon instead of your apartment."
Jeremy goes to the post office who says that they won't insure something of such high value. Whether they didn't tell him or Jeremy just couldn't understand them properly, they failed to mention that they work with Chronopost who does ship high value things internationally. Jeremy figured that out himself a few days later and got the appropriate paperwork ready and then had to wait. You see the post office enjoys opening and closing at regular business time hours and closing for two hours during lunch so that it's impossible for a working person to try and go there during the week day. On Saturday it's open but he had already made other plans that he couldn't cancel. I felt secure and safe about using Chronopost because I have received many packages from them and they're always on time and in great condition.
He finally manages to send it out on Thursday, Nov 10, after going in to work early so he could leave early. He spent 45 minutes with the manager making sure everything was filled out perfectly and sent it out. So this Friday for fun I went online to see where it is in it's journey since it has now been traveling for a week. Would it be in Paris? Crossing the ocean? Maybe it was even in the US! .... No, it was in a town close to Besançon sitting in a Chronopost office.
"Hey, what gives?" I thought. So I scrolled down the page to take a closer look. It had made it to Paris and then was being returned to the sender for improper documentation. Well, the rest of Friday passes and Saturday too with no delivery or even phone contact from Chronopost. Of course to make things more hectic, Jeremy is leaving on a business trip to Germany on Monday, but luckily his train doesn't leave until 11 am so hopefully we can take care of it Monday morning.
Which brings us to today's whirlwind of adventure. And by adventure I mean anxiety, stress, tears, and disbelief. Because if you thought the aforementioned was bad enough, buckle up. We get to the post office and explain our situation. The woman looks over the paperwork and doesn't see anything wrong to explain why it was returned. She disappears to call Chronopost and comes back saying that the only answer they could come up with was that it wasn't marked with a commercial value. In France if you're sending a retail item to or from France above a certain value, they will tax you on top of the tax you have already paid on it. However, this is not a retail item it's a personal used item that I have had for years therefore it has no commercial value and is marked as such on the paperwork.
Well, that's the only answer she can give us and we need to go to this Chronopost office, pick up the ring, bring it back to the post office, and they will send it out again. Besides the fact that this doesn't fix our improper documentation issue, this brings up a whole new issue; we don't have a car to get to this office and no buses go there because it's a podunk little town consisting of 1,500 inhabitants. She calls them again to see if they can ship it to our apartment or the post office and they won't, apparently "return to sender" actually means "ship to Chronopost office moderately close to sender, don't contact them about it, let them figure it out on their own when their package never arrives to it's final destination, and pick it up themselves". Thank goodness I decided to follow my package online for fun!
So she has us sit aside while her manager tries to figure things out as the line behind us is now almost out the door. After about 10 minutes he comes to us and says, "Do you know a Nassar?" What is this about now? No, we don't know a Nassar. "Because a Chronopost deliverer delivered your ring to your address and someone named Nassar signed for it and took it." I think I scared him a little because my eyes practically popped out of my head. He realizes quickly that some weird shit went down after a few more questions about the way our apartment building is set out and disappears again to figure it out. I am freaking out. First the woman tells us it's at a Chronopost office, now he is telling us someone has potentially stolen our ring. I don't even know how that's possible because our apartment building is private. You can only be let in if you have a key or buzz a tenant's name and they let you in. I was home all day and I was never buzzed but sometimes if a delivery person has multiple packages he'll just buzz one tenant, be let in, and go to the other tenant's doors and ring that way. But my door never rang. Did someone in the hallway just say "Oh yes, that's mine!" or something and he didn't check to see if the name matched on a highly insured package?
The manager tentatively pops his head out of his door and asks Jeremy, "Do you work at Parkeon?" "Uh, yeah?" replies Jeremy as I wonder what the heck this has to do with anything and how he knows where Jeremy works. The manager looks physically relieved upon hearing this and comes fully out from the protection of his door. "Okay, because the delivery person saw that the package was taped up using Parkeon packing tape and returned it to Parkeon instead of your apartment."
Who the heck has that kind of thought process?! Who sees a package taped up with a company's tape and automatically assumes that it must have been sent from that company and doesn't check the actual name and address on the box? When you work at a company you end up with some of their stuff. I worked at Applebee's for 5ish years, I still have order slips with their name on them. If I were to write a letter on that slip and included my name and address on it, would you return it to the name and address written on it, or return it to Applebee's? My mother-in-law reuses Amazon boxes to ship things, should it be returned to her or Amazon?
Anyway, he then goes on to say that the real issue as to why it was "improperly documented" was that Chronopost doesn't insure jewelry that high value for express delivery. Why they insure other things for that value but not jewelry is beyond me but why get into that with a post office worker. It's like yelling at a Best Buy employee because your Verizon bill is too high and they sell Verizon plans so obviously it's all their fault. So now we have to wait for Friday as Jeremy is in Germany until Wednesday evening and he took off work Thursday for Thanksgiving to see if it's even at Parkeon, bring it back to the post office, and send it out again. The manager said they will send it via normal delivery which will take longer which means I probably won't have my ring in time for our anniversary.
Another possible issue is the whole reason we went express is because normal doesn't insure anything that high of value to begin with. Jeremy asked the manager about it and he said that they would honor it, but we'll find out later if that's true I guess. Let's just hope once I get my ring that it actually fits because I do not want to go through this again. I had to guess at the size because the unique shape of the ring makes it fit differently than normal rings.
Anyway, he then goes on to say that the real issue as to why it was "improperly documented" was that Chronopost doesn't insure jewelry that high value for express delivery. Why they insure other things for that value but not jewelry is beyond me but why get into that with a post office worker. It's like yelling at a Best Buy employee because your Verizon bill is too high and they sell Verizon plans so obviously it's all their fault. So now we have to wait for Friday as Jeremy is in Germany until Wednesday evening and he took off work Thursday for Thanksgiving to see if it's even at Parkeon, bring it back to the post office, and send it out again. The manager said they will send it via normal delivery which will take longer which means I probably won't have my ring in time for our anniversary.
Another possible issue is the whole reason we went express is because normal doesn't insure anything that high of value to begin with. Jeremy asked the manager about it and he said that they would honor it, but we'll find out later if that's true I guess. Let's just hope once I get my ring that it actually fits because I do not want to go through this again. I had to guess at the size because the unique shape of the ring makes it fit differently than normal rings.
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