under the baobab tree

coffee breaks & exposures to africa, mostly

taxipost

I’m expecting a book delivery by post. As it happens, a couple of times earlier friends have sent me a parcel and for some inexplicable reason they were always returned to the sender with a cross over my perfectly clearly and correctly written name and address. Once the parcel was labeled “Unknown” as if I had ceased to exist or started a new life like Pirandello’s late Mattia Pascal, who went to gamble in Monte Carlo was it? 

Well, now I have learnt that it is not the post that delivers these parcels in this country – or in this commune - the classique “it’s not us!” defence was uttered from behind the counter when I expressed my dissatisfaction of the service at the post office. It is the taxipost who delivers packages, not the post. 

Today I found a note in the mailbox saying that the taxipost had tried to deliver my books, but I was out of reach. Mr. Murphy strikes again… So I called them to fix a second delivery, that I can now expect to happen some time tomorrow. Typically, their estimated delivery time is between 9am and 7pm!  These companies are still stuck with the era of housewives who are always home, polishing the silver and making dinners to their hard working husbands? Oh, pauvre Belgique! 

2 Comments »

  Peter wrote @

This happened also to me, although I specificly wrote to the sender that I am NOT at home during the day. Eventually Taxipost send it to my work-address. Then I got a bill of almost 30 euro’s (where it normally would be 6 euros)…. Can anyone explain why this company taxipost is so extremely expensive???

  Jarmo wrote @

Thank you for your comment Peter, I’m sorry to hear that you too had problems with the so-called-service of Taxipost. For me Taxipost is practically a curse word.

Since the posting of this entry to my blog, I have lost quite a few parcels that were addressed to me, and I never got any clear explanation as to what might have happened. Once I sent a parcel to a friend in Africa and after three days it was delivered to me, one more reason for having serious doubts about the employees’ capacity of understanding letters or numbers. On other occasions, the delivery guy does not bother to leave any note (those red avis de passage slips) to indicate that he tried to deliver, and the parcel then is “returned” as they say, but it does not always go back to the sender but just disappears to some sort of mafia centre of the Belgian Post. For one entire month I had no letters at all, no bills, nothing! Also any letters from a bank or credit card company keep disappearing on a regular basis (I lost one renewed card this way and it was used to the limit in Amsterdam), and renting a post box has not helped at all in the matter. Furthermore, only last week one parcel was returned to sender the very next day after it had arrived to Belgium, and this time they told me that the address had been wrong (not true). I could go on and on with more examples… So whether you manage to get your mail or parcel in Brussels is totally random, and I have advised anyone not to send me anything by the post or by EMS (sending through EMS ends up in the hands of Taxipost). Sometimes this can not be avoided, unfortunatly, and the only solution is to be on your guard with the tracking codes and check with Taxipost on a daily basis. So frustrating!


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