[Joanna Savage]

Is it only this part of central Italy where the couriered parcel delivery system is completely unreliable? Last week I had plants sent from France, they  arrived, most efficiently, at the depot in Toscana on Wednesday morning and  still have not been delivered to me, (Sunday). The French nursery has kindly contacted the depot as they weren't answering my calls. The courier claims that I was not answering the phone. I have been close to the phone waiting for the call, for a couple of days. I can't think of an enduring solution. As I order once or twice a year, it is too far to drive to France each time. And they are such exciting plants.

[Daisy]

I now ask all my suppliers to write on the package, "TO BE DELIVERED VIA THE POST OFFICE. NOT TO BE PASSED TO A COURIER".
The Post Office here in Crete, is quite reliable. (When they are not on strike).
The courier service however, is another thing.
When I first had a parcel delivered to the local courier's depot instead of the Post Office, I received a phone call from the courier's head office in Athens three days later telling me that it was there.
When I went to collect it the following day, the courier told me off in no uncertain terms for not including my telephone number on the address.
When I asked why they had not delivered it, he said that they only deliver to the outlying villages once a week, and then only as much as they can deliver in one morning. If there are more, they have to wait until the following week.
When I told him that the parcel was bare root plants and wouldn't last that long, he just shrugged his shoulders.
When I asked the English nursery, why they had sent it by courier, they told me that they hadn't. They had taken it to the local Post Office and sent it via Parcel Force.  It had been passed to the couriers, somewhere on it's journey.
So now I include that message with my address to all my plant suppliers.
Daisy

[Joanna Savage]

Daisy, Thanks for your understanding reply. A difficulty here is that the PO will not sign any delivery forms on my behalf. The carrier on the first leg bringing the plants from France insists on a signature at delivery, so I am not able to say 'leave it at the PO'. Even so, on this most recent delivery the courier left the package at a shop of his own choice about 10 kms from the address and there was nothing signed!

So I have agreed with the French nursery that next time I will pick up the parcel at the first depot when they reach Italy. Perhaps it means a three hour drive for me , but it will save the plants from an extra six days hidden away from light and water.

[Umbrian]

Joanna, I live in a quite isolated house here in Umbria and have had many frustrating moments over the delivery of parcels with different couriers. I think it all boils down to the initiative, or lack of! of the driver. On many occasions I have received numerous telephone calls from the person trying to find me even after giving very explicit directions that they seem to ignore completely and usually end up getting in my car and trying to find them The other evening though I heard a knock on the door well after dark and there stood a young man with a parcel for me. He had found me without telephoning once - the irony was however that I had asked for the parcel to be delivered to an address in our nearest town to avoid previous problems I have come to the conclusion that you just cannot win

[JTh]

I could write a book about problems with import of plants, I was in charge of joint imports for members of a Norwegian garden society for more than 20 years. We had one very reliable source in southern Germany (who specializes in alpine plants), we never lost anything from this company, but imports from England were always a hazard. Either they could not deliver, we were informed several months after the orders were placed that the British plant inspectors stopped the export, blaming the Norwegian regulations, although the authorities here said the interpretations were wrong, or the plants were lost during the transport; the Norwegian postal system is not perfect, I have had much better experience with the Greek one.

But right now I am more worried about a sending of olive oil (our own) from Greece to Norway. It was collected  by the courier on 30 October, was sent from Polygyros (central Halkidiki) to Athens on the 31st and then after a lot of small stops (12 so far), it returned to Polygyros on 5 November, where it is still, I have no idea when we will get it here, or if ever, and the transport costs a fortune.

[Joanna Savage]

Oh J Th that is terrible to think that your new oil is stuck back in Polygyros. That's almost as bad as losing plants. Please let us know the outcome for the stranded oil.

Umbrian is right, it's the luck of the game whether parcels arrive and I suppose I should be amazed and pleased when something arrives successfully.

[JTh]

The oil was not lost or stuck in Greece after all, they just forgot to give me a new tracking link when it left Greece, it arrived safely with family in Sweden last Monday, the last stretch by taxi. The charges for sending it to Norway were three times higher, because we are not members of the EU. , so we decided to take a trip to Sweden.

[Joanna Savage]

Hooray, all's well for the oil. A problem of communication, not logistics.

[Joanna Savage]

After my whingeing about the Couriers on this post, perhaps they are taking revenge. I received an email from a recently used Courier which told me that they had left a parcel at the post office with no indication of which PO. Immediately all activity on this computer was blocked, except for a pop-up which indicated that if I gave them my card details all would be unblocked.

So the computer stayed blocked, and after ten days (this is Italy) with a technician in town it has returned unblocked. I have had to reenter the MGSforum and I-Tunes are lost for the present. I did miss the morning read on the Forum.

[Alisdair]

Joanna, How horrid for you. A few days ago I had an email claiming to be from a courier saying something very similar, and saying to click on a hyperlink. As I definitely wasn't expecting anything I didn't click on it but separately got on to the courier's own genuine web site (I think the email had claimed it was FedEx) and punched the reference number the email had quoted into the tracking slot. Nothing came up. So I deleted the message.

[Joanna Savage]

Yes Alisdair, it was a fake FedEx that caught me too. Thank goodness I didn't give them any details. A friend in Lucca did, and had lost 500 euros very quickly before her bank stopped withdrawals.

[David Dickinson]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with fake courier notices  Iwill certainly warn all my friends & colleagues to watch out for them. Good to hear that neither of you lost anything. Thanks for letting us know. Very useful :-)

[JTh]

Thanks for the warning.