Dhl And Ezeiza

[mikic007]

These days you have to count yourself lucky, that you have to pay at Ezeiza, since a lot of things of greater value never even "come" in Argentina. I mean, they come just fine, but guys dealing with them already realized there is no such thing as justice or anything else in the country, so they can just openly steal. It is hard to understand, how something so basic as postal service, that in even worse parts of the world can work for hundreds of years, here completely failed. And not only from outside in, but also inside the country and out of it ...

 

[Gringoboy]

Clearly it's not just DHL, this is across the board and this regime's bizarre battle to combat capital flight IE US dollars, has produced Soviet style side effects that make my freinds and family back home gawp in utter disbelief.
This is my experience from June 2014:

So a mate of mine in Texas posts me a pair of sunglasses as a gift in January and a few days later he asks me if they've arrived yet.
That was the funny part.
Having almost given up on them by March, I ride down to the main postal centre in Buenos Aires and queue up for an hour with everyone else, only to be told no dice without an advice note from the postman.
I also zoom down to the local post office, but their system is down….again.
So I phone Correo Argentino customer service and they say it’s in the sorting room with all the other international parcels and that I should just wait for the postman.
By May, I had definitely given up all hope and resigned myself to the inevitable. In fact, I had blotted all thoughts of hi-tech sunglasses completely from my mind.
Last week, the postman arrived when we weren't in and left an advice note saying that a telegram had arrived and he would try again the next day. Which he did.
A telegram? Had I inherited a fortune or was I being summoned for a speeding fine? Or being deported?
The three page A4 telegram on quality paper from Correo Argentino informs me that a package was awaiting collection at Ezeiza international airport and I would need to undertake a series of insane paper-chase exercises, including an online customs declaration (known rather scarily as a sworn statement) that the value of the goods doesn't exceed US$25 and then present myself at a disused aircraft hangar somewhere in the Argentine hinterland.Oh, and if the parcel is not collected within 5 days, storage will be charged and after 15 days, returned to sender. All this after waiting nearly six months.
So, armed with my sheaf of sworn statements, I zoom 50kms down the motorway and join a thousand other souls, some of whom are collecting gifts sent to them last October.
Of course, no Argentine paper chase is free of charge, I knew that anyway as I handed over my $40, which I was told, was to cover admin costs for handling my parcel.
Yeah, right.
Miraculously, my number was called almost immediately and I was ushered forth through the secret door leading to the hallowed customs area, whereupon a man dressed as a scientist placed a parcel in front of me, opened it with a sharp knife and asked me if I was satisfied that the contents were indeed what I was expecting.
So, just as well it wasn’t a fucking vibrator for my girlfriend then?
At which I say to the scientist “This is one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve had in my entire life you know”, and as soon as the words came out of mouth, I knew it was a path to nowhere, but you’ve got to try haven’t you?
With that, and in perfect English, he replied ‘Well, that’s the way it is’, without a hint of empathy whatsoever.
Yes, quite. That’s exactly the way it is and sadly, I now expect nothing more and nothing less from state employees.
On leaving the sanctified and highly secret customs area I then had to check out through a security area and sign my name once again for a parcel that should have been in my hot sticky hands some six months previously, without having money extorted out of me, without the ignominy of having the contents opened in front of others as if I were a delinquent convict, without having to spend half a day travelling to God knows where, without spending my hard earned cash on petrol the price of aviation fuel and without having to justify to this corrupt and mendacious government why I should have the brazen temerity to expect the civil right of receiving an item in the post which, in any other sane country would happen in the blink of an eye.
And so, on firing up the bike, I took a look back at hangar number 3, gave it a "f*ck you!" and burned some rubber in a generally easterly direction, hoping it would be the last brain numbing exercise I would have to go through and knowing that it wouldn't be.

 

[JoeGillis]

The "scientist's" reply... 'Well, that's the way it is' ...is the usual cop-out response that one hears from so many people in this country. As a number of Argentine friends here have said on numerous occasions, re the social/political/economic problems that abound in this country, Argentines are "all talk, no do" - and the scientist's remark is what one gets after all the talk.

 

[John1017]

I went back to Ezieza today with enough money to buy my package. If you have ever been to exieza's cargo terminal you see just how ridiculous the whole process is. You have to go to a little booth and sign in and they print you out a security pass. Then you go through security and eventually find an old building or maybe it's new for them, anyways you make your way down a dingy hall where Fedex and other companies have their offices full of smoking argentines. You get to the office of particulares and you hand them your paper work and they say, you know there is a charge with this, YES I KNOW, take a seat.

So I wait for an hour because that's how long it takes them to eat their churripan and take a siesta. Then I go back into another room the guys says Si? I say I'm here to pick up a package, I give him the paperwork. He says no, he can't give it to me because I need this and this. He shows me a long list of rules. I said DHL sent me here and I was here yesterday and they said all I need I money. I offered the guy 1000 just give me my package, he said it doesn't work that way and I said it basically does work that way. He said I need to go talk to DHL. I then spent five minutes lecturing him on argentine society and their culture of it's never their fault, it's always someone's else's fault. He eventually said all I need is my passport, so he took my passport and saw that my tourist visa expired last year and tells me I have to go to retiro to get it renewed. And that's that. I'm not a swearing man but I was really close to cussing him out. This is probably one of the only things ever in my life to lead me to the brink of a total meltdown, I'm I'm the calmest person in the world.

Anyways, I guess I'll go to retiro to renew my tourist visa and then back to ezeizA. When I do get my package I want to open it and show them all it was was one shirt for my future baby, baby clothes, I hope I don't call them chorros de m....

 

[JoeGillis]

I went back to Ezieza today with enough money to buy my package. If you have ever been to exieza's cargo terminal you see just how ridiculous the whole process is. You have to go to a little booth and sign in and they print you out a security pass. Then you go through security and eventually find an old building or maybe it's new for them, anyways you make your way down a dingy hall where Fedex and other companies have their offices full of smoking argentines. You get to the office of particulares and you hand them your paper work and they say, you know there is a charge with this, YES I KNOW, take a seat.

So I wait for an hour because that's how long it takes them to eat their churripan and take a siesta. Then I go back into another room the guys says Si? I say I'm here to pick up a package, I give him the paperwork. He says no, he can't give it to me because I need this and this. He shows me a long list of rules. I said DHL sent me here and I was here yesterday and they said all I need I money. I offered the guy 1000 just give me my package, he said it doesn't work that way and I said it basically does work that way. He said I need to go talk to DHL. I then spent five minutes lecturing him on argentine society and their culture of it's never their fault, it's always someone's else's fault. He eventually said all I need is my passport, so he took my passport and saw that my tourist visa expired last year and tells me I have to go to retiro to get it renewed. And that's that. I'm not a swearing man but I was really close to cussing him out. This is probably one of the only things ever in my life to lead me to the brink of a total meltdown, I'm I'm the calmest person in the world.

Anyways, I guess I'll go to retiro to renew my tourist visa and then back to ezeizA. When I do get my package I want to open it and show them all it was was one shirt for my future baby, baby clothes, I hope I don't call them chorros de m....

John, I'm so sorry to read of this absolutely infuriating, not to mention totally unnecessary, situation. You have my sincerest sympathy for having to endure another case of Argentine bureaucratic nonsense and inefficiency.

 

[andesmandes]

I offered the guy 1000 just give me my package, he said it doesn't work that way and I said it basically does work that way. He said I need to go talk to DHL. I then spent five minutes lecturing him on argentine society and their culture of it's never their fault, it's always someone's else's fault.

And you wonder why you did not get the package and instead he pointed out that your visa has expired a year ago?

 

[Gringoboy]

And you wonder why you did not get the package and instead he pointed out that your visa has expired a year ago?

Which is totally besides the f**king point! Wake up will you!
Quite how John kep his cool is beyond me.
A license to steal money.

 

[mikic007]

It would happen anyway, when tomorrow maybe they will tell him "why to get visa renewal, we don't need that"... For 1kg of chocolate and one letter I printed everything from afip, answered 5 times about what I think is inside, just to let me get my package next day without any look at my papers, which were absolutely necessary the day before...

Of course artificially generated ñoqui doesn't give a single f*, what you think or speak, so the smartest is always to smile and show high spirits, since sometimes this could be very useful. You always have to keep in mind, that there are no rules, so you depend completely on the whim of person in front of you.

 

[John1017]

If I go to retiro tomorrow at 7:30 am, pay 600 pesos to renew my tourist visa, take the two hour bus ride, for the third day in a row, go through security, wait an hour for aduana to see me, only for them to tell me I can't get my package, oooh boy. I'm going to be nice, I'm going to be nice, I'm going to be nice, smile and wave, get my package and leave

 

[Gringoboy]

John, I admire your fortitude and can relate to the principle which you are are following.