Post Problems

[eamonn81]

I'm here on holiday (nightmare), Cycling South America with 2 friends, just trying to get the hell out of Argentina!!
Since here I have been hit by a lorry and hospitalized, my iphone 4 broke by a teller in a Personal phone store in Buenos Aires and spent 9 days waiting for parcels never to arrive in one of Argentina's over priced hotels.
I informed my family in Ireland to send me my older iphone 3gs my tent and a pair of trainers, all have previously been used. Customs asked for some extraordinary price to get the Items released and now will not release them back home unless I pay more fees.

The drivers are maniacs, who wouldn't stop even if they caused an accident, customs are thieves and hotels charge European prices and above for a 2nd-3rd world country inferstructure.
The country is a pack of Cards.

Any ideas on how I can get my package sent home?
cheers

 

[muppditt]

you could just go home

 

[gouchobob]

I'm here on holiday (nightmare), Cycling South America with 2 friends, just trying to get the hell out of Argentina!!
Since here I have been hit by a lorry and hospitalized, my iphone 4 broke by a teller in a Personal phone store in Buenos Aires and spent 9 days waiting for parcels never to arrive in one of Argentina's over priced hotels.
I informed my family in Ireland to send me my older iphone 3gs my tent and a pair of trainers, all have previously been used. Customs asked for some extraordinary price to get the Items released and now will not release them back home unless I pay more fees.

The drivers are maniacs, who wouldn't stop even if they caused an accident, customs are thieves and hotels charge European prices and above for a 2nd-3rd world country inferstructure.
The country is a pack of Cards.

Any ideas on how I can get my package sent home?
cheers

To send stuff (from Argentina) home use DHL, UPS, or other private service, avoid the post office.

 

[jez]

The drivers are maniacs, who wouldn't stop even if they caused an accident, customs are thieves and hotels charge European prices and above for a 2nd-3rd world country inferstructure.

Had you done a tiny amount of research you would have read about that in a guide book or on-line in a forum

The country is a pack of Cards.

The tourists that come here are so ill-prepared

 

[sesamosinsal]

The tourists that come here are so ill-prepared

Ill-prepared? How, precisely, does anyone prepare for Argentina? How can you prepare to be hit by a truck? How can you prepare to deal with the extraordinary amount of corruption here?

I'd really love to know how you prepare for protesters when they block the highways. I'm just a stupid foreigner, and I'd like to know what the detour is. Is this information in a guidebook too?

eamonn81: I'd recommend finding a very smart, smooth-talking Argentine. If that can't happen, you're going to have to pay up. You should have looked up shipping to Argentina. But hey, when you live in some place where things work well, it's hard to think how something could go so wrong. I've been to the Correo Argentino to pick up a book. It was a 3-4 hour ordeal. Absolutely horrendous. I hope you get this worked out soon...

 

[henryb]

Ill-prepared? How, precisely, does anyone prepare for Argentina? How can you prepare to be hit by a truck?

By buying an evacuation insurance may be? Especially when you plan to go cycling?

I am really sorry about what happened to the guy, but if after being hit by the truck his biggest problem is getting an IPhone, it is not the worst possible development.

Here in a 3rd world country he can still buy a relatively cheap prepaid cell phone kit.

 

[French jurist]

Ill-prepared? How, precisely, does anyone prepare for Argentina? How can you prepare to be hit by a truck? How can you prepare to deal with the extraordinary amount of corruption here?

To prepare yourself as a future portena, you can do the following exercises :
- wait 30 minutes on purpose everytime you go to the bank
- wait 45 minutes on purpose everytime you go to the post office
- cross the street with your eyes closed
- deliberately walk in dog poos in the street
- trying to enter a bus/metro before the passengers inside exit
- in the traffic while driving, putting your turnlight on the right while turning on the left
-etc etc..

You'll feel immediately as a porteno/a once you arrive here

http://baexpats.org/newcomers-forum/11505-coming-next-year-how-prepare.html#post82096



Anyway, this thread is quite old (purpose was to send back the package detained by Customs it seems)

 

[niceguypaddy]

Sorry to hear you are having a bad run of it, very annoying that Personal screwed your phone, will they not replace it? I have to say though, you really messed up not investigating post etc before getting here, this is south america! Electronics will either get pinched or get stopped by customs. There is no sure fire way to get them except asking a friend to bring them which is what I and all my mates do.
Hope you make a speedy recovery from the accident!

 

[Uncle Dermot]

Apparently if you can prove that you are not going to sell the items you are bringing into the country and can prove they are used/refurbished you are not supposed to pay any duty fees, that's only valid if you are a tourist, who is leaving the country after a certain amount of time. Don't ask me how me managed to bring in a brand new netbook bought on Ebay as I still can't believe we didn't have to pay 50% of its value in duty fees. You have to sign a declaration where you state that you are going to leave the country with the used valuables you brought into the country, you should go there with someone, who can speak Spanish, complain a lot about the treatment you are receiving and maybe you are going to get your stuff through customs for free. And yes, I don't think anybody can prepare themselves for Argentina, you would expect things like that to happen in places like India or Pakistan, there as a foreigner you still have some privileges, but here they are very democratic, in the sense that they don't make any difference between locals and foreigners when it comes to extort money...It also doesn't make any difference if you tell them that things work differently in your country, the only way out is usually to pester them so much that they give up, at least that's my technique...
Best of luck!