[meteorite-list] re: US Mail

From: marco.langbroek_at_wanadoo.nl <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:01:30 2004
Message-ID: <1023092361.3cfb2689c1264_at_webmail3.wanadoo.nl>

> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] U.S. mail
>
> Jamie and David,
>
> Jamie wrote:
>
> >Seems about the only things the postal
> >service can deliver on time are bills.
>
> The US Postal Service doesn't deliver mail in Europe for heaven's sake!
> Once your check arrives in Vassiliev's country, it's up to HIS postal
> system to deliver.
>
> Charlie


I am sorry, but I do think the kind of problems mentioned are with US mail. In
that sense, the US is more of a 'wild west' country than most European
countries (I am sorry to say). Like some of the other respondends,I've had my
share. Luckily, never with meteorites sent from the US not arriving with me
(apart from one that arrived broken - but that can be an accident). However, I
did have trouble with items going lost - or more exactly: theft- in the mail
myself, and that problem definitely was with either US Postal or US Customs
Service. Two years ago, I sent a friend at the Institute of Meteoritics in
Albuquerque a couple of slides of cosmic dust phenomena he had asked for. The
enveloppe arrived at the UNM, yes, but it was cut open with a knife - a very
neat small slit made- and the slides were gone. So I tried a second time.
Again, someone had cut the enveloppe open and this second enveloppe also
arrived empty at the UNM (I really wonder what the person in question wants to
do with these slides - they are nice, yes, but not valuable). I have never had
this kind of problems while sending things to Germany, Belgium, Australia, the
UK, inside the Netherlands - but it happened twice on row while sending
something to the US. So it is clear where the problem is - with either the US
mail or US Customs Service. Eventually, I managed to get the promised slides to
Frans by handing them over personally when he made a visit to Leiden. And both
Frans and I were so angry that we filed complaints to the US Postal and the US
Embassy in the Netherlands. Not that this helps, but it relieved our hearths...

Marco Langbroek (the Netherlands)
Received on Mon 03 Jun 2002 04:19:21 AM PDT