Avec La Poste les colis ne bougent pas...
Nov. 30th, 2010 01:32 pmDear La Poste, I thought we were friends! I thought you would gladly get my things for me from point A to point B in the indicated time frame... so why are you being a bitch now? So I ordered some extra camera film and it was sent out on Monday, there I was all happy that I'd get it on Wednesday at the latest. Wednesday came and the website indicated that the it was already in PACA, I had good hope that I'd find it in the postbox... but no. Thursday came. Still nothing. Friday came. Nothing. Saturday, last chance of the week! It was another disappointment. And so I can feel a new week starting with the message "Votre colis est pris en charge par La Poste. Il est en cours d'acherminnement." Great but it's been stuck at the postal dispatching place in PACA, the local region, for days now! Time is starting to seem long, especially that it was supposed to be delivered in 48h or faster. Worst case someone stole the parcel at the dispatching place, if that's the case, well I hope they have an analog camera because I'm not quite sure what else they could do with thirty rolls of film. I suppose they could be turned into some wacky art project, but really, it would just be a waste of film. No love, Me. PS: see that photo below, it's lovely isn't it? I'll be honest it's my favourite one from that roll. So why are you stopping me from testing out the new camera and getting new photos? Boo on you! So the above letter was written over the week-end and now let's fast forward to the current situation. Come Monday I thought I had waited long enough and decided to contact LaPoste and the hilarity of bureaucracy only started (and we all know I love bureaucracy). Being in the 21st century, my first step was to try and contact LaPoste/Colissimo through their website and they were nice enough to even have a "contact us" page. There I chose the option that I wanted some extra info on a parcel... then they asked me what the hell I wanted:
And that's it. No other option is given to deal with cases like mine where the parcel wasn't delivered in the promised time and there is no phone number given anywhere to contact a live person. If I chose some other option like "get more information about delivery times" I just got their FAQ page, no little form to fill in to have someone answer me. Ah well. Next, I went through five other websites and googled a bit and lit a few metaphoric candles (those never hurt, it seems all matter of gods like those). I ended up with a four digit phone number to call and hey, it was free... a rare thing! So I called them up. I put in #1 that I wanted more information about my parcel and I got asked to read out the twelve numbers and letters of the tracking number of the parcel to a machine. Apparently I don't speak clearly enough or my lack of a clear regional accent did not please the machine, I was told it can't help me and that I should type those numbers into the website and no option to talk to a real person. Attempt number two and this time I put in #2, I don't remember what the option was but it got me through to a live person! Woohoo! So I told her about my worries and she told me to read out those damned twelve numbers and letters. She had trouble understanding me too, I think from now on I will attempt to use a regional accent, it can't hurt. She told me what I already knew and that parcel was somewhere at the PACA dispatching place and no, no one had info on it... and I should contact the company that sent it out and then LaPoste will open a "dossier" and they'll try to track it down and maybe it will turn up. See, this is France. And in France things are strange. Like only the person who sent the package has any rights on it up until it reaches the customer's door because it makes sense, they already got the money from the customer and they have already complied with their duty of getting it out into the post in a reasonable amount of time. Yep, you can call and complain all you want, as long as LaPoste doesn't get asked by the sender to open a "dossier" then nothing gets done. Luckily for me the company I ordered from is rather small and good with customer service. So now they've called up LaPoste and LaPoste has 15 days to find the parcel and get it delivered to my door... if they don't then it's officially lost and therefore if enough virgins are sacrificed and enough papers are copied and sent over, they will reimburse the parcel at the level of 14 euros per kilo sent. Till then I'm left with only fancy films that I do not want to waste to test the new camera. I also do not want to buy extra cheap film because if I do get the parcel then I'll have thirty rolls and that's already enough to fill in a whole shelf on the fridge. Please stay tuned for further LaPoste adventures! Till then I leave you with the outtakes from that roll mentioned above. |
( +4 - walls, gardens, bunnies and others ) |
Also if you've read all that above, I must say bravo because it took me three days to write it. |