Dear Sir/Madam
I put in your knowledge the following facts related to the shipment of parcels to Europe. My apologies in advance for my poor domain of english. I will try to explain it in a simple way.
I know that the USPS' european partnerships behaviour are far out of your control, but maybe USPS can find a way of minimize their annoying effects.
The things are, that USPS (you) have reached an agreement with a private european courier whereby USPS hand over to them ALL the parcels addresed to Europe in order to "give better service to the customers".
This people (General Parcel Services, and their spanish subsidiaire, Extand Sistema) are only a new -private- intermediare more in the mail chain, and their business appears to be in generate more paperwork (the most of times, unnecesary or already paid by the U.S. stamps fee) and then asking the addresee (me) for pay additional fees (like custom clearance duties, that until now were managed by our Postal service without require additional payments from the addresee, apart to the due import taxes if it were any).
In my opinion, their behaviour is also like the pirates asking for ransom: When they get your package, they send to the addressee (me) a mail letter indicating the fact and asking to return this letter, by mail or fax, with full details and the (my) agreement to them for doing the custom clearance and all sort of alternate duties. Only the fax # of reply is indicated in this letter, no e-mail address nor telephone # where the addresee can contact them and ask about further details or alternatives. If you are lucky enough to find in Internet their e-mail address and write to them, they never reply to your emails. To be noted that, this all letter notice issue delays a lot the delivery of parcels, so the new service is "worst" instead of "better".
After being contacted by telephone, they refused my alternate suggestions (hand over the parcel to the spanish Postal service or
to refer it to an independent custom agent of my confidence for managing the custom clearance duties). At the end, their message to the addresee is clear: "We have your parcel. If you want it, you must let us to manage it our way and pay us for this and that. If you don't do that, in ten labour days we will return it to the sender". These are a really bad business practices.
Curiously, some packages "escape" GPS/ES net and continue their european travel via the countries Postal services: Some months ago, I was contacted by GPS/ES about giving my agreement to them for the clearance of a package that, funny enough, had been already received two weeks BEFORE via the spanish Postal service without requiring any paperwork (green stamp).
This is why, I have asked to my U.S. providers to stamp in their shipments the following notice:
<<<IMPORTANT! To be managed in Spain by the spanish Postal service.
NOT HAND OVER TO General Parcel Services / Extand Sistema>>>
Please, take the necessary policies in order to have GPS/ES respecting this will of your customers.
Thanks for your patience and attention. Best Regards.
Javier Tel
