The Post Offices Have Turned Into Trash. They Swallow Packages and Only Spit Them Out If You Get Lucky.
Nom nom nom
Yesterday at noon we received (back) the Raspberry Pi 4 that we had sent over a month ago to a country just across the channel. Not far away. Planes not required, just a lorry. We basically spent over 10 pounds (they try to upsell or offer "premium" services) to send something to ourselves (returned to sender), get angry for several weeks, and visit the Post Office several times. Both us and the intended recipient had to make labels and fill out forms. Dutch Customs took several weeks to tell the intended recipient that it was in possession of the parcel, made no effort to actually deliver, and only sent back the parcel several weeks later. I cannot read the reason/s; it's in Dutch.
Having spoken to some people about this, they say they too experienced this kind of thing. They now lack confidence in couriers, which are further held "hostage" (or controlled) by Customs. To be clear, I didn't send anything valuable or even new; it was clearly used, the contents were disorganised, and it was properly labeled.
Apparently I'm "lucky"; I got my parcel back. I had lost hope before that.
This terrible experience taught us to never use the Post Office again (for anything). Even if it was reliable, the receiving ends abroad may not be. Couriers have become absolutely terrible and they fail to do what really should be a trivial job. Some only pretend to try to deliver and then leave a card, demanding that one should instead collect the package/letter from some warehouse somewhere (usually far away and with queues) and in the past the Post Office even "lost" our parcels. No compensation or anything. So someone basically took or sold all the contents.
They say society and businesses will progress, improve, and self-regulate in a 'free market' (competition). We're not seeing that. Instead we see a race to the bottom (quality- and reliability-wise) and to the top, price-wise. In many cases, nowadays the shipping costs a lot more than the contents of what gets shipped, especially if the shipping is considered reliable and gets "insured". █