International Tracked & Signed to Canada

rhiannon8602 · Post by **rhiannon8602** » 25 Feb 2016, 22:27

Hi everyone,

I posted a large letter to Canada via International Tracked & Signed on 9th February, and I thought it would have been delivered by now. I am becoming concerned with the lack of information when I check the tracking number on Royal Mail website. There has not been an update for 2 weeks, this is the latest:

Full tracking details

Date:
11/02/16

Time:
AM

Status:
ON ITS WAY TO TORONTO CANADA

Track point:
CANADA

I have tried to check the tracking number on Canada Post website but this is all it says:

We were not able to find any results

There is no information available for this international item. Tracking by Canada Post is not a feature for this product.

Expected Delivery : 1-12 business days

Should I be worried? I filled out the customs form correctly and put a return address on the back so not sure why there would be a long delay. The letter included legal documents to a solicitor, which is why I am panicking so much!

Many thanks

thaijewel · Post by **thaijewel** » 26 Feb 2016, 01:34

Canada is one more of those countries whose customs are unpredictable although not as bad as UK. They also stopped accepting tracking for international registered shipped to Canada therefore no chance you will be able to track this in Canada post unless you use one of the expensive shipping options. On the positive note shipping is reliable as opposed to the black hole called the UK customs. Your item will be delivered but can take up to 4-6 weeks be ready for it. I just had an item arriving in Canada after nearly 6 weeks. The customer was honest enough and repay me because i had earlier processed a refund through paypal because this was taking too long. UK and Canada postal and especially customs services have deteriorated considerably since last year.

rhiannon8602 · Post by **rhiannon8602** » 01 Mar 2016, 14:25

Thanks for the reassurance thai jewel. 3 weeks today since I posted it and still no tracking update since the 11th! Hope there is an update soon...

fbsales · Post by **fbsales** » 01 Mar 2016, 16:41

Hi all
Same here

I sent an item to International Tracked & Signed to Canada with CN22 attached on 1/2/15 no tracking update since 3/2/15 when item was shown as on its way to Canada

Problem is sometimes customers get items in a few days then think that is the speed of delivery for all International Tracked & Signed items

I would have thought that in the 21st century tracking could show when an item is in customs

If Canada post no longer track International Tracked & Signed inbound items why is RM still selling International Tracked & Signed to Canada? it should be International Signed if that is the case

No easy fix for this, other carriers can deliver in 3 - 5 days but customers will not pay the extra cost

Sending a replacement order or refund to a customer can end up with the small business out of pocket through not fault of his or her self

rhiannon8602 · Post by **rhiannon8602** » 01 Mar 2016, 19:15

I would have paid the extra for a courier if I had known this would happen! I should have done some more research before I posted it. I just saw 5-7 days on the Royal Mail website and assumed it would be with the recipient in that time. And I thought I would be able to track it the whole way.

Let me know if your parcel is received, it's clearly a few days ahead of mine! They are probably stuck in the same pile somewhere, haha.

fbsales · Post by **fbsales** » 01 Mar 2016, 20:28

Hi

I send a lot of items all over the world (I spend over £7000 pa with Royal Mail) I must say on the whole the service at best ok

Tracking is often flaky and delays happen more than they should

A lot of the time it is 'cos items are stuck in the destination country customs and that is a key problem, tracking rarely if ever shows the item is with customs rather it shows the item as leaving the UK and then nothing until customs hand over the item to the local post service

I think the problem is one of government funding for customs, large express carriers have priority for customs clearance and I guess pay for it so that leaves less staff to deal with regular post

Royal mail word the service info for International Tracked & Signed with great care they, "aim to deliver in 5 to 7 working days" note the use of the word aim, Royal mail say customs delays are not down to them and that is so but it should be made a lot clearer to customers that delays can and do happen

But as I said in my last posting it is all down to how much the customer is willing to pay

Post by **Snaggletooth** » 01 Mar 2016, 21:22

fbsales wrote:I think the problem is one of government funding for customs, large express carriers have priority for customs clearance and I guess pay for it so that leaves less staff to deal with regular post

You are correct, but I suspect that the rules and processes that customs have to follow have got a lot tighter in the last couple of years, and this adds to the above issue.

fbsales wrote:Royal mail word the service info for International Tracked & Signed with great care they, "aim to deliver in 5 to 7 working days" note the use of the word aim

The magic words are "guaranteed" and "aim" attached to the time period for the service, this tells you which type of service you are looking at. Royal Mail do offer guaranteed services to almost every country via their Parcelforce division but these are aren't sold through most PO branches and you can't buy them with a PPI account or franking machine.

fbsales wrote:Royal mail say customs delays are not down to them and that is so but it should be made a lot clearer to customers that delays can and do happen

I suspect that they are not allowed to do this because of all sorts of laws and international treaties.

fbsales · Post by **fbsales** » 01 Mar 2016, 22:44

Hi

That is good info about parcelforce it looks like it does cost a lot more than royal mail though

There is a fault on the parcelforce site at the moment though when I went to get a quote all I got was

"[13234]ERR: 24: Error in Perl code: Can't call method "get_state_value" on an undefined value at /home/httpd/parcelforce/pfw/lib/perl/PFW/AdHoc/PageWrapper.pm line 171."

Still good to know the service is offered

Post by **Snaggletooth** » 02 Mar 2016, 10:49

This PDF outlines the services you can buy over the counter at Post Offices:

http://www.parcelforce.com/sites/defaul ... PWOS11.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For international services, you have to work out which of the numbered bands the destination country falls into, then look up the price table with that number. Weight bands are 500g, so a 5g letter costs the same as a tin of beans. Prices are broadly similar to DHL and the like, but you tend to find that each of the companies is better for certain countries, time frames or package types.

You can also buy these services through the Royal Mail smartstamp online application (can be accessed direct or through Paypal), you then need to take it to an appropriate Post Office to hand it over and get a proof of posting. I believe that if you do this then you can access one or two services which are not sold over the counter and therefore are not in that PDF. You can also arrange for PFW to collect from you.

A couple of things that PFW are much better at than Royal Mail:

Large parcels (much higher size & weight limits);
Consignments (sending multiple boxes at the same time to the same address saves you money, this can make PFW guaranteed services cheaper than RM non-guaranteed services in certain circumstances);
Higher compensation limits for loss or damage (international);
Much higher compensation limits on mobile phones (international).

A couple of things to watch out for versus Royal Mail:

Some extra prohibitions and restrictions (absolutely no cash or jewellery, some restrictions on passports, amongst other things);
No compensation for loss or damage on the Economy service (and no option to add any);
The Standard and Economy services take longer than their RM equivalents;
You must write the recipients phone number on to the customs pack for any item leaving the EU;
Much earlier last collection times than RM (typically late morning for Global Express and mid afternoon for everything else).

fbsales · Post by **fbsales** » 03 Mar 2016, 07:01

Hi All

Well the item did arrive 2/3/16

Sadly there was nobody at home to sign for the item

fbsales · Post by **fbsales** » 04 Mar 2016, 09:21

Well all's well that ends well

The item did get delivered 3/3

32 days from posting

rhiannon8602 · Post by **rhiannon8602** » 14 Mar 2016, 15:00

Glad your package finally arrived! It will be 5 weeks tomorrow since I posted mine, and there have still been no tracking updates since 11th February. I will wait one more week, should I just give up hope after that??

Post by **Snaggletooth** » 14 Mar 2016, 15:55

rhiannon8602 wrote:Glad your package finally arrived! It will be 5 weeks tomorrow since I posted mine, and there have still been no tracking updates since 11th February. I will wait one more week, should I just give up hope after that??

No, you should submit a claim form tomorrow, when it reaches 5 weeks since sending (you want a p58international). You are entitled to a refund of the postage cost plus the value of the contents (if applicable) as the time limit has been exceeded.

rhiannon8602 · Post by **rhiannon8602** » 14 Mar 2016, 17:18

Thanks, I will definitely submit a claim if no update tomorrow. But in terms of replacing the legal documents which were in the package, should I assume these are gone forever and I should start trying to obtain copies, or is there hope in waiting another week? Basically what is the likelihood of the package still turning up? I know it's a difficult question and nobody can know the answer , I'm just not sure what to do next!

rhiannon8602 · Post by **rhiannon8602** » 15 Mar 2016, 14:07

Well after all that, it seems the parcel did turn up after all, it's just not showing on the tracker for some reason. Thanks for all your help everyone!