Parcel in customs almost 7 weeks not moved

[Bengalcat]

Hi - Not sure if these boards include Parcelforce.. ?

I have a parcel sent from France that came into the country beginning of may, and it is still there awaiting customs clearance
After checking the status on Parcelforce every day for 2 weeks with no letter, or contact, I contacted the sender, who raised the issue their end.
It appears the item was marked as commercial , so the status (on the French tracking info) is missing invoice

The item is a personal item purchased from a private individual.
Is there anything that I can do my end to end this nightmare please, as (with all due respect) contacting customs and Parcelforce by phone leads to them pointing the fingers at each other , and no-one is going to contact me despite being told that I will.

Thanks in advance

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Hi - Not sure if these boards include Parcelforce.. ?

I have a parcel sent from France that came into the country beginning of may, and it is still there awaiting customs clearance
After checking the status on Parcelforce every day for 2 weeks with no letter, or contact, I contacted the sender, who raised the issue their end.
It appears the item was marked as commercial , so the status (on the French tracking info) is missing invoice

The item is a personal item purchased from a private individual.
Is there anything that I can do my end to end this nightmare please, as (with all due respect) contacting customs and Parcelforce by phone leads to them pointing the fingers at each other , and no-one is going to contact me despite being told that I will.

Thanks in advance

if french customs are saying that it hasn't got the right paperwork, then because of the new rules it's likely they are in the process of returning it to the sender. It may be that UK Customs, or PF, have not even received it. (there is no tracking when it is in customs)
From the start of this year, Customs got very strict about what needed to be filled out, and what paperwork was required. Anything that didn't meet the requirements usually meant it never made it through customs but was rejected and returned to the sender.

[Bengalcat]

Thanks for the reply.
I wasn't clear apologies.

It's in the UK for sure, the French tracking says it's in UK customs and it took 2 days to get there. The parcelforce tracking gives no information other than awaiting customs clearance, quite surprised that the sender's postal service has more detail.
Is there anything I can do ?

[Bengalcat]

Just an update and some advice for any customers who may face the same issues as myself. Oh and just to let you know I still have not got my parcel.

For items awaiting customs clearance or similar, my advice based on my own experience with contacting parcelforce by telephone, email, twitter etc, you will be lucky if you do not get a cut and paste response, and you will be wasting your time. Indeed, there are various contact numbers for different departments that look promising, but most will just point the finger at each other, tell you anything to get you off the phone, and you will go around in circles.

I wrote in via letter of complaint to the PO box address, and my complaint was taken seriously, where I was contacted directly by an employee , who looked into my issue. It transpired that there was some sort an error with my parcel, and was allocated the wrong address (Parcel force admitted it was an error on their part). The whole awaiting invoice thing appeared to be a red herring ?

I am not saying that writing in to complain after 7 days will get you a quicker resolution, however my case after 7 weeks (now 8 weeks) it was clear there was an issue, and that emailing or calling the standard numbers will likely get you no-where.

Good luck !