Amazon blacklists SA Post Office

AlanRatcliffe

Johannesburg - Rampant theft by Post Office workers has infuriated internet retailing giant Amazon so much that it will no longer send goods to South Africa by post, Business Day has reported.

Anyone wanting to order directly from the US-based website must now pay for a private courier service adding about R420 to the price of a DVD.

No one from the Post Office would comment.

No other African country's postal service had been blacklisted by Amazon, Business Day said.

Riaan

Alan
This is sad news indeed. I don't know about the "no other African country's postal services had been blacklisted" bit though. I recently tried to buy an item on Amazon to send to someone in Zimbabwe as a gift, and they refused to ship there too.

It just so happens that I'm also missing a parcel right now. I bought a video capture card from an EBay shop, it never arrived in spite of the sellers' assurance that it had been shipped with USPS Priority Mail. Now, some three months later, according to Cape Mail and Customs, the parcel never arrived in SA - the tracking number that appears on my PayPal invoice does not show up on their systems. The US Postal website tracking facility does however list a date and time of shipping, but not that it arrived in SA.

I'm still in the process of battling this one.

AlanRatcliffe

Just as an additional note - you can still buy from .co.uk - it's just .com.

I'm pretty sure from all the furore that the SAPO and Amazon will hammer something out. It may just have been something of a shock tactic to try and get the SAPO to do something about theft - after all SA is a fairly big market for them to lose.

If they had been serious about it, I think they would rather have said that shipping via post was not recommended and at your own risk - that way if something goes missing, it's your problem, not theirs, and would immediately weed out the guys who get something and say they didn't receive it so they can get another copy for free.

I often buy from Amazon and have never lost anything. Once a parcel took much longer than it should and they sent me a replacement, telling me that if the first should still arrive I should donate it to charity. Amazing service, and I immediately became an Amazon customer for life. However, service like that is expensive to maintain if a large percentage of things are going missing (or even just arriving late).

I really hope they sort something out. After all, what is our alternative? Kalahari (Where my own book is listed for over R350, but sells on Amazon.co.uk for GBP12)? Iwantitall, who buy from Amazon, but ship many orders together in large shipments to "keep prices down" (but it ends up costing you double from what I've seen)?

sepheritoh

I had some bad experiences ordering from overseas. I stoped my overseas magazine subscriptions because I get about 10 out of 12 only. Especially the ones with cover CDs or DVDs "get lost" too easy. I am currently waiting for a DVD box set from USA Roosterteeth, which has been ordered about 2 months ago. I am not giving up yet. I once ordered software and sample CDs from IK multimedia, that arrived almost 6 months late.

This is not a new thing. Cakewalk USA has long had this policy of not using the post office. Every year I get my upgrade send to me via UPS.

AlanRatcliffe

Interesting. I subscribe to four international magazines and have never had a single issue go missing. Maybe I'm just lucky. I've had more problems with FedEx and UPS.

sepheritoh

Alan Ratcliffe wrote Interesting. I subscribe to four international magazines and have never had a single issue go missing. Maybe I'm just lucky. I've had more problems with FedEx and UPS.

That's interesting. I wonder if the problem is location specific then?

AlanRatcliffe

Maybe it's the guy delivering the post, rather than the guys sorting it?

Renesongs

This is worth a read ☹
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/4215.html

AlanRatcliffe

Frightening! To quote Supertramp (the band not Alexander) - "Crisis? What Crisis?"