Best Posts in Thread: The black hole

As anybody who has lived here for a while knows the postal service is not very good.
Unfortunately there are still things that have to be sent as UK banks and the like trust a paper envelope that can be opened by anyone more than they trust an email that requires a password to open it.
My bank sent an important letter to my UK address, i need to have the actual letter, not a scan, the last time this happened my daughter sent it by registered mail which can't be tracked once it reaches Manila, this meant a lot of trips to the post office and around 3 months later it arrived.
The same thing came up again last month so this time i thought we have to use a courier, the prices were amazing for just a letter weighing very little, from over £100 to £23, so i picked the £23 which was UPS.
When i tracked it on Friday it had some journey, left UK on 31stMay, went through Germany then China and was in Manila by the 2nd June, by 6th it had not arrived so i tracked it again, on the way but still in Manila, how can it be on the way when still in Manila.
I sent UPS an enquiry and they replied that it was now with their "partner" arrgh arrgh (no name or contact provided) and could take between 4 and 7 business days to reach Dumaguete.
Manila is the black hole

 

On Friday when i tracked my delivery the message had changed to delay but with no explanation.
I called the UPS office in Manila and after a lot of questions and being on hold the short story was they didn't know where it was and i should start the claim process which could take 10 business days.
I asked who was the "partner" they passed the delivery on to and was told Air21, they have an office in Dumaguete so i went there and a very nice woman went and found it no problem, i asked her when it arrived and she said yesterday (Thursday), i asked when were they going to deliver it to me and was told she did not know as the delivery boy has been off sick all week.
So that's UPS off of my list of people i want to give money to.