My single biggest surprise after moving to Switzerland is that the postal service seems completely unreliable. Both mail sent by me and to me has disappeared, or it has arrived very late. I never once in my life experienced mail getting lost before coming here, but now it seems to happen regularly.
In addition, on several occasions when ordering stuff from Amazon etc, the postman just threw the box on the floor in the foyer of the apartment building where I live when it wouldn't fit in the mailbox. Twice, kind neighbors picked them up from the floor and handed them to us, but on other times the packages naturally disappeared.
Once I reported it back to Amazon, and they were kind enough to send me a second package free of charge. But now that more stuff has gone missing I fear that red lights will start flashing if I once again tell them that stuff doesn't come through.
I called the Swiss Post customer service, and since I had the tracing number of the packages that the neighbor salvaged, I could prove that I wasn't making stuff up. I also talked to the clerks in the local post office, and they seemed truly shocked and appalled.
So now I don't order more from Amazon than can fit through the envelope slot in my mailbox. Whenever I mail something, I write receiver and sender's address in large all caps letters, I never buy stamps from the stamp machines, and I always deliver the letter or whatever to a clerk in a post office. Since adopting these rules, there have been no anomalies, but it is time consuming and utterly irritating.
Have anyone else had similar experiences? I was kind of expecting that nothing would be more safe in the world than the Swiss post system, being home to the post union and all. This is just so bizarre that I'm considering dropping atheism and rather think I've been jinxed.
I've ordered loads from Amazon(.de/.co.uk) and never had a problem. If you want to avoid problems ( & tax ), then, as I have found, the best thing to do is have the items delivered to your works address. This seems to circumvent "normal" processes
After 18 years I have never had a single problem with Swiss post.
I guess it depends on the area you live in and what you are having delivered. There is a tendancy to leave packages on doorsteps when no-one's at home. But this is a nice reflection of the high level of honesty here...
If a parcel doesn't fit in the mailbox and no one's at home, the mailman is supposed to put a notification slip in your mailbox and take the parcel back to the post office, where you can pick it up from the following day. Looks like some idiot is too lazy to write the notification slip.
If you're rarely at home during the day, you may want to have a look at the PickPost service .
Regarding missing letters, I haven't noticed this being a problem. (Of course in some cases, you'll never find out...)
Maybe two or three times a year, a letter or a magazine for someone else living in the same building ends up in my mailbox, but that's about it.
upto now (3 1/2 years) i've had no problems with letters or parcels being delivered, my postman leaves a slip for all packages and i collect within the 7 days from the postoffice, you should be able to find out from you local office who your postman is and make sure this is corrected.
I've never had a problem either. My neighbours sign for other neighbours and there is often a parcel in the building entrance or in the safe hands of another neighbour.
As for circumventing the "normal process" (regarding tax) - getting things sent to work has not made any difference for me, so don't take this as a rule.
After twelve years here I've also never had any problems. I always found the Swiss Post as incredibly reliable as the transportation system.
I also agree with AbFab about the high level of honesty here, but to be honest I wish that the postal service would not show so much trust in neighbours that I barely know. In this day and age (sad to say it) but I think that it is a little naive especially in the inner city areas.
Jarlsberg2, half of your problems with the Swiss Post apparently originate from your mailman, if this doesn't change, you maybe should protest again (in person at the local post office).
Although I've never had a bad experience myself, there were reports about stolen payment orders that were dropped in public mail boxes. Criminals used the fact that they're easily recognisable because of their special envelopes, fished them out of the mailbox and changed the recipient. Payment orders should be given to the post office (or generally made electronically for those who've already joined the online banking age).
Anyway there's no need to personally send delicate letters at the post office counter, because the wall-embedded mailboxes at the post offices offer the same safety.
Also, rumor has it that there are a few rotten apples among the post employees who open envelopes with old-style handwriting on it, because old people often send cash in them.
My only "bad" experience so far is that I was invited twice to pay an additional 80 centimes or so, because a letter I sent weighted more than 100 grams. A friend of mine worked at a main post centre and told me that one can learn to tell if a letter weights more than 100g or not. I think that by now he has the gift too, to tell an 98g and a 102g letter apart.
Oh and a little bit of inside information for Zürich residents, if you drop priority mail at the Sihlpost, it is declared that you have to come until 20:00 for next day delivery, but there's a probability of 95% that it will be delivered if you arrive before 21:00.
Hehe, I used to do that until I discovered that this would be reason enough for my employer to fire me. I work in an international organization and the campus is something similar to international territory I believe. Circumventing customs by having parcels sent there is opening a can of worms - breach of my contract with my employer, my violating Swiss customs law and the employer violating its agreement with the Swiss govt and so on. Not that I believe a single dvd or similar would get me expelled, but it is very much frowned upon.
Obviously this will differ for others, but it's probably wise to verify that your employer don't have problems with it.
I also always expected the post service to Just Work. OTOH, in my municipality there are only 20 % Swiss people, so I guess the level of honesty has degraded proportionally *ducks*
I've had several letters just not show up. Like a Christmas card from my mom, easter card from my dad. A few other random things. I've also had things show up ridiculously late. A card, 3 months after it was postmarked in the US. My flatmate has had stuff from Amazon never show up twice and a T-shirt sent by a friend for St. Patty's March 2006 showed up January 2007.
All of these instances, however, originated in the US, so I don't know who to blame.
I've not had great experiences: undelivered mail for several months, things turning up almost a year late, but that doesn't concern me so much as having things removed from my publically accessible mailbox. It's all very well having a lock on the 'letters' part of the box, but anyone can take the mail out without a key, as I discovered one ex-neighbour doing. It could be your neighbours who are making the 'disappearances' occur... , especially with interesting looking mail (Amazon, hand-written, foreign etc)
Sure, when the mailman thinks it's ok to just leave parcels on the floor I'd expect nothing else to happen. The entrance is shared by some 50 flats, and the mailboxes in the all-glass entrance area are visible and (usually) accessible to anyone passing our building, so it's bound to happen that eventually someone will pick up parcels just lying about. I guess they could have been stolen from our mailbox, but our neighbor found two of them on the floor on different occasions.
But the very strange thing about this is that outgoing mail also gets lost. So it's not just a dishonest mailman or neighbor, there has to be many. But in that case this should be a systematic problem that hit many more than me, which I'm sure Swiss Post would have dealt with. I'm getting this tingling feeling of paranoia...
Oh well, I'm going to check out the PickPost service from Swiss Post, seems to be exactly what I need (if I can get Amazon to ship there).
I just wanted to add my tuppence worth.After 17 years of living in Switzerland(Basel area)I can only say good things about the Swiss postal service.
An example being that last year I bought an item from the UK on ebay and all I recieved was an empty envelope.It looked like it had been cut with a Stanley knife so I suspected it had been stolen.It was an xbox game by the way.
I went to my local post office and explained the situation,then filled out the required forms relating to missing items etc etc.
Four days later I got a package from the Lugano area with my missing game in it.Also enclosed was a letter of apology for having lost the item in the first place.
After posting a glowing recommendation of the Swiss postal service I'm sad to say that I have to take it all back. Last week three birthday cards went astray but all the bills still arrived . Looks like I'm going to have to go and have a word with the local post office tomorrow.
We have had loads of problems with our post. It arrives late, or torn, or opened and stuck back together. Recently I was setn 2 parcels from england (both reasonabley small) on the same date, but the difference in the arriving time was 3 weeks. One arrived 4 days after sent date, the other over 3 weeks later. It's really annoying!!
Also my husband got sent stuff to his work place, a big box for a long distnace course. The box arrived bashed about, and ripped. Turned out somethings had gone walkies from the box too.
My personal experience of the postal service is not a good one!
This didn't happen to me, but to my last flat mate and I find it utterly hilarious.
Prior flat mate is a collector of old books and having aquired quite a few here in Switzerland he decided to send a box back to his parents house in the US. Months and months pass, about 3 I think, with still no arrival of said box. Calling around to the relevant places resulted in nothing. Finally his parents received something. The box full of books? No. Only a piece of the cardboard from said box with his parents address on it. Where the books ended up or how this happened no one knows.
I mailed a ton of books from the USA to Switzerland when I moved back in 1996. Things started to go wrong when they addressed the package to Swaziland after they had removed my address sticker which needed to be replaced by a some standard customs-declaration sticker. Fortunately, I noticed that on time in the post office.
Anyway, the package took 8 months to arrive. It was totally bashed up and the contents looked as though an elephant had sat on it. I seriously doubt this was the Swiss Post's fault, though.