Hello everyone. By way of introduction, I'm an American student living in Geneva for the spring semester and I'm employed as an intern in one of the organizations here. My family back in the US mailed a package through USPS to my workplace (as they have done twice before this semester) the first week of April and were told that it would take 5-8 business days for arrival. My previous packages all arrived a week after being mailed from the US, no problem.
This latest package, though, hasn't turned up yet. It had the same contents as the other two - clothes from home and some American candies and snacks.
Unfortunately, we didn't get tracking information for this last package, although I've heard that it might be possible to at least track it to Switzerland by the customs number? My question is should I assume the package is lost/gone forever? My internship ends in a few weeks and then I go back home. If, by some chance, the package turns up will the Swiss post send it back to the return address?
Thanks!
In my experience, packages just disappear.
The kids grandparents regularly send out little packages for them, from UK. Small package, maybe A4 size jiffy bag with low value stuff.
It's totally random how long it takes to arrive or if it will arrive at all.
Sometimes 4 days, sometimes 3 weeks, sometimes 2 weeks with "has been opened by customs" tape on it and maybe 1/6 just don't arrive at all.
Hard to know if it's a problem here or somewhere else in the chain but none of the missing parcels have arrived back with the sender.
My cousin is a postie in the UK and he said it's well known that the less scrupulous workers will spot an untracked parcel departing the UK and heading abroad, which obviously looks like a gift (the customs label is marked as such) and they ..ahem.. disappear.
Neither side knows whether it went missing in the UK or the destination.
My mum always uses the tracker system which then discourages any thieving scrote from squirrelling it away. Since then I've always received my parcels. OK, sometimes they've been inspected at customs but they always tape it up again or put it in a plastic bag.
You need to get the sender to file a "package lost claim" at the office where it was sent.
Will this work for packages from the US with no tracking number? My family seems to think nothing can be done on their end but I have no idea what I could do from here.
In Switzerland (and a few other countries) you can receive mail and packages at the Post Office of your choice.
In the future
You should get them addressed as follows,
Your Name
Postlargend or Post Restante
Post Office address,
Street & house number
Town
Switzerland.
https://www.post.ch/en/post-startsei...-postlager.htm
After 30 days the items are returned to sender or destroyed. The post do not contact you. You ask at the counter, every day, take an ID.
You can do nothing from here.
Your family need to start the action (The tracking number is not relevant) the search request includes a description of the letter / package, and the search will follow your lost item to the address in Geneva. Either it will be found and delivered, or the search will inform your family of the loss.
I have lived her for 24 years, and I have never lost a parcel. One went missing but after 3 days it was found in the SBB lost property, missing its label.
I had the package mailed to my workplace (one of the international organizations) because receiving it at my student residence seemed more complicated. Which post office would I go to to check on it? I doubt the mail room at work could help.
The package was already sent so I cannot address it to a post office like you suggest. It was addressed to my workplace, which has a small post office and a mail room, and I doubt that the people working there can help. If it was possible to go to some sort of central post office to inquire after my package, where would that be?
You cannot do anything about the lost package from here!
To avoid future problems I have posted how to use the Post Restante system here. Using this FREE service means that the post is responsible for your packages all the way, and they are not delivering to an insecure post room in a campus or a company.
It may have not arrived yet. It took a parcel from my mum in the UK a month to arrive here once. We had given it up for lost, but there it was!!
The last one arrived in 3 days.
Ask the person in charge of your work-place mail room which local sorting office is responsible for the post. Then go to that post office and ask if they've got it somewhere.
Otherwise, Sbrinz is right in that you can't start a 'missing parcel' inquiry, it's up to the sender to do so., presumably at the post office where they posted it in the first place.
Even if you can see the parcel in the PO, they will not give it to you.
The job of the post office is to receive and deliver mail.
If a package has no name or address it cannot be delivered.
The post office is not authorized to hand out packages to strangers.
If it has a name and address it will be delivered.
The only way to recover it, is for the original sender to complete the search form, stating the contents, and authorize the
post office to deliver the unmarked package containing socks, sweets etc, to the recipient.
They will not hand out anything without authority, they would rather destroy it, usually after 30 days, so hurry up with the search form!
Why are you insisting in the assumption it's not got a name and address on it? It perfectly possible that it's got his name on it but the address is slightly incorrect, or vice versa, the swiss aren't that well know for using their initiative.
If he doesn't go and ask he'll never know, and I would have thought it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that he takes some form of ID with him. If it is there then yes, it's possibly they might not hand it over to him immediately, but it's a start.
If they can't help him then of course he'll need to ask the sender to start a search process, but at least (in theory) he'll know it's not aimply sitting at the local sorting office waiting for what could be a simple error to be corrected.
Nonsense.
I've gotten stuff with the wrong street, town, canton, and postal code with no problems.
Tom
I actually once received a parcel without my address on it in Switzerland. There was just my name and the postal code... I was amazed!
Someone told me that most Post companies have team which are dedicated to sort out these cases.
Me too! My grandmother was rubbish at writing my married name, and the street name she wrote contained all the right letters in almost the right order and almost resembled my address. She got the postleitzahl (postcode) right , oh and managed to write "Swizerlnd" in her scrawl so at least it got out of the UK.
Landed in my mailbox no probemo
Don't know about Swiss post needing initiative, but they definitely need to be qualified code breakers...
And yet more than once the Post has sent back my U.S. official voting ballot, claiming I don't exist, when the ballot has my name on it, the address is 100% correct, and my name is on the mailbox.