Sooo...I just received my Christmas present belatedly from my mum in Australia. Someone has opened the envelope (it is very obvious that a person has just ripped it open) and some things are missing. They even opened the Chritmas wrap which my mum used to wrap the presents. I am very very angry and just needed to vent.

My coworkers say I should file a denuncia. Has anyone done this? What I'd rather do is go to the post sorting station and "go postal" - but maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.

There are so many stories on here about mail being stolen - it just makes me so angry...but at the same time very sad about Italy's future. How can an economy function without a reliable mail system and on a broader scale without a reliable public service?

How completely annoying for you.
I was wondering if you have a porter who receives the post? - because here the porters can be as bad as the postal workers, so you often don’t know who’s responsible for post problems.

A denuncia can surely be done, but as we know it would probably take forever to arrive at any conclusion knowing how things work (or don’t work) here.

I was about to start this myself. My daughter in the US sent a box two months ago. It never arrived. A friend ordered some cds from Amazon about the same time, never arrived. Is it typical that stuff is just stollen right out of the system?

I would do the denuncia. I did one and it wasn't very hard. I had to do this, get this, when I lost my car key. The car company wouldn't make a new key without me filling out a denuncia at the Questura.
I went down to the Questura and the guy was pretty helpful and it was easy. It only took about 15 minutes. Who knows what they could find and how else to bring up the problem? Maybe "Striscia La Notizia" will do a story about this. Maybe they have already? Either way, get it on record in case they ever find something.

Jeffo

Do it! Things will never change as long as people think it is too much trouble to bother. The postal situation got cleaned up some years back when people got outraged enough. It needs to happen again.
If it was the dogana or postal authorities, they retape with a printed tape with the agency name on it. Otherwise it is just another slimy thief whose actions harm commerce and the social fabric.

Yes, it's easy- I did one at the local Carabinieri station so I could get a new Bancomat when my old one went missing. Maybe 20 minutes.

I rather suspect that it is now 'a way of life' within certain departments of the Italian postal service.

Why do I say this? Well when I lived here before in the 60's and 70's I used to get parcels from my Mum....But we got so fed up with them arriving with the packaging broken and things missing, or not arriving at all, that we decided to forego birthday and Christmas presents alltogether.
If my memory serves me correctly - my husband made three 'official complaints' to the postal authorities...I'm sure you don't need to be told the outcome.
Yep - you've guessed - bug*er all!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Judith in Umbria:

If it was the dogana or postal authorities, they retape with a printed tape with the agency name on it. Otherwise it is just another slimy thief whose actions harm commerce and the social fabric.

Nope not the dogana as both the outer sealed Australia Post envelope and the inner Christmas wrap was open with no special tape, note or anything. I would have no problem if it was the dogana.

It's bad enough being 12,000 miles from my family but it makes me feel even more isolated from them if I can't even receive Christmas and birthday gifts in the mail.

I don't think it was the portiere - he's a really nice guy and also extremely religious (he's always trying to get boyfriend and I to go to church services with his family...) I really doubt he would do it - but I will ask him if the package was opened when it arrived.

What about fed ex and ups, should be safe but are there customs issues. We also had a problem a year ago with one of the other shipping co's can't remember the name LPM?. A cell phone shipped from Switzerland disappeared from the box which arrived empty.

Is there really any point doing a denuncia? Nothing will ever come of it. I often get delivered opened post, a friend once got sent a box of chocolates, and they arrived empty! Once the post office actually phoned me to say 'come and get your post which has arrived open.'
Gee thanks, did you check to see if you wanted anything before calling me?

I agree that you should file a report because as someone said nothing will change unless you take a stand. The problem is that you can spend a lot of time writing letters of complaint, filing reports, etc in Italy. I did this for a while because of rude shop assistants, rude post offices clerks, I was even threatened with arrest when I refused to leave a public office because they were closing early so they could go home and didn't want to process my request, but the truth is it takes a lot of energy and sometimes it may not be worth it.

I'm not really feeling up to filing a denuncia today. I'm feeling a bit sad and fragile in a "what the hell am I doing here?" kind of way.

I guess I really miss my family and stealing a gift from mother to daughter just feels like such an invasion of my family and my privacy.

OK I guess I'm being a drama queen but it was just not a good Monday morning.

Ramona you have the right to feel how you feel. I gave up doing magazine subscriptions because only about 8 or 9 of the 12 issues would arrive and believe me I too thought, "why stay in such a dump of a country?". Then I decided to make Italy work for me and I found opportunites in the dire organization and lack of services. The mail service has always been pathetic and that's why I use it as little as possible. I know that this is difficult to accept when you come from a country like Australia, but this is the reality of living in Italy and we have to work with it as best we can.

I hear you Ramona. I've gotten empty boxes and envelopes in the past too--nothing monetarily valuable so what really hurts is the fact that the items were from loved ones. Like you said, being so far away makes it that much harder; I'd be upset if I ordered something from Amazon that never arrived, but something from my mom? That's just mean.

I sincerely hope Dante has reserved a special level for stealing postal workers. Not only can they spoil our everyday lives, they've also found ways to mess with our holidays. Sorry for your loss, and you're not being a drama queen at all.

I'm toying with sending a box of chocolates with Ex-lax centres, or even picolax (any medics here will explain.. hehheh). But then I have this evil and imaginative streak to me...

quote:

Originally posted by suefischio:
I'm toying with sending a box of chocolates with Ex-lax centres, or even picolax (any medics here will explain.. hehheh). But then I have this evil and imaginative streak to me...

Ha ha! I love it.

Another option would be to do like that journalist who exposed the dirty hospitals and dress as a post office cleaner but secretly film them in the act of opening packages.

(but wait...didn't that already happen a few years ago?)

quote:

I gave up doing magazine subscriptions because only about 8 or 9 of the 12 issues would arrive

This happened to my OH too.

If stuff goes missing from an Amazon order, write to Amazon. They have replaced missing orders for me several times, no questions asked. In one case the first shipment finally arrived a few days after the replacement. I was dreading having to hassle with sending back one set of quite expensive computer books, but Amazon told me to donate them to a school! (I guess the restocking would be more trouble than it's worth to them.)

It's not quite as exciting as getting stuff from home, but if you have people order and ship from Amazon.co.uk, it will be cheaper and easier for them as well.

So do it tomorrow, which is to be a beautiful Tuesday.
Bad postal service can ruin business. It can get you into huge trouble, too. If we don't denounce, then we can't complain, eh?
I had a business idea to print and sell to expats hard-to-remove stickers that their loved ones could put on the gifts they send, that say "Vergognati! Questo è regolato dalla mamma di ____"

quote:

I had a business idea to print and sell to expats hard-to-remove stickers that their loved ones could put on the gifts they send, that say "Vergognati! Questo è regolato dalla mamma di ____"

This is awesome

OK if tomorrow is meant to be good denouncing weather, then maybe I'll do it. I have the day off work tomorrow and need to do some other bureaucratic stuff so why not add on some good old fashioned denouncing.

I love the sticker idea - I'll have to tell my mum about that!

I feel the same way believe me. I mailed something home three or four weeks ago' and it never got there, it was only a pill organizer that my sister wanted to remind her to give the medicine to the old dog (16 years) and its value was 99 Cents. I am so pissed!

I wouldn't do a denuncia but maybe if we all email the post office at info@poste.it and complain, sooner or later it will be brought to the attention of someone "higher" that will take action. Maybe not but it's worth trying.


Dora

quote:

if we all email the post office at info@poste.it and complain, sooner or later it will be brought to the attention of someone "higher" that will take action

That's a good idea. I wonder if there is a more specific email address - for example of the MD or similar.

Isn't this just ONE of those 'heaven sent' opportunities for a large group of Expats to formulate and send an open letter to the press, or even better to "Striscia La Notizia" laying out this scandal clearly and concisely?

I've got a sneaking feeling that this scandalous behaviour occurs AFTER these tempting packets have passed through the Italian Customs and takes place in the larger provincial sorting offices.

The mind boggles at how these light fingered bast*rds manage to carry everything home with them and how (why) their 'honest' colleagues keep their mouths shut. But perhaps that is down to a good old dose of 'FEAR'!