Disqus - Latest Comments for dandare

Re: Amazon.co.uk still posts to South Africa + my conclusion on the postal decision

dandare — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:23:07 -0000

I know SAPO used to be useless and unreliable, back under the old Nationalists. Those were the days of mail from one place in Cape Town to another in the same city taking weeks to arrive. Not to mention the surly staff. I've never really had an experience of high theft rates though, and nor has anyone I've asked.

Re: The real reason Amazon won’t post to South Africa?

dandare — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:11:33 -0000

"the New Zealand postal organistion withdrew from SAPO"

What nonsense. Where do you get this from?

Re: SA Post Office staffed by thieving gits

dandare — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:10:32 -0000

WantItAll is not and has never been competitive. I regularly find myself amazed that there are enough suckers out there to sustain their business. But clearly there really is a sucker born every minute, and most of them in South Africa.

Re: The real reason Amazon won’t post to South Africa?

dandare — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:06:22 -0000

Amazon.com did stop offering shipping methods other than courier for a time. It was clearly stated on their help page and when checking out it was the only option. However Amazon could easily have switched to using one of the two faster methods offered by USPS. More expensive, but far less than using a courier, and in addition it is semi-trackable and fast. The fact that they chose not to is what makes this entire episode quite suspicious. And unquestionably a slap in the face to those of us who have been buying from them, and buying a lot, for more than a decade.

I've had postal articles mishandled and stolen in the US, UK and Germany. It happens everywhere. I know of a company in Canada that now only uses a very expensive shipping method to Europe because of too many cases of loss and damage. In their case they're a small company and dealing with postal claims is a big headache, although their customers in Europe are understandably annoyed because even there the number cases of problems was not exceptionally high, but ultimately it is just negativity and selective thinking that singles out the South African Post Office as being terrible compared to elsewhere. Something goes wrong here and people take the attitude that it only happens here or is something uniquely African. Even when theft was allegedly rampant I struggled to find a significant percentage of people who had lost parcels. And given how much the people I asked actually import, using the normal mail, they should have been victims of regular theft.

Re: The real reason Amazon won’t post to South Africa?

dandare — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:48:53 -0000

You do know that theft is a major problem in the Royal Mail at Christmas time? In addition how many times do people have to be told not to put money in the post? Theft of cash in the post happens everywhere, and no-one with any sense actually puts cash into the post. I've also seen the abuse to which mail articles get subjected. Again it happens everywhere - the postal system is a harsh place.