We decided this year to ship our luggage to our vacation rental house because the connection in Paris ( to Montpellier) was too tight for the transfer. We went to UPS and they said no problem – they promised delivery to our doorstep within 4 to 5 business days of our arrival. The charge was $400.00. This turned into a nightmare – it took ten days and endless phone calls before a UPS truck finally arrived bearing ONE of our two bags. But the shocker was— There was an additional cost of $478.00
which we had to pay to the driver. He would not release the bag until he had the cash.
We have been unable to ascertain how customs arrived at this amount (the second bag arrived the next day and there was no charge). We provided customs with a detailed list of the clothing and personal items which were in the bags – there was nothing of notable value, nothing for resale, and as they repeatedly asked us — nothing was less than six months old.
Has anyone had an experience like this. Is there any hope of recovering the $478.00???
Nemeroffn@netscape.net
mailing luggage to France via UPS
May 19, 2004
By francecom
10 Comments On mailing luggage to France via UPS
Wow!
Talk about a nightmare! I guess when shipping anything overseas, one should always try to ascertain taxes beforehand… Hindsight is 20/20, right?
Anyway, these articles you shipped, do you intend to ship them back home or leave them in France? If taxes were levied as an import, you may be able to get them refunded when you exit the country. I have no idea how you would proceed, except start calling the ‘Douanes’ right now. It may be doable, but it will be aggravating. No question about that.
Custom taxes should be refunded if the articles were not imported into the country.
Good luck, and keep us posted.
What a nightmare. You should check with both UPS and Customs to see if you can get some of the money back. If your luck is like my luck, you won’t, but it’s worth a try.
For future trips you should check with both the US Post Office. We always ship books 4th class and it’s cheap! Check with a couple professional movers as they might be willing to help you. Look in some reputable magazines about France such as France Today or France and see if there are any movers advertising France as a particular specialty. They might be able to give you advice, both on moving things and on getting some of your money back.
Just curious . . . We always thought rental places pretty much had everything you needed in the way of linens, kitchen utensils and household items. Did you need to take these with you? If it was just a couple suitcases, wouldn’t it have been easier to let the airline deal with it and either deliver them the next day or have you pick them up?
We only go over for five or six weeks at a time so have never run into your problem, but we’ve often thought of renting and staying longer so we’re curious as to what and why you had to ship.
Thanks.
Everything we shipped in we took back home with us – so, as you say, this was not really an "import". We tried to make this clear to Customs via email – but they replied that it would take "three to six months" before a decision would be made. We’ve been home about three weeks now so I guess we will just have to wait.
Thanks for your reply.
Caroln
We took everything home with us as it was clothing, personal items etc. We sent a detailed email to Customs and they replied that it would take about six months for them to process. As for UPS – they said they had no control over what any foreign customs office does – and claimed they had never heard of such an additional charge (??!!)
Our rental house is fully equipped with linens, kitchen stuff, all necessary household items – even a hammock! It’s heaven.
The reason we decided to ship was because of USAirways schedule. We fly Philadelphia – Paris- Montpellier. The arrival time in Paris was 9:40 & the departure to Montpellier was 11:15. Last year they made us change our flight because they said the connection time in Paris would not be long enough to transfer the luggage – and passengers & luggage must travel together. That wasn’t too bad because the next flight was around 2pm – but this year the next flight wasn’t until 6:30!
Next year we are flying AirFrance !
Thanks for your interest – We get both France & France Today- I’ll check them
caroln
Caroln: By all means fly Air France. I am thankful that you shared that experience with the forum. I was thinking of shipping luggage that way on a trip some time ago. Now I know I will never do that. Thank you for the experience. What a colossal bummer. Donerail
I guess the thought never occurred to me because we don’t take much "stuff" with us. We go over for four to six weeks with a carryon (that we check) and a backpack each. If we had really close connections, I suspect we would simply carry on the carryon.
We’ve never flown US Airways either and it’s not too difficult to get direct flights from LAX. You’ll love Air France. We’ve flown a lot of different airlines and that is our current favorite. (We recently used Lufthansa from Munich and really liked them too.) I don’t know if they go to France.
BTW, how did you find your rental and how long did you rent? We’re thinking of doing that in the future. Our worst problem is deciding which region of France to stay in. We love them all!!!!!!!!!!!
SalB: Check out frenchconnections.com. I haven’t used it but I know folks who have and they were very pleased with the experience. Very reasonably price too so they said. Donerail
Thank you. I’ll check them. There is also the Gites de France. I’ve heard they are very good. They certainly have a large selection!
jasonn
Hmm, it's easy to understand why you are so upset, anybody would be in your place, that is a lousy service and really bad customer support. Thanks for warning us about your experience.
jasonn
So I could just move to France only using a mail? This is what I call comfort. I should get more information on my real moving options as this time next year I'll live in Lion. Thanks for the informative post!