A word of shipping Advice

[duane1x]

We recently sent in the ITA. We sent it Global Express and it was supposed to get there in 3-5 days. After 8 days there was still no delivery, and more disconcerting, no update in the tracking details. It seemed like the package had fallen into a black hole - no updates, no scans, no whereabouts. Last seen leaving the USA.

You may have seen the movie Castaway where Tom Hanks winds up with this one Fedex box that he never opens. Well this is how I begin to imagine our package... on a desert island somewhere. You get the picture.

I began to realize what a fool I was for not making a color copy of the ENTIRE package prior to mailing it off. Most significantly all of the med forms. I began to think about how I doubt the various doctors actually kept a copy of the NZ forms and maybe not even the various related tests. No way I could go back and say, Hey, Doc, can you fill this out again from memory? Whereas if I had a copy I might have been able to get the meds re-filled out and signed without redoing the whole thing from scratch. For all I know, if I could really prove the thing had been lost it's possible INZ might have accepted copies of some of it - who knows.

In any case, we put a tracer on it and whether because of that or just coincidence somewhere it jarred loose and showed up in the UK albeit a week later. So all's well that ends well. But if I had it to do again, I would make a copy of the entire thing. Didn't I already say that? Should I say it again?

And on a lesser note, for those of you who like to push deadlines, 3-5 days does not mean 3-5 days. It can mean 8-10 days. Or more, if things get dicey...

Over and out.

[MotherBear]

Duane, that was a bit close. Thank goodness it turned up in the end. Must have made you feel sick to think you'd lost all that valuable information.

A lesson for all of us.

[Taffy]

For sure, some good tips there. You can always rely on the postal service to hold up life changing events!

[Dawn]

I always love reading your posts. They always have such a 'hey dude' thing about them.

[duane1x]

Originally Posted by Dawn

I always love reading your posts. They always have such a 'hey dude' thing about them.

I'm not sure what this means but I guess it is good--

As a follow-on item to add to the checklist, the credit card charge from INZ came through yesterday. How do I know? Because the fraud department at my CC company in their brilliance declined the charge as it came from out of country and involved "something about immigration." They also declined to let us know that this had occurred. A kind soul at INZ emailed to notify and ask if we could provide a different card. So I called the CC company and - supposedly - they straightened it out and will accept the charge next time. I probably won't know until after the holiday.

One can imagine the CC charge getting sucked away by fraud dept (immigration! out of country!) and the email getting sucked away by the anti-spam vortex (immigration! out of country!) and us sitting here twiddling our thumbs.