It should be simple right?

Buying a gift seems a simple thing. Sending it should not be much of an issue either. And so that's what we did. We bought Terence's dad a birthday present and sent it with DHL thinking it would get there faster. Right. Of course you throw South Africa and its service levels in the mix and - chaos. So that's what happened. We got an email from Terence's brother that we would have to pay customs clearance on the gift (which came to around NZ$112) before they will release it. So we said that we thought it was too expensive and that perhaps he should just ask them to send it back (thinking that they would just charge us what it cost to send in the first place).

So this morning I got a call from NZ Post saying that it can be sent back, but we would still need to pay the NZ$112 for the South African Customs Clearance fees. AAARGGHH!! So either way, it was going to cost us that much money now. So Terence took the email they sent with the reference number and he went and paid the NZ$112 for them to release and deliver it in South Africa. Now it is going to be late as well. Unbelievable.

They can't tell me why we have to pay customs on it. It is not a food item, it is not made of wood, it is pretty small, it is a single item and not an import of some kind, we ticked the box that said "gift" and it even has a birthday card inside. So it seems they just decided to hang onto this parcel and charge us the customs fee.

This made us just realise that thank goodness we are done with South Africa. Of course this does now put us in a position where we don't want to send any more parcels to South Africa, at all. We simply cannot afford for them to keep something again and charge us hundreds of dollars each time they feel like it. This is unfortunate and so frustrating, but for us this was an expensive lesson to learn.

So frustrating!!!