Inbound international mail problems

[Pinshot]

I am awaiting some small parcel from the UK sent Royal Mail international signed. It left U.K. On November 9th and it's now 14th and tracking still just says on its way to Singapore. The signpost website says at least 2 business days once arrived in Singapore before tracking update. I have never had to wait this long in Singapore.

Does anyone have some more detail on how this postal service works? Where exactly would my parcel likely be and would could be the hold up? Is it in customs and if so would it say that it's held up in customs?

I'm worried as I leave for Hong Kong for 6 weeks on Wednesday and will lose my parcel or have to fly back to pick it up due to the silly rules here.

Any advice welcome.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Your package is probably tied up in customs. If your package arrives in Singapore on a Friday night it will not be seen by customs normally until Monday morning. Good example are the packages I received today and on Friday. Mailed one day apart in the US. both arrived in Taiwan on the same day and dispatch (via tracking) to Singapore on the same day on two different flights. one very early in the am. the other around lunch time. Both went to customs on the same day but one early and the other apparently later. I got the First package on Friday and the 2nd package today. Customs, I don't think, work on the weekends.

[x9200]

I am awaiting some small parcel from the UK sent Royal Mail international signed. It left U.K. On November 9th and it's now 14th and tracking still just says on its way to Singapore. The signpost website says at least 2 business days once arrived in Singapore before tracking update. I have never had to wait this long in Singapore.

Does anyone have some more detail on how this postal service works? Where exactly would my parcel likely be and would could be the hold up? Is it in customs and if so would it say that it's held up in customs?

I'm worried as I leave for Hong Kong for 6 weeks on Wednesday and will lose my parcel or have to fly back to pick it up due to the silly rules here.

Any advice welcome.

Nothing to worry about (yet) if left the UK only on 9th. There is always a few or more days invisibility gap for the parcels. From my rather extensive experience, it takes anything between 8 and 14 days to have a standard air parcel from the UK delivered to Singapore.

[PNGMK]

We run at about a 10% loss rate for normal airmail....

[x9200]

10% is a lot. I buy frequently from Ebay and all together the miss rate is probably below 5% what mostly includes dishonest China sellers. From the UK, I don't really recall any major issues or even any missed parcel unless it was sent not by a normal airmail but a courier services involving speedpost.

[Pinshot]

Well it was sent signed for if that helps. Still no update. Really pisses me off as I have to leave Hong Kong tomorrow and I know they only hold undelivered mail for 7 days. Probably going to have have to fly back just to collect this parcel!

[Pinshot]

Is it possible customs has it and they don't tell you for whatever reason?

[sundaymorningstaple]

I've had over 700 packages in the past 7 years delivered to me via eBay and Amazon (both US and occasionally UK) as well as some other online providers in the US and UK. To date, I've never had a package go missing. I had a couple take a few detours and took 3 months to arrive, but arrive they did (one in a truck in a snowbank in Montana in the middle of the winter) another because the seller though he'd save some money and sent it via standard Sea Mail (actually his mother did that) it was supposed to be standard CA airmail and yes, CA still uses seamail as well! but I did eventually get the package. Singapore, I've found, is generally pretty good with mail. Although they do get lazy and often tend to just leave a card in the mailbox thereby forcing you to make a trip to the PO to pick up the package. I have no complaints.

I agree with x9200. I also find packages generally take 8 to 14 days (either from the US or the UK - UK usually less one day on the min/max). The only time this goes out of whack is from the 15th of December to around the 15th of January due to the heavy holiday volume.

[x9200]

Is it possible customs has it and they don't tell you for whatever reason?

Yes. Whether at customs or not, it happened to me many times that a number of parcels were delayed by a few weeks and after some time they were all delivered almost in one batch.

What you can do is to authorise somebody to collect it for you. Write on a piece of paper that you Pinshot (NRIC/FIN), authorises Pinshot's Substitute (NRIC/FIN) to collect a parcel with tracking No (No), date, your signature. You may want to call Singpost to check whether they have a suitable form. If this is going to work, no guaranty, but if you do nothing, it is not going to work for sure.

[Pinshot]

Slight update it now says it's arrived from overseas and on route to next processing centre. I'm guessing it would be 48-72 hours from now before delivery. And I'll be gone by 11am tomorrow. At least I now know it isn't lost.

Thanks for the replies and help.