I've been living in Budapest for about 3 months now and cannot seem to figure out how this works. My landlord is constantly receiving slips from the postal office that there is a package waiting for him.
I've not had to receive mail twice, once it was signed for mail which I never received a notice slip from( it was from abroad). I had to go to 3 post offices and basically beg them to look for it and lo and behold, they did have it.
This time I ordered something from the UK, but since tracked shipping would cost as much as the item I did not go for this option. Stupid mistake because it has now been past 3 weeks and still nothing. I even used my landlord's name for the addressee and still nothing.
Is it just me being unlucky with receiving mail from abroad or is this normal for Hungary?
Receiving mail in Hungary
Let me try to keep civil and just say the reliability is inhomogeneous...
Deliveries of parcels and letters can be quite a problem in Hungary. And not just with the Magyar Posta. And tracking does not always help: I once had a 2nd day DHL package that got stuck in Budapest and went undelivered for 3 weeks (despite numerous phone calls, we simply got an endless cavalcade of excuses for the delivery failure).
Use to have no problem with the post office. Then their quality started to slip. Put up with it for a while, but when I learned other people were getting some personal and rather important official letters, then I got annoyed. Then I got smart. And filed an official legal complaint in person (this is a legal right you can demand at the post office and they must comply). Scared the daylights out of them as this goes into the permanent record and very few Hungarians actually file official complaints, so when it is done it might be taken quite seriously. Was in my case at least. After that, my deliveries magically improved (at least for a while). Unfortunately the entire complaint process is done in Hungarian, so unless you are fluent it may not be an option.
UPS is the only delivery service so far in Hungary that has not failed me. But others may have different experiences.
So what would the best course of action be for now? Just wait it out or go to the post office and beg them again to check? My Hungarian is nowhere near fluent and I only know a few key words, but besides that I know nothing so filing a complaint would be pretty impossible I'm guessing.
It's just weird to see slips coming into the mailbox for so many letters to my landlord, but no packages from abroad.
Drinky wrote:So what would the best course of action be for now? Just wait it out or go to the post office and beg them again to check?
Unless you can get a Hungarian speaker to champion this issue for you, that is probably the only option.
Unfortunately, in Hungary you, the customer, is seen as a "guest" in a retail store or business. The customer is not king here. Some store owners in Hungary are the sweetest, kindest most generous people on the plant. And I have had some other shop owners be outright insulting (No soup for you!).
its not just you !!
i had a 'non delivery' slip, took it into the specified PostOffice 2 days later, and they said 'it'll be here in 10days for collection'....
luckily, i know enough Hungarian for him to see i was spitting the dummy :-O
HOWEVER, i took it to my local Posta [living in a village does help here], and she said that for 510forint, she could get it intercepted & redirected to an alternative address ... you jst have to make sure someone is there to give the postie the 510Ft .....
hope that might help
toby
oh, and that redirection was next working day too
The weird thing is, my parents sent me something from the Netherlands(signed for) this wednesday or thursday, and I got the delivery slip in my mailbox today(i'm home throughout the whole day most of the time but they just never ring the bell).
Anyway, that is supposed to be in the post office tomorrow for pickup. My package however still has to arrive to this date. I went to the post office and asked if they could look, but they told me they couldn't do anything without a tracking number. Funny thing, since this shipment isn't tracked...
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