A shipping odyssey
A year or so ago, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shalmestere ordered a handmade medieval-style recorder from a maker in Germany. A month ago, she was informed that it was ready, and would be shipped upon payment to such-and-such bank account in Germany. Our credit union has an online bill-pay feature, but it only works with 9-digit US bank routing numbers as destinations; I called customer service, sat on hold for an hour or so, and was told that (a) what we need is a wire transfer, and (b) our credit union doesn't send wire transfers (although it's happy to receive them). I told the maker about this, and she suggested using Wise to transfer the money. So I tried that, and Wise's web site got hung in an infinite loop (I had a spinning progress indicator on my screen for twelve hours). I tried again several times over the next few days, with the same result. Wise customer service said the credit union was declining the payment due to lack of funds (which should be impossible, as I was using a credit card with plenty of credit limit). I switched browsers, and instead of an infinite loop I got a message saying the credit union was declining the payment. I switched credit cards, and got another infinite loop. So I tried a debit card instead (making sure there was enough money in that account first), and that finally worked. The recorder is on its way here.
So I looked at the UPS tracking info. Here's an excerpt:
02/18/2022 10:55 P.M. Export Scan Köln, Germany
02/19/2022 4:15 A.M. Departed from Facility Köln, Germany
02/18/2022 11:46 P.M. Cleared Import Customs Your package has cleared customs and is on the way.
02/19/2022 6:46 A.M. Arrived at Facility Newark, NJ, United States
The package cleared import customs in Newark 4-1/2 hours earlier (on the clock) than it left Köln. Köln's time zone is six hours ahead of Newark, so that's 1-1/2 hours later in "absolute" time. How does a package get from Köln to Newark in 1-1/2 hours? The Concorde couldn't do it that fast.
I guess they must do import customs inspections on the plane, and time-stamp them according to the destination time zone, even though they haven't actually gotten there yet. Eight and a half hours from Köln UPS depot to Newark UPS depot (I presume both of them are adjacent to their respective airports) makes more sense.
shalmestere ordered a handmade medieval-style recorder from a maker in Germany. A month ago, she was informed that it was ready, and would be shipped upon payment to such-and-such bank account in Germany. Our credit union has an online bill-pay feature, but it only works with 9-digit US bank routing numbers as destinations; I called customer service, sat on hold for an hour or so, and was told that (a) what we need is a wire transfer, and (b) our credit union doesn't send wire transfers (although it's happy to receive them). I told the maker about this, and she suggested using Wise to transfer the money. So I tried that, and Wise's web site got hung in an infinite loop (I had a spinning progress indicator on my screen for twelve hours). I tried again several times over the next few days, with the same result. Wise customer service said the credit union was declining the payment due to lack of funds (which should be impossible, as I was using a credit card with plenty of credit limit). I switched browsers, and instead of an infinite loop I got a message saying the credit union was declining the payment. I switched credit cards, and got another infinite loop. So I tried a debit card instead (making sure there was enough money in that account first), and that finally worked. The recorder is on its way here.So I looked at the UPS tracking info. Here's an excerpt:
02/18/2022 10:55 P.M. Export Scan Köln, Germany
02/19/2022 4:15 A.M. Departed from Facility Köln, Germany
02/18/2022 11:46 P.M. Cleared Import Customs Your package has cleared customs and is on the way.
02/19/2022 6:46 A.M. Arrived at Facility Newark, NJ, United States
The package cleared import customs in Newark 4-1/2 hours earlier (on the clock) than it left Köln. Köln's time zone is six hours ahead of Newark, so that's 1-1/2 hours later in "absolute" time. How does a package get from Köln to Newark in 1-1/2 hours? The Concorde couldn't do it that fast.
I guess they must do import customs inspections on the plane, and time-stamp them according to the destination time zone, even though they haven't actually gotten there yet. Eight and a half hours from Köln UPS depot to Newark UPS depot (I presume both of them are adjacent to their respective airports) makes more sense.
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