When swapping won't work

I'm sorry to hear this, I would be nervous too.
But you need to take int consideration the bloody
volcano on Iceland, air-mail hasen't been active
for quite a while now ... give it a couple of days,
maybe it'll arrive in Romania?

All my swaps have been good ones, but I've also
only swapped with Americans.

I've not swapped with anyone on here, but I have posted to Poland on the 1st April and Germany and Netherlands on the 3rd April and they have not arrived yet. I'm also waiting for items from Italy. They were actually sent back to the shop because there was no flight to carry them across to the UK, so it's a case of waiting.....

I'm sorry to hear that Madame! I would suggest that you use registered post when dealing with some of the Balkan/Eastern European countries.

As for my own personal experience, the only noteworthy hair-raising exchanges have been:

1. A tracked package sent to Russia which took almost a month to arrive. (But it arrived!)
2. A registered package sent to Argentina that was opened and the contents switched for cheap costume jewellery; then sealed and delivered!

And what country is that exactly, I've been wondering for quite some time now!


I guess you'll have to return the goods soon, to come off trustworthy.
Too bad you'll have to do so, but better that than a spotted rep.
If your package then showes up in Romania in a month or so, we can only
hope, that she'll send your swapped goods to you once again!

But as long as she is OK with it, then wait. She'll probably see this thread too,
and see your genuine concern. I would be nervous for bad feed, though!

I think its important to be sure that your terms of sale make it clear that you will or won't offer compensation if lost/damaged or stolen.
Personally, I offer the buyer the option of registered post which will offer them some sort of compensation. If the offer is forgone, I'm afraid what happens to the parcel is out of my control, and compensation is neither offered nor implied.

As a seller you have to protect yourself as well. For as many dodgy sellers there are out there, there are probably a handful of dodgy buyers too.
Im not suggesting this is what has occurred in your case at all, but I'm just sayin'.

I think you all should not swap in europe for a while, cause most parcels are sent via air mail. And cause of the volcano ash cloud from Iceland, most flights have been canceled, it's a major problem.

oh and..."ground mail" is very often actually "air mail". They don't always respect the indications. Most parcels are actually sent by plane.

I sold a few fragrances to a lovely BN'er from Romania, and my package took less than a week to arrive. I guess yours didn't because of travel chaos and whatnot. Give it time and hopefully all will go well!

I have never attempted a swap before but it seems to me that in the absence of a pre-arranged course of action as Dimitri describes, returning the item you received back to the sender would be an honorable thing to do.

You should wait a reasonable amount of time, perhaps even longer now given the mail situation throughout Europe, to ensure that your package did not hit some kind of unexpected processing delay but yeah, it seems like the right thing to do.

After you send the perfume back to her, I do however think it would be incredibly classy of the other lady to send you a decant of the scent that she just got back from you. You both attempted to swap in good faith and though neither of you will have gotten quite what you wanted, it will mitigate your loss somewhat--which is undoubtedly the greater of the two if you return her original bottle to her.

Just a thought.

That's a fair point, actually, and one I had not considered. Hmm...that would leave you both unaccountably, if equally, screwed.

I am sorry, right now I cannot think of a more equitable solution than the one I proffered, wherein both of you (conceivably) end up with something. This is an aside but as someone who is assiduously avoiding law school for as long as possible, the question of what constitutes justice here interests me. I will give this some more thought today and see if I can come up with something better.

In short term re: your situation, I can only advise sitting tight and hoping that little package finds its destination in the big world.

I have been swapping here on BN for several years now and my experiences have been various -- from very good and very fast to damaged, hidden and lost (no DHL reference, mind you!).

Good: packages from Norway to the USA come fast. Sometimes they had been opened up and then sealed up again with a nasty orange tape "Customs control" but with the contents all intact and that included full and partial bottles as well as samples and decants. That same person once sent me a $100 dollar bill tucked into the greeting card in the simple envelope, all arrived safely and quick.

Not so good: One package sent by me to Italy got lost and it was Dr.T and TS's book. Another package sent to Italy was a pain in the you know where: I had to e-mail the recipient the so called Proforma Invoice stating that the goods inside the package are per Customs Declaration only and do not bear any commercial value, i.e. they are not being sold or purchased by any of the parties. Thanks goodness, they were only related to perfumes and not perfumes per se. The package was mailed out in July 2009 and the recipient notified me that it arrived about 2 weeks after that but received it in late December 2009 -- it took 5 months for it to mainly sit in the Customs Warehouse.

Back in 2006 one British BNer claimed that she had mailed out the package with a few decants to my home address -- we were living in TX back then -- and I have never received it. Then she said she would mail another package with compatible contents and I have not heard from her since. I have never left any feedback, but she posts about twice a year now and I quit waiting for a package or asking about it.

Just before the volcano in Iceland's mess, we had a swap-like exchange with a few rare and in some cases irreplaceable samples traveling from the Americas to Europe, this side of the ocean's sender was from Canada and received his pacakge in October. He said he mailed it out in early December 2009 and it only reached Iceland in early April. The Iceland recipient informed me that the dates on the package were showing it was mailed out in February. This is still a mystery == whether a Canadian sender is not telling the whole story (personally, I would like to believe he is a man of his word though) or the Canadian Royal Mail let the package sit somewhere in the office or docks for over two months before they even started processing it.

Another package in the another "Send it on"-type of an exchange was supposed to be sent from Oklahoma to Switzerland, also back in November 2009. The Oklahoman sender has never logged in ever since -- although the business she is trying to run and promoted in her posts' signature is evidently doing fine, as goods (connected with scented products for home and bath) are being both shipped and received, and this same shipper has never left her reviews/opinions of the items in exchange -- and the Swiss recipient says she has never received anything.

I have swapped over a hundred times, with three notable failures: Twice my end never arrived from Romania. Once my end never arrived in Italy.

And good news, my Duckie-duke-iness! The Chanel No. 19 EDP is at the post office awaiting my trembling hands! (your sample will soon be on its way! I know you "don't care" but I wanted to let you know... I'm so excited it's arriving!)

As to other swaps and the OP's post, Your Mileage May definitely Vary... I'm sure some folks just "space out" and forget... others are less reliable... there is some unreliability-factor (perhaps a bad reputation) with Eastern European countries, though I've never had a problem myself. And the Italian Post... correct me here, Italian members... I believe it has a reputation for not guaranteeing the delivery of anything. (deserved or not...) Again, I've never had problems with Italian transactions.

Customs may be to blame, obviously some corruption may as well. (but I'm not saying anything new here so I'll be quiet now.)

Well, not quite quiet.

I'd say ask the swapper to give it a couple more weeks (or even a month, I have had things sit in customs for weeks!) and then discuss the return. Not a pleasant situation, unless the items show up soon on her end!)

I would guesstimate that I've swapped 40 times-many decant and sample swaps-and my problems have been few, and resolved so far-the largest decant swap I had with a Fragrantica friend in Slovakia never reached her-I lost a lot of juice!-and I received a badly packed, thus leaking bottle from a swap in Bosnia very late...I didn't know this before, but you can use the number on the customs form to find out whether a package was delivered-at least whether it passed the customs in the destination country, I think. I like Emlynevermore's idea for resolving the swap.Your situation is unfortunate Madame du Barry! Keep us updated how you come to a resolution. I feel more and more inclined to choose to swap decants only when I learn about these international swapping nightmares....

What do you mean, I don't care?!
I'm looking very much forward to
trying this one out for real, madame!
If I had been a good Christian I would
even have said 'bless you'..!

Ah, Duckie...

Bless you is a given for me... LOL... had you said it I likely would not have noticed!

Yes, the Chanel will soon be winging its way Duc...ward.

LOL

What about Boosh...ward?
Ner hasn't got the same ring to it

Yeah...so I thought about it and am unable to come up with anything better.

Obviously shipping issues are part and parcel, so to speak, of the swapping process and your specific situation falls under the category of "inherent risk". While the return-to-sender/receive-decant option is less than either of you deserve, at least it doesn't leave one person feeling completely shafted (or empty-handed).

I hasten to add here that it is way too early to genuinely panic about the whereabouts of your shipment, seeing as how humans are still finding it very difficult to make their way from one end of Europe to the other just now.

May this all work out for the best, Mme. du Barry. I would venture to say we all would like to hear how this ends. Good luck!

I'm so sorry to hear this, your Grace.
I sure as hell hope things will turn out
right ... someday!

tee hee, Madame! Mais oui!

Reine

I bet some Romanian postmans wife is smelling goooood these days!