I used to work as a customer support agent for Amazon Germany. I received a call from a dude telling me his order is late. This is a standard issue, so I looked it up and I’ve noticed that the expected shipping time was more than a month and that his parcel is late for more than 10 days after the expected delivery date. That’s when I saw that he’s living in Vanuatu, an island country in the Pacific ocean.
This was highly unusual. He’s from a remote country which many people have never heard of, let alone met someone from there. Also, this was German Amazon, focused on customers from Germany and the EU, so his shipping fees alone were in the triple digits.
Nevertheless, I followed the standard procedure and I proceeded to give a call to the carrier to see what happened to the order. Apparently, the guy doesn’t even live on the main island, he lived on a small island with around 500 people on it, which was remote even for Vanuatu standards, so the carrier just left the parcel at the post office in the capital city and let them deliver it.
So I called the Vanuatuan post office and it was painfull to get information. Vanuatu doesn’t have zip codes and the operator at the post office isn’t sure where the customer’s island is, so I was constantly putting them on a hold to get specific info from the customer and then telling the operator and listening to the operator’s extra questions.
So, apparently, only once in two weeks the mail is being delivered to the customer’s island and that date has passed and the parcel is on the customer’s island for over a week now. In the end, the operator, despite being complicated, has helped me and gave me the phone number of the “post kiosk” on the customer’s island.
To keep a long story short, I called the number I was given (the conversation with the customer has been going on for around 15 minutes now) and the Vanuatuan version of a local mayor answered the phone, telling me that the only postman on the island has recently passed away and there’s no one to deliver any post, so they were waiting for a new guy to arrive from another island.
At this moment I was trying not to sound shocked by the bizzarity of the entire situation, so I resumed the call with the customer and tried to calmly say what happened like it’s a normal occurance and the customer replies me with “Oh, you’re right, I knew that guy…”
At this moment I was just like WTH IS HAPPENING!
This is a case I’m going to remember for the rest of my life. Since he didn’t call as instructed if he doesn’t get his parcel by the certain date, I believe he got his parcel in the end. If boxes could talk, this one would have an adventure to tell…
submitted by /u/gvinpi
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