Questions re Club Correos

Mine come straight to my door,, I love it,, I write my passport number on the bill of lading and get my packages,, don't have to drag them home on the bus,, or pay for a taxi.  I like it.

BobH wrote:

I know that several people here have mentioned using Club Correos for receiving mail/items from the US. I am planning to do the same, but would like to know if there are any gotchas that I should consider.

One question I can't seem to get answered on their website is whether I have to have items delivered to my home or if I can pick them up at a location here in Quito. Is anybody doing something like that? I would feel more secure not having home delivery, even if it would be less convenient.

Bob

I have a p.o. box at the Post office in Cuenca and pick up my packages there.  I do know people who use their home address and havenŽt had any problems.  It does require carrying the stuff home with me, but the majority of the time they fit in my backpack.

Thanks. I set up my account just now, using my new address.

Interesting thing in the registration process -- they ask for cedula or passport number. I entered my passport number, and the system refused to take it. Tried again -- message: "La CI o Pasaporte debe tener 10 caracteres" (must be ten characters). Problem is, my passport number is nine characters.

Hmmm ... so I added a zero to the beginning of the number.

BobH wrote:

Hmmm ... so I added a zero to the beginning of the number.

Things can get a little sticky when docs don't line up exactly.  One number different and you are a different person (cedula).  When you get your cedula I would immediately change it to my cedula number. Explanations frequently fall on deaf ears.  At least that is my experience.

Mike

BobH wrote:

Thanks. I set up my account just now, using my new address.

Interesting thing in the registration process -- they ask for cedula or passport number. I entered my passport number, and the system refused to take it. Tried again -- message: "La CI o Pasaporte debe tener 10 caracteres" (must be ten characters). Problem is, my passport number is nine characters.

Hmmm ... so I added a zero to the beginning of the number.

If I recall, before I got my cedula, I had sent them an email and they had told me to add a zero to my passport number.  Probably doesnŽt  matter before or after.

Thanks -- I figured this would just be a short-term fix. As you suggest, Mike, I'll change the number as soon as I get my cedula. If the Illinois State Police ever get their act together, that shouldn't be long.

I wonder why they require ten digits if nine is the norm for US passports (which presumably are the bulk of the passports they would encounter). Why wouldn't they set up their system to accept nine or ten digits (or whatever other formats are commonly used for passports)?

Silly me, expecting a government to do something sensible -- why didn't the US test the healthcare.gov database before going live?

Club correos does indeed work as I am using it. But it is iodiosyncratic and the website is not being well maintained. You can receive parcels at your home address or at a major post office, or even at a PO Box address in Ecuador. Once you get the hang of it, it is a service well worth using, but the first time you use it may be a little frustrating.
Russell Eaton
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deliveredonline.com

I registered a couple weeks and now I can not seem to get back to web page to get info about PO Box number in US and to find out where they will deliver packages to.  I would appreciate any guidance to the web page.  The one I am getting is the one from gov.  Thanks

this link takes you to the login page. hope it helps,
Russell Eaton
www.deliveredonline.comhttp://econcargoecuador.net/clientes/index.php

With the Club Correos, your packages are delivered to a PO Box office, my question here is do you pay for their service as well as the yearly charge for the PO Box,

Gavilanes Evelyn wrote:

With the Club Correos, your packages are delivered to a PO Box office, my question here is do you pay for their service as well as the yearly charge for the PO Box,

Your packages can be delivered to your home as well, or at least an apartment buidling where there is a security guard to drop them off with.  My ex-neighbor gets shipments to his apartment periodically.

Club Correos charges around $13 a year for the Miami p.o. box which is separate from the cost of the p.o. box in Ecuador, which runs me about $23 a year here in Cuenca.

That worked , Thank you.

In my experience, saying that the Club Correos system is "idiosyncratic" and can be "a little frustrating"
is an understatement.

I have been successfully ordering stuff from companies via the Internet for 20 years and have never encountered such a cluster**** as the Club Correos-Econcargo cabal, their user-unfriendly websites and their poor excuse for
customer service.

Due to my inability to upload online into their system and their lack of proper customer support, five packages addressed to me from a single USA shipper months ago have been languishing in the Econcargo warehouse in Miami.

I believe I need someone in Quito who has successfully used the Club Correos system to sit down with me at a computer and assist in dislodging those packages,-- specifically in uploading facturas -- and possibly teach me how to deal with the system's requirements so I can do it  myself going forward.

Please, someone, help! 

I am willing to pay for this service.

Okay, I will be glad to show you how to to do it. 

And you don't have to pay me.

Denise Toepel

Denise..

You  probably received some messages that I tried to reach you on the phone the last couple of days.

Maybe it would be simpler in the short run to try communicating via expatblog messaging..

Please let me know how you are doing and on what day(s) you might be available for the task at hand,
i.e. Club Correos.

When I know this, I can endeavor phoning you again concerning transportation and time of meetup.

Hank Dolmatch in Quito

I finally figured out how to download the facturas and upload them to the Correos website.

     In fact, I even managed to pay via Paypal for each of the four shipments.

    I believe this will enable the system to send me my four packages to Quito.

    The fifth package still needs to be returned from Miami to the original shipper, and I am working on that now.
I have the return label provided by the shipper and the box may already have been sent back to its origination point.

    If I need further assistance, I may be back in touch about this.

   Hank Dolmatch

Finally, just today, I have resolved the last of the issues involving my five packages that were originally shipped from the USA last Thanksgiving.
   End result:  three packages were delivered to me at my condo in Quito.
Two never made it to me.
   The original shipper, Amason, stepped up bigtime and refunded $185 I had spent on a package that may still be stuck at the Econcargo warehouse in Miami.  Econcargo outright refused to send Amason a fax confirming non-delivery to Ecuador (not sent to Ecuador due to weight and customs issues re vitamins) and, despite my requests for this refusal, I never got a reasonable explanation.
    The fifth package also contained (8 bottles of) vitamins.  Despite an urgent message I sent to Econcargo flagging the vitamin problem and asking them to hold the vitamins in Miami, they ignored that and sent them anyway, and sure enough, there were problems at Ecuadorian customs in Quito.
    Customs sent me two forms:  one to sign if I wanted to obtain the package, the other if I wanted to "abandon" it in favor of the Ecuadorian government.  The catch was that if I signed the first form I would have to obtain a "sanitary" form from an agency called SENAE.  If the paperwork wasn't filed timely, I could be hit with a
$170 fine (on about 30 dollars worth of vitamins) "mas impuestos."
    Rather than drag this into a 9th month and risk the wrath of Ecuador's formidable bureaucracy, I signed the abandonment form so I could take a break from Econcargo and the rest of the gang -- Club Correos, EC customs and the shipping team.
    Again, kudos to Amason for making me whole on the main package.
    Econcargo so-called servicio al cliente sucks, except for this one lady, Mrs. Pauchi, who seems to know a thing or two about customer service.  However, if some small detail of your package is amiss, Econcargo is unavoidable because they are the contracted package forwarder for Club Correos-Correos del Ecuador.
    Club Correos presented two major problems:  the website is confusing if you don't know much about computer uploading and downloading...and it was virtually impossible to get through to their people on the phone, even after meeting them in person on my several trips to their Quito offices.

BobH wrote:

I know that several people here have mentioned using Club Correos for receiving mail/items from the US. I am planning to do the same, but would like to know if there are any gotcha's that I should consider.

Once upon a time -- Feb. 26, 2014 -- Original Poster BobH asked about Club Correos "gotchas."

Since then, in posts on this thread and the $42-tariff thread, I have documented my sad experience attempting to deal with the failed "Club" and their "gotcha's."

Last night (1-21-2015), finally, after four months(!), the package of personal family photos and letters from my late mother's estate -- mailed from New York by my sister on September 16, 2014 -- was delivered to my condo security-desk by the Correos system.

Four months of waiting for a delivery:  there's your "gotcha," Bob!

Along the way, there was a delay in Quito from late November to sometime in December during which the wily dogs of SENAE (Ecuadorian customs) extracted $42 from me for this supposedly-exempt documents package -- the new tariff being charged on UPS and other private courier shipments, including Club Correos shipments.

Also in November my one-year membership in Club Correos came to an official end -- not to be renewed.

And then Correos stopped responding to my emails for weeks, moved the shipment around from postal building to building in Quito, before finally getting it right yesterday.

cccmedia in Quito

@cccmedia

Can you give some insight into how Ecuador mail works? Just regular mail, not goods.

We plan on using a mail forwarding service in the US to deal with our mail, and then forward on to EC any important mail that comes in.

Just thinking about it, I don't remember ever seeing a mailman in Ecuador.

gardener1 wrote:

@cccmedia

Can you give some insight into how Ecuador mail works? Just regular mail, not goods.

We plan on using a mail forwarding service in the US to deal with our mail, and then forward on to EC any important mail that comes in.

The system is opaque.

Most of the problems I have experience have been package-related, so I have little understanding of the workings of regular-mail delivery. 

On several occasions I have been to postal buildings in Quito trying to obtain packages.   I have never been allowed past the lobbies.

SENAE (Customs) typically does not communicate directly to a mail customer, so you are getting second-hand communications from Correos instead, to pay some tariff or customs penalty.

The package forwarding service Correos uses in Miami, Econcargo, has been historically poor in customer service, and IMO their website is user-unfriendly.  None of which enables a customer to understand the workings of the system.

Of course, the whole situation is further obscured by the fact that they're an ESL crowd.  So you get email responses that are written in fractured English, and often lack the clarity that a native English speaker would provide.

I applaud your decision to use a U.S.-based mail delivery service, although as far as I know, that's more necessary for package delivery than regular mail. 

In recent months, a document in a business envelope being sent to me in Quito via regular mail by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania never arrived, and I have no idea why not.

cccmedia in Quito

One thing I have not figured out and have asked about here before, is receiving bank card replacements.

As we are all aware there are an increasing number of various hacking incidents, both at the financial source and the point of sale, which will trigger the cancellation of current cards and the issuance of new cards.

Also the usual replacement of normally expiring cards. I know all of our credit cards and debit cards have a 2 year expiration, so every 2 years they issue a replacement. And they always send the replacement cards by mail.

I've talked to our bank and credit card providers about the replacement card problem if living in south America, and they always tell me, oh they'll just mail the card to my Ecuador address. I'm pretty sure that's not a good plan.

So I figured to use a mail forwarding service from the US. They have a regular street address rather than some just some box number. They'll sort through the mail, throw away the junk, and send on the needed mail. But just because they send it doesn't guarantee delivery does it?