Exactly right, Peter. Baron's stuff always showed up eventually, and usually in less than the average ridiculous delay from Holland. I thought this might be because after a time the US customs agents became familiar with Renaissance as a frequent shipper and figured that if the first hundred of his parcels they opened didn't contain any drugs, probably the next one didn't either. But I bought an eBay frame from Holland last September that never did show up, just dropped into the black hole of the US Customs Service. The seller did refund my money, and hopefully obtained a refund from the carrier. Anyone remember the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", when the unmarked wood crate containing the Ark is stacked by a fork lift on a warehouse shelf in a US Government warehouse a mile long filled with identical crates, never to be seen again? I imagine the same thing happened to my frame. The problem here is total lack of accountabliity on the part of the US Customs Service. They may have some sort of targets in terms of the quantity of contraband intercepted, but evidently they have absolutely no standards or accountability for delays caused or for keeping the delays within reasonable limits. Nothing short of firing several top Customs officials for incompetence and abuse of the public, which is virtually impossible with the Civil Service system, is ever going to help the situation.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
"kohl57@starpower.net" <kohl57@starpower.net> wrote: We've discussed here before and it's obviously worth repeating: packages, of any size or any value, from the Netherlands to the United States can an d often are delayed by United States Customs. Not by anyone else. This h as happened to many people on this list. It's happened to me twice, one wit h Renaissance Cycles and once with the eBay seller of my '75 Raleigh Team Pro. There is absolutely no way to get around such delays. They just happen.
The easiest way to avoid dealing with this is simply not to do business with anyone in the Netherlands. Now, you'd be a silly twit if you did th at in my opinion as folks like Renaissance Cycles and many Dutch eBay sellers
are just super people with fab "stuff". If you don't want fab stuff and deal with nice people and must have everything in 72 hours, you're all set . Patience is indeed a virtue. Especially when you consider the stuff you are waiting for is already 35 years old. A few more months ain't goin' hurt.
Peter Kohler Washington DC USA
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