Anyone shipping a scope form the US might want to read this

wally,
i think there is a form on their website that if you fill it in they give you a code for a company called gls. that is who delievers usps stuff in europe. had a parcel sort of disappear once that was supposed to be delievered by them. they send out letters asking if you want to accept any customs charges by post from germany for some reason mine went missing. i rang them up with the correct code and the parcel had been sitting in a warehouse in blanch for a week.
stephen.

That's exactly what happened to us and it literally took ages to track them down. We were getting some stuff in from Orion in the states and they thought everything was lost.

Ah yes, GLS. Three letters that should be permanently removed from the alphabet! They are a complete waste of time. I sometimes wonder if they actually know what a parcel looks like. If your don't live in a large town with a street and house number, then they just don't bother even trying. And even if you do, they'll still try and mess up your order. If getting anything expensive from the US, DO NOT get it sent via USPS. All USPS packages get sent from the US to Frankfurt in Germany where they get sorted per country. Then the Irish packages get sent to GLS. Their job is to deliver them in Ireland which is where the problems start. A few months ago I bought a nagler from the US. It went from New York --> Germany --> Dublin where they didn't bother to even try and deliver it. Thus after a few days, they sent it back to Germany and then put if on a ship back to the US. Approx 4 weeks later it arrived in the US. Here, it had to be resent back (with a tracking number to allow me to monitor it) which again involved rerouting it via Germany, who then decided to send it to Greece for some reason, before sending it on to me.

Michael et al,

I see references in this thread against using USPS. Any comments about EMS which I think is an expedited service of USPS? They promise delivery in 2-3 days anywhere in the world. I used them once and they seemed excellent.

I am expecting very shortly the arrival of the AP160 and the carrier to be used is something of great personal interest and the timing of this thread is perfect!

Anthony.

If I were getting a scope from the US (and it would be the only way I'd get a scope given the exchange rates), I'd get it send to Sherrod for supercharging and as he has experiance with shipping this stuff, I'd be fairly happy that I'd get it in one piece and in working order, imagine shipping these monsters back to the US in the case of a serious fault ! (presuming I'd get a meade of course).

Anthony,
I'm sure your mount will arrive alright. I haven't used EMS so can't comment. When USPS packages arrive in Greece, does the national postal service deliver it or does a private company handle it? Might be worth contacting them every couple of days to ensure timely delivery, especially with an AP160!!