A Botched Robbery / Rebeca Monzo

A friend from Spain sent me a package in the mail, on July 6th, containing medicines, two cell phones, one for myself and the other one for another person, with their corresponding chargers, three flash drives, and some office supplies.

The package arrived in less than fifteen days. When I was notified of its arrival, I went to pick it up to the Ministry of Communications facilities. At the moment that the package was handed to me, the employee noticed that outside of the box protected by a transparent plastic from the TransVal Company, was a loose cell phone battery. After we opened it up to look at its content, we saw that the two cell phones declared on the original invoice were missing. Only the batteries were left (botched robbery) whose models corresponded to the different brands, and the empty box of one of them.

The box arrived with an expected note saying: Unfortunately your shipment arrived at our services with damages to its packaging.

I immediately went to make my claim to the Technical Department of the Postal Zone Six for Services to the Population. There, they also charged me $25.00 pesos. I don’t know if that was because of my mismanagement or what.

It is assumed that the mail is inviolable, and especially when the contents have been declared to the pertinent authorities. How is it possible that accidentally all packages, including mail, even a simple magazine from a foreign university, get here damaged, and come along with the obviously expected note?

Right there, an employee, very kindly, informed me that if I wanted to, I could go to Calle 100 and Boyeros, where all the packages arrive before they are processed by the Ministry of Communications, but the problem was that they did not serve the public there. This seemed a joke to me, but the woman told me this very seriously.

I decided to write a letter, to explain this story with every detail, and send it to the Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) Newspaper, which has a section called Acknowledgment of Receipt, where they use to receive and publish this type of complaint. What turns out to be ridiculous and deplorable is the botch of the robbery.

Translated by: Nina

July 23 2011