How to Post things to Italy

You might think that mailing something to Italy would be as simple as popping it in a letter box.  You would be wrong though, for this is often when the trouble starts.

I’ve lost count of the number of stories I’ve heard from expats in Italy who have lost things in the post here.  More often than not it is items sent to Italy which tend to disappear into the ether.  I know, I have had direct experience of this.  Two things which stick in my mind are a Christmas card which never arrived, and a few humble pairs of Marks and Spencer’s socks which my mum sent to me a few years back.  Said socks never made it to my house in Italy.  Yes, I know that these items were not life threateningly important, but losing them was annoying, and others have lost much more valuable items.

Other more costly items which I have heard of that have gone astray include a watch, and a Play Station, plus many other things which simply never arrived at their destinations in Italy.

It’s not just sending things to Italy which can be haphazard, but also sending items out of Italy.  Whether or not the letters, packs and parcels reach their destination tends to be down to chance.  I cannot say whether it is Italian postal workers who take a shine to whatever people are sending to one another, or whether it is the postal people in the countries through which the post passes, but I have my suspicions with regard to Italy’s post people.

This how-to post, if you’ll excuse the postal pun, may help you avoid losing things to Italy’s rather erratic postal system.

Covert Operations

A Boring Envelope

Red envelopes shout ‘rip me open!’.

When sending simple things like greeting cards, do not use that flashy red or sky blue envelope that it came in from the card shop.  No, pop the card in an envelope of the nice ordinary buff brown variety, like the one on the left.

If you like, you can put still put that card in its original glorious technicolor envelope, as long as both are placed in an  anonymous- looking boring brown envelope.

The dull brown envelope creates the impression that the contents are official, and thus of little or no value.  This discourages tampering, especially when there are all those other nice bright red and sky blue envelopes to tinker with.

Mail workers are wise to the fact that colourful envelops from overseas may well contain cheques or, even better, cash.

Box It! Feel It!

If you can understand what is in a pack from feeling it, then you can be dead certain that someone else will too, especially someone who makes a living handling parcels.

To keep curious hands from understanding whether something is worth stealing, if you are sending them to Italy, pop items like DVDs, CDs or clothes in a rigid cardboard box.  Otherwise the chances of these things mysteriously evaporating will be considerably higher.

Hold your horses for a moment. Resist the urge to rush off to the mail box, as you are still not ready to post something to Italy.  Please read on.

Print that Address

Scribbling the target address on that ordinary envelope or parcel is a no-no.  Hand written addresses are a dead give-away.  They shout ‘personal‘, ‘gift’, and ‘money‘.

Instead, invest in those self-adhesive labels you can run through an ink jet or laser printer, and print that address.  Use a formal looking font, too.  Printed addresses add to the ‘this is official’, and thus of no value impression.

In case you can’t be bothered to take a trip down to the local stationers or computer shop to buy those self-adhesive labels, a piece of white paper on which the address has been printed, and which is then taped or, better, glued to a boring brown envelope could be used as a do it yourself sticky label alternative.

You could, of course, simply print the address directly onto your envelope, if your printer is able to do this.

Still not ready just yet though.  There is the address itself.

Send it to a Business Address

From experience, I have discovered, well, my parents have, that sending a parcel, card or letter to a business address, which means a company name with ‘Srl’, ‘SpA’, or ‘SAS’ after it in Italy, tends to build upon the impression that the contents are probably boring stuff like brochures or a report.  This little distraction technique keeps those who love to tamper from fiddling with the more obviously personal packages.  You know, the ones in bright red, pink or pretty flowery envelopes, Christmas packing paper, or the things that can be squeezed.

Cards disguised as official mail can probably be sent to home addresses in Italy quite safely using the boring brown envelope and printed label trick.  Well, this works for me.

Register and Insure the Item

To add some icing to the cake, sending your item by recorded/registered post (and insuring it) also seems to help ensure (but does not guarantee) that whatever it is you are posting will arrive at its destination in Italy.

Oh, and beware of writing just what is in the package on it to help those nice customs people – they should have X-ray machines anyway.  Write something anonymous like ‘books’ or ‘gift’, or whatever else you can think of which will broadly describe the contents without giving too much away.

The package containing the watch I mentioned at the beginning of this little how-to guide arrived at its destination – minus the watch, most probably because the sender wrote on the parcel just what it contained.  Indeed, I know for a fact that the sender did indeed write ‘watch’ on the pack.

Wait

Once you have actually sent the item off, be patient.  Posted items can take up to two weeks to pop through that Italian letter box.  Once the two weeks are up, start checking.

DHL, Fed Ex or TNT it

DHL it!

Last, but by no means least, if you really have to send something to Italy which is either highly important, very valuable, or extremely fiddly to replace, like a birth certificate for example, then use DHL, Fed Ex or TNT.

The cost will be high, but the chances of the package going astray will be greatly reduced.  But never, I repeat never, send raw cash to Italy this way, unless it is fully insured, and even then, it may well become lost, resulting in the long drawn out process of making a claim against the courier service’s insurance.

Sending Money

As stressed above – best avoid it, and simply do not send cash using normal postal services, especially not to or from Italy.

If you really must send money, either transfer it electronically via your bank, or use a service like Western Union.  A non-transferable cheque can be sent, as even if this never arrives, not much can be done with it – although the information on the check could end up in the hands of identity thieves, which is something to bear in mind.

There, I hope that helps.  The suggestions contained in this post are not foolproof, but should help ensure that the post to Italy really does get through, and arrives in one piece.  Similarly, sending items out of Italy will also benefit from a little ‘camouflage‘.

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any losses to report.  Please say whereabouts in Italy you are sending items to and from, if you do leave a comment – this might help us pin down the trouble spots.

I hope you found this post on the ‘post’ interesting.  Let me leave you with one final thought.

Ever wondered why Amazon has never set up shop in Italy?  Well, this post might explain why, in that I am willing to bet that Amazon would end up losing buckets of money as a result of high-ticket items never getting to where they were supposed to go in Italy.  I could be wrong, but…