I have a package that was sent from England stuck in Chicago’s customs facility for over two weeks now. The seller and myself have not recieved any notice as to why. Anyone else who has gone through this have any tips, or numbers I can try. The customs phone number I tried takes me on an automated loop, ultimately putting me on hold for I dont know how long (I was informed by the automation if I was being put through to an agent, hold music just began playing and I sat and waited for 45 minutes before hanging up).
My Blokas MidiHub was in Chicago for over 3 weeks before it made its way down to Austin.
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I just need to stop googling what to do. Its like when you go on Web MD for an ache or something and all roads lead to death. Same thing here. All horror stories of long drawn out struggles between customs and the mail services. I just need to wait I guess.
Unfortunately you’ll just wait in the dark for a bit. I sent a package overseas to London from NYC and had no tracking info for weeks! Customs is basically a black hole!
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So strange/frustrating how little accountability it has in this day and age.
Absolutely!! That’s why I stopped buying and selling gear from other countries. The not knowing is too stressful!!!
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so it’s not in the postal system yet — just customs? i had to file a missing package case with the usps last summer. they followed up, i got calls from real people. they eventually closed the case, i assumed it was just gone, and it arrived at my door. if customs has it, i’m not sure what to tell you. there should be recourse, but our government is having “issues” right now. sorry…
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I’ve had various things stuck in customs for weeks, and one time it was almost a month. They always made it to me eventually. My only suggestion is patience.
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I should add that it seems to vary depending on the country it is coming from, and the method of shipping. It’s always seemed like USPS packages take a bit longer. Whereas I have ordered from Thomann a few times, which I think is in Germany, and shipped UPS or FedEx, and it gets to me faster than if I had ordered it from a store in California.
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lol, so damn true!
yeah unfortunately you have to just be patient. and don’t think for a second this is because of C19 or anything; they’ve always been awful. I remember sending a vintage Minimoog to Canada back in 2010 and it disappeared at the border for a month. it’s literally a black hole.
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my package was stuck in Chicago for 2 weeks but will be arriving today 
I was pissed!!! but had to calm down and realize the whole situation we have.
I was let go from my job twice in 2 months because of covid-19, so I get it.
off topic but, I just bought a package from siammodular.com recently & that ones going to take waaay longer then my first one (Thailand>Germany>UK>?>?>Chicago)
my patience is thinning but working
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That facility in Chicago must be a massive warehouse, if you think of the amount of stuff shipped every day and then pictures how large a three week buffer for that pipeline really is. I’ve had more than a few items sent via the regular postal service that dropped off radar there – but they all reappeared – except for one.
That was a weird one ...
… it was a CD sent to me from Wisconsin to Western Michigan. So that’s all domestic USA and not very far. It should never have gone to that facility. So i tracked the shipment, and asked the seller, what the story was, why was the package in customs. They said they weren’t responsible for shipping problems. Finally weeks later the package got freed up … and went to Toronto Canada – and then on to some rural address in NewFoundland – i kid you not. The seller had no explanation, they clearly put the wrong address on the package, and gave the tracking data to me – but they denied all that. They actually got belligerent and i had to fight to get my money back.
So that wasn’t the fault of the facility in Chicago either.
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Guys…that is nothing…some ppl waited 3 years for their Cirklon to arrive…
SCNR
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What form of postage was it sent from the UK? I recently purchased sonething from a fellow member from the UK and it arrived in under 9 days, through Chicago. I have an SSL Fusion set to arrive today, it was ordered 5 days ago from a UK based retailer. (Yay it arrived while typing this!)
Anyway, this doesn’t help the current situation, but as expedited a service as offered is always ideal. I think expedited shipping methods push standard shipments back in processing queue. Every day an expedited load arrives to customs, lesser rated services get pushed back. In a heavy shipment period like Covid has produced, this means more and more processing delays to keep up on priority shipments. Considering Media based mail from West coast to Mid west are taking 16-20 days, I can only imagine customs backlog is upwards of 6-8 weeks right now.