The unfortunate case of my book+shirt order from Microsoft's company store
Posted: (EET/GMT+2)
On July 19th, I made an order from Microsoft's Company Store which included some books, t-shirts, and similar. It was only today when I received my 15 lbs worth of stuff, even on UPS Express delivery. An unfortunate series of events took place, but even so, the UPS tracking listing is quite interesting reading:
| Location | Date | Local Time | Description |
| HELSINKI, FI | 08/07/2007 | 6:56 A.M. | IMPORT SCAN |
| HELSINKI, FI | 07/23/2007 | 9:33 A.M. | CLEARING AGENCY IS REQUIRING AN INVOICE COMPARISON TO THE ITEMS BEING SHIPPED / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED |
| 07/23/2007 | 7:10 A.M. | OUT FOR DELIVERY | |
| 07/23/2007 | 7:09 A.M. | IMPORT SCAN | |
| MALMO STURUP, SE | 07/23/2007 | 3:57 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 07/23/2007 | 3:06 A.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| PHILADELPHIA, PA, US | 07/20/2007 | 7:07 A.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN |
| LOUISVILLE, KY, US | 07/20/2007 | 7:00 A.M. | ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS CAUSED THIS DELAY |
| 07/20/2007 | 5:40 A.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN | |
| 07/20/2007 | 12:33 A.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| HAPEVILLE, GA, US | 07/19/2007 | 11:07 P.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 07/19/2007 | 8:54 P.M. | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| ROSWELL, GA, US | 07/19/2007 | 8:40 P.M. | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 07/19/2007 | 8:35 P.M. | ORIGIN SCAN | |
| US | 07/19/2007 | 4:46 P.M. | BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED |
For instance, I've never seen such an exception being made, nor the reference to bad weather. But most interestingly, the trouble was caused by the not-so-clever mess the Finnish Customs caused. Even though the delivery address was "c/o" ("care of") my employer, they figured out that my employer was the payer of all taxes and duties, which it of course wasn't, since I ordered the stuff to myself only. Secondly, the customs demanded the original invoice from my company, as the commercial invoice from eCompanyStore (the company hosting the Microsoft Company Store) prints on the invoice in capital letters: "This is not an invoice for payment". Which is perfectly fine, as Microsoft pays the taxes and duties, and the delivery term is DDP, meaning Deliver Duty Paid, and Incoterm (short for International Commercial Terms).
All in all, I'm not very happy with the Finnish Customs, but this isn't the first time. They made two mistakes this time: failing to understand what the very common term "c/o" means, and secondly failing to understand the DDP term. But that's enough ranting, as there's an happy ending to the case. :-)