The Serpost Blues

A little while ago, I finally walked out of the post office with my package in hand after a month-long battle with the pointless bureaucracy of the Peruvian postal service (Serpost). It has been an extremely long and frustrating process, and I will detail each visit, conversation, required document, and frustration below. For some background information, I was staying with my aunt in her house at the time the package was sent. The box had my name and my aunt's name clearly written on the front, but the customs form was in my aunt's name. The box contained clothes, some prescription medicine with prescription included, and a used cellphone.

 The final state of the package when I got it: bruised, stamped, and taped to high heaven.

June 24th: The package is sent through the US Postal Service, addressed to me at my aunt's address. The package had both my name and my aunt's name, but the customs form only had my aunt's name.

June 29th: The package arrives in Peru.

July 12th: A notice arrives at my aunt's house informing me that the package has arrived and giving the address and hours of the Serpost location where it is being held.

July 15th: First visit to Serpost. I go with Jorge during a lunch break, naively thinking I won't need to involve my aunt. At the post office, the security guard is only letting in those people who have packages in their name, so Jorge has to wait outside. The lady at the desk tells me that since the customs form is in my aunt's name, I have to get a notarized letter from her, or she has to come in person.

July 18th: My aunt (whose job as a nurse makes it difficult for her to get away during office hours) visits Serpost to collect the package. After waiting for around an hour, she is handed a stack of papers and told that I need to get permissions from two separate government agencies before they can release the package. No mention of this was made to me during my first visit.

July 24th: Jorge and I use our lunch break to visit the first government agency, the Ministry of Communications and Transportation. I'm not sure why, but I need a permission for bringing in the cell phone. The ministry is in a somewhat sketchy area far from work. All we can do today is collect the form because we need my aunt's signature. Then we go to the Ministry of Health to get permission for the medicine and probiotics in the package. Here, we wait for a half hour, and then are given a form to fill out as well as instructions that I must get a prescription from a Peruvian doctor for any medicine or supplements being brought into the country, even though the American prescription was included in the package.

Later that night, I take a picture of my aunt's identity card so I can print out a copy, and get her to sign the forms to bring back to the agencies.

July 25th: Luckily, I have to see a doctor anyway for a separate issue, so I decide to take care of the prescriptions. I explain my situation and show him an old prescription bottle, and he writes the prescriptions. He shakes his head and makes sympathetic noises about my situation. There's nothing like bureaucracy to pull people together.

Jorge uses his lunch hour to drop off the form at the Ministry of Communications and Transportation and is told that processing will take around five business days (it's Thursday, and this weekend is a long weekend because of Fiestas Patrias).

 All the required documents in one place

July 26th: Jorge bring the documents to the Ministry of Health because I don't have time off of work. After a few tense moments, he is told that everything is in order and the papers will be ready in two or three business days.

July 27th: (Saturday) This is the only day my aunt doesn't work, so we have to go to the notary together to get the letter. Because it's the Saturday of Fiestas Patrias weekend, there are very few notaries open and we are very lucky to find one. We are told that it will be ready on Tuesday around noon.

July 31st: Jorge picks up the letter from the notary because he is passing by the neighborhood. Then, because I can't get off work during business hours, he picks up the form at the Ministry of Health. It's the first day after the long weekend, so it's not ready. He (and everyone else waiting there in the same situation) complains, and after a half hour, a basket is brought out with all the approved and stamped forms.

August 1st: On a premonition, Jorge visits Serpost just to check that all our forms are in order. The person looks at everything and says that it's all ok except for one small detail: the notarized letter is addressed to Serpost, when it should be addressed to Sunat (the branch that deals with customs and regulations). This means that we will have to find another day that my overworked aunt can leave work so we can get another notarized letter.

August 5th: Jorge and I visit the Ministry of Communications and Transportation to pick up the form. This is quick, and we take advantage of our free afternoon to go to a well-known pollería nearby for some fantastic rotisserie chicken.

August 7th: My aunt says that she might be able to take time off today to go to a notary. Then she changes her mind and says that she'll come with us to Serpost just to get the damn thing over with.  She and Jorge meet there at noon, while I plan to join them after I get out of work at 1.  They are there without me for two hours, during which the Serpost agent demands to see the original prescriptions, even though we have the signed and stamped documents from the Ministry of Health. When Jorge asks why, the agent insults him and calls him names. Luckily, Jorge happens to have brought the original prescriptions so problems are avoided. Then after everything is approved, we have to wait for another 45 minutes for them to type up some documents. No kidding - 45 minutes to type a document. After that, finally, we are able to collect the package and go. In all, the Serpost visit took 3 hours.

 Finally!

I understand the need for following protocol. I can even understand asking for a permission to bring in an old cell phone. But what I just can't wrap my head around is the absolute disorganization of information and how incredibly unhelpful most of the Serpost employees were. Why did it take three separate visits for someone to tell me all the requirements? Why couldn't they tell me right away how to address the notarized letter, which permissions I needed, the fact that I needed to bring the original prescriptions, etc.? Either the employees are poorly trained and apathetic, or purposely being unhelpful. In either case, I can say that this has been the most frustrating experience I've ever had with any sort of official agency and I hope that in all my time in Peru I never have to set foot in a Serpost office again.