I love backing things on Kickstarter and will do this for a long time. You get a chance to snag a product first, follow the production process and get exclusive behind-the-scene access to the creators.
What I don’t like sometimes is Croatia. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a beautiful country. However, the country is run by corruption and nepotism from day one which in turn results in absurd laws and other random bullshit. I won’t go into details because this would probably break some kind of world record but what I will go into details today is my conversation with DHL Croatia.
A few months ago I backed Keytron, a mechanical keyboard to replace my current one.
Successful campaign. Yes!
Production started. Now we’re cookin’!
Item shipped. Hell yeah!
Arrived in Croatia. Oh boy!
I got a “lovely” text message from DHL to fill out a form so they can put the package through customs.
I realized I now need an EORI number, so I filled out another form and got my EORI number the same day which is basically the country code + government ID number.
With all that I filled out the actual form and was then informed that I need to provide a receipt or any other thing that proves how much I paid for it.
I screenshot my pledge directly on Kickstarter but this wasn’t enough because there you don’t see the shipping cost. Shipping is pretty important because they also told me this (translated into English)
“The shipping amount has to be included, othewise, we have to add shipping amounts based on customs shipping tables to the total amount.
If shipping is free of charge it has to be written in letters (FREE) because customs don’t accept amounts of 0,00 as shipping amounts.”
Now fuck me with a broomstick!!!!
In a country where you can get government contracts for basically anything under $90,000 we won’t accept free shipping if it’s not explicitly written in letter. #fuckYouNumbers
I then started digging through my email account to find some kind of receipt where shipping was included.
I managed to dig up something. Fired up the windows snipping tool. Saved it. Send. That’s it.
Oh boy was I wrong!
Because of my remark: “This is all I have. I hope this helps.” I got the following email (again, translated into English)
“You should have received an e-mail with the confirmation for your order.
Without this, we can not continue with the import customs procedure.”
Now I am starting to get (really) pissed.
In my last effort in admitting defeat I took a screenshot of the entire screen to show her that this is the confirmation I got on my email.
I am now waiting for their response but hopefully the only thing I will get is my package.
I don’t want to throw rocks at DHL Croatia. I know they are just following the law. That’s why I love throwing shit at our Government just because they are an incompetent bunch of monkeys.
This is precisely why the rest of the world has a simple acronym - ABC, which stands for “Anything But Croatia”