I am sooo pissed off right now, I don’t know if I can write this post up without swearing too much. After YEARS of searching, like YEARS, I finally found a boxed Philips Moving Sound portable cassette player. I had one in the 80s and they’re very very difficult to find, and they’re IMPOSSIBLE to find boxed, like I’ve been on the lookout of for these for like 10 years now maybe? In the past 10 years 3 Walkmans have popped up on eBay, and I bought all three. Finally, last month a boxed one in excellent condition popped up and I bid on it and I won it. I had it shipped to my Shop & Ship mailbox and it just arrived now. When I opened the box I was fucking shocked.
For some reason, Aramex decided to wrap the walkman box with their Aramex tape. Just like that, they destroyed what might be one of the very last boxes that are remaining still in tact.
I don’t understand, like I’m trying not to use any expletives but it’s hard. The walkman box was inside another box, why the fuck would you tape the walkman box up with your tape??? wtf Aramex?? I can’t believe you did this, I’m so upset and it’s not even about the money, it’s an unobtainium, even if they paid me back all the money I paid for this there wouldn’t be a way I could buy one again.
Just last week my friend told me about how he got screwed over by them. They sent him a bill for KD57 for a package that weighs 0.85KG. The value of the 4 items inside was KD150 in total. When he confronted them, turned out they made a mistake and valued each item inside the box as 150KD instead of all the items being 150. So 150×4=600KD value for the shipment. They charged him 28KD insurance for the item being high value and then customs on the value of 600KD.
Even though they made a mistake, they had submitted the paperwork to customs like that and so couldn’t change it anymore and wanted my friend to pay for the wrong shipment value even though they messed up. And now this happened to me. I’m so pissed off.
Update: I just realized they also ripped the box, the photo on the right is what I bought, the photo on the left is how I got it.
27 replies on “Why would you do this Aramex?!”
I have a bad experience too and since that time i always ask any business I’m trying to buy from if they ship with aramex or not. So what had happen was Aramex didn’t pick up the shipment from the costumes for over 2 weeks so they’ve been charged for the time that package was stored and they wanted me to pay for it the items in the package were worth somewhere around 50 Kd it was shipped fron Riyadh to kuwait they wanted to charge me 38kd !!! I requested a detailed invoice and the breakdown was hideous one line was named “customs duties” cost 7kd , “clearance and delivery” cost 10kd, “PWC charges” 12kd. While the rest are eligible because my package was sent for intensive Inspection since it’s Bakhoor. I tried reporting that to they’ve costumer services and for a whole month they are still convinced that I’m responsible for these charges. Until i reached to someone in the customs and they explained all of that to me. I decided not to pay and i requested a full refund from the store i bought from and they had to ship it back on their own cost. Ptw i paid for shipping 12kd in advance on the store website and got that refund as well.
I know exactly how you feel. I went through the same thing with Aramex a few years back since I collect action figures. I think I stopped using them around COVID in 2020, maybe even earlier, can’t remember. The company just became too difficult to deal with. For me, it’s worth paying a bit more for better service and proper customer care like DHL with MyUS.
MyUS belongs to Aramex as well, I use MyUS sometimes but they have their own set of stupid issues. Just ran into one last month when I ordered my Bambu Lab printer. We’re doomed.
Yeah by the way I’m one of the oldest MyUS customer- I have been using them from the beginning. I immediately noticed the quality of their service go to sh** when they got acquired by ARAMEX. Even recently they put up a disclaimer on their website IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER saying something like “we have a lot of traffic now, do not email us asking about your items and when they will ship” in a very rude, snarky, Aramex way.
Remember I told you. I avoid buying anything if it has to go through aramex. Be it Amazon or anything. I don’t want it. Because they destroy it, make problems, charge me for customs even after I pay and all this drama. Better stick to Europe and get things through DHL and life is good.
This was from the UK, the location of the package doesn’t have anything to do with it. If I want to use DHL I need to use MyUS… which is Aramex. So same same.
Reading this reminded me of your old posts, Mark 🙂
Sorry for the bad experience. They simply suck!
I stopped buying rare items online after they tore open the box of my signed limited edition instead of opening it properly.
yeah I’m always worried because I tend to order rare books and old tech 🙁
Aramex is awful, and so is DHL. I don’t know why, but almost every other package I had delivered from either of them was opened by customs and the contents were either damaged or filthy. What kind of people are working there??
Also, why would Aramex even need to open a box of an electronic item? Are X-rays not good enough anymore for inspection?
Your first mistake was trusting Aramex with this shipment. Aramex in Kuwait have been absolutely horrendous lately. I had ordered supplements from them last year worth 40KD and for some reason due to Aramex’s mistake I got a customs bill for 75KD! Thankfully I got the same supplemetns on iHerb and I’m never ordering through Aramex ever again.
One of the guy who gives approvals on shipments at the ministry mentioned that Aramex are terrible and I should order through DHL as their customs procedure is much smoother. Not sure if they have a shop and ship feature similar to Aramex but I’d like to try it.
Aramex sucks. Been avoiding them for years. I had an oud shipped through them once and it was received all broken and the front caved in.
But I think the update you mentioned shows the other side of the box unless there’s another photo the seller shared. The Philips on the top is on the other side.
So what do you use instead?
I had 0 problems with DHL
You have countless posts complaining about aramex yet you keep on using them. They’ll only learn and improve once you bash them once and for all.
Well I’ve been using them for over 25 years, and I’ve used other couriers and they’re the best of whats available.
Aramex was always the worst courier delivery service by a large margin. So it was very hard to imagine that they actually got significantly worse after the AbuDhabi sovereign wealth fund bought them out.
maybe try using heat to remove the tape
Most likely Customs opened it for inspection. And after that Aramex had to seal it back they used the Aramex tape. Happens very often with electronics especially. But I agree Aramex is cheap as their services are cheap.
I don’t think this was customs related because they also swapped out the box the seller had shipped my package in with a generic Aramex box.
Aramex destroyed some Japanese incense that I purchased one time and I argued with them for a refund via the provided insurance coverage.
I’d recommend you escalate to a party in charge and argue for the highest compensation possible being that the box is part of the total item value. The eBay listing will be proof.
u could check on u tube how to get the sticker tape out maybe steam ..donno..but the value of the cover is low now..anyway … could u have talked to the guy shipping it to take care or how u wanted it shipped ?… since its ebay ? and u can talk to the guy shipping it..
IDIOTS!
ARAMEX are a comically incompetent company. I stopped using them years ago, yet I still hear horror stories almost daily from people I know who deal with them. Even their attitude when you complain about mistakes feels like something out of a bad SNL sketch.
That said, I don’t think this particular problem is unique to ARAMEX. I’ve been using DHL almost exclusively for over 10 years- receiving multiple consolidated shipments every week- and I’ve noticed the same issue: boxes being ripped open and then lazily taped back together (in my case, with DHL tape). They’ve ruined countless items, including gifts I intended to give, and in most cases the tampering feels frivolous, careless, even malicious.
My theory is that this is a Kuwait customs policy: items are ripped open, casually declared “inspected,” and pushed along. It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me, because there’s no other logical reason for such behavior.
For example, today I received a sealed, plastic-wrapped box of my favorite gum. They tore open part of the wrap, pried the box slightly open, and then shoved the whole thing back in the shipment.
@Q808, I’ve had the same problems too! Why can’t DHL just notify people and have them come to an office and some customs officer open the package in front of them? Like at the EMS office in Hateen.
I know a great local Attorney & i would use it. Thats a collector item they devalued.