The Saga of the Online Order

Clothes shopping here in Israel is, um, interesting.  Eventually everyone seems to get used to the fact that you can't have your relatives and friends bring your Old Navy orders with them indefinitely - at some point you're going to have to bite the bullet and buy clothing here.

Everyone eventually gets used to the fact that the quality is not the same and if you want US quality you have to basically sell your children, car, and house to buy a new skirt.

Well, after a year here with my clothing slowly deteriorating due to my super efficient sounds-like-it's-going-to-take-off-into-the-stratosphere washing machine, I have many shrunken skirts and tops.  Haha, you think, they did not shrink, you've just been eating too many rugelach.  No, they shrunk.  I didn't get taller, even though I may have eaten one or two rugelach over the past year.

So imagine my supreme glee when I saw that my favorite online clothing store, to whom I've paid literally thousands upon thousands of dollars over the years (when they see an order from me come in, they all immediately book their Hawaiian vacations), was offering international shipping!  And happiest of all, Israel was on the list!  No way!  I could order from my favorite store and they would ship it to me in Israel?  Yippee!

So there I went, click click click click.  Before I knew it, I had a few skirts and tops in my shopping cart and then went to the dreaded "calculate shipping costs" section.  And it wasn't too bad - well, it was less than the cost of a plane ticket anyway.  So I clicked "submit order" and happily awaited my new wardrobe.

I know, you are already laughing, clutching your sides and rolling on the floor. 

Right after I made the order, we left for our famous cruise to the Caribbean.  Oh, no, I thought, my package will come and I won't be here! 

I mean, am I an idiot or what?

We returned from the cruise and lo and behold there was no "petek" from the Post Office informing me that I had a package waiting for me.  Hmmm. strange, I thought, it should have arrived already, the website said 10 days.

So I waited a bit more and checked the store website which offered me the tracking number!  Proof that it had been shipped!  It won't be long now, for sure!

The tracking number went to a DHL site (so far so good) and the long list of travels of my poor little package informed me that the package was in customs.  OK, I understand, this may take time.

A week later I emailed DHL and asked about the status.  They called me!  No worries, it will be released soon and you will receive a text message that it is on its way.  Woo hoo!  How silly was I to worry about this?

A week later no phone call. so I emailed them again and they called me again. 

"Oh," said the woman at the other end, "it seems that your package was destroyed. I will find out more and get back to you."

I hung up the phone and burst out laughing.  This blog had just written itself, I love when that happens.  Destroyed?  Why ever would they do that?  Did that black skirt look dangerous?  

Well, DHL did not get back to me, and I waited another week.

Which brings us to today.

I decided to just write to the clothing company and ask for a refund since my package never came.  At that very second (who says the Mossad is not tracking every single thing we do?), DHL emailed me that there was a problem with my package.  But they did not say that it had been destroyed.

I tried to translate the Hebrew email and it looked like they just needed more info, but I wasn't sure so I wrote back to them and asked what I needed to do.

Then...a phone call!  Yaniv from DHL said he just needs my teudat zehut number and that should be it, and he also needed me to confirm that it was a personal package.  I confirmed.  I gave him my TZ.

"OK," he said, " tomorrow you will  receive an SMS that the package is on its way."

So....I wait.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Oh, and lesson learned?  You get 3 guesses.