Incoming Mail Theft At Don Muang Airport

[Trevor]

I have read that 25% of mail coming into Don Muang airport is stolen and that, owing to some technicality, the regular police are unable to enter this arena to investigate and prosecute. My own experience bears out these appalling levels of theft. Adding to the misery is that valueless items like letters, personal medicine and photo-CDs get caught up in this wholesale theft of small packets and parcels – and are just trashed (rather than being returned to the system) once the contents are realised as having no intrinsic value.

My experience of other South-East Asian countries suggests the Thai postal service is particularly bad. This should be reported to the International Postal Union to put foreign pressure on the Thai government to enforce proper security with their international mail operations. I don’t believe Suwannaphum airport will be any different unless they do.

Is the registered mail service any better? Perhaps members can comment themselves but I know that a plain registered letter from Bangkok to Europe can take 25 days instead of the customary 5 for non-registered. Private courier services are far too expensive for sending items of sentimental or personal value only. Outgoing mail packages and parcels, by contrast, seem remarkably reliable (perhaps they’re not interested in filching their own tourist tat). But I would only send postcards and thin, single-page letters by regular post TO Thailand. Writing the address in Thai, or masquerading as a Thai sender from abroad does not seems to help avert pilferage.

What are your experiences and strategies?

[Maestro]

I have read that 25% of mail coming into Don Muang airport is stolen

Where did you read this? It is but polite to quote the source.

My own experience bears out these appalling levels of theft.

My experience of sending over 100 normal, unregistered airmail letters from Switzerland to Thailand over the past 24 months has been that I have not heard of a single one of them not arriving at its destination.

My experience of other South-East Asian countries suggests the Thai postal service is particularly bad.

I do not know about other South-East Asian countries. My experience with receiving over 100 normal, unregistered airmail letters from Thailand sent to my address in Switzerland is that they all were delivered to me within three working days from the date they were posted (date of postmark)

If letters from Thailand sent to addresses in other countries take longer to arrive, I suspect that the slowness is inherent in the postal system of the destination countries. I know at least one European country where the postal service is extremely slow.

Postal letters may weigh up to 2 kg. If a letter contains goods and these are not correctly or completely declared on the customs declaration form CN 22 affixed on the envelope or package or if the postal item looks like it might contain goods, a delay in delivery to the addressee may occur due to customs inspection. In Switzerland, this delay is at most one day, but it may be longer in other destination countries.

Is the registered mail service any better? Perhaps members can comment themselves but I know that a plain registered letter from Bangkok to Europe can take 25 days instead of the customary 5 for non-registered.

Registered airmail letters sent from Thailand to my address in Switzerland take at most one day longer than the three working days it takes for unregistered airmail letters. Please note that I refer to airmail letters. I have no experience with surface mail letters (which nowadays also are transported by air) but I could well imagine that a registered surface mail letter can take up to 25 days to arrive at its European address in some countries.

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Maestro

[farangsay]

Agree totally with Maestro

Also , why this Thai bashing when Heathrow (London) is affectionately

known as "Thiefrow" ?

[Maestro]

Also , why this Thai bashing ...

It makes one wonder, doesn’t it? In the majority of countries in this world the people would be happy to have a postal system have as efficient as the one in Thailand.

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Maestro

[nostrel]

some areas are ok some are attrocious ,pattaya is especially bad as they are checking mail for bills,nothing gets past them ,said to be mafia controlled .i have had registered go missing with no way to track where it went missing despite being barcoded from the UK.

parcels of clothing also go missing so now its all recorded .

they seem to like western magazines and CDs especially .

the theft gets worse at xmas as posties need presents and cash for xmas presents for their families so your goods will do very nicely thankyou.

parcels in are x-rayed for contraband so they can make a note of goodies to be arranged to go missing .

[nostrel]

actually this topic has been covered in the BKK post on many occasions in the past.

thieving postmen are tracked and caught but most are honest .

[rcm]

Suwannaphum airport???

[astral]

If you value the contents then use a courier service.

More expensive but safer.

[jbowman1993]

In four years, and having mailed and recieved hundreds of letters, packages, etc. I have only had one letter than didn't arrive. A christmas card from my dear sweet Grandmother.

I'd say that is a pretty good success rate. People believe what they want to believe.

[Ricardo]

I think that the OP was talking mainly about inbound mail, and regret to have to agree with him, although I'd say that small post is less likely to go missing. I'd say at least 10% of larger letters, and small parcels, fail to reach me here, although they are never valuable contents, and always correctly addressed (we supply our friends/family with pre-printed labels).

I especially wish I could hear the comments of Postman Pat's wife when, after applying the contents of 2 small tubes of cream to her face, expecting it to be some farang wonder-cosmetic, she found it rather to be a potion for the relief of my wife's haemmoroids.

But even small packages of business-papers fail to get through.

And I've known fully-paid 'airmail' from the UK to take up to 2 months to reach here !

[jdinasia]

some areas are ok some are attrocious ,pattaya is especially bad as they are checking mail for bills,nothing gets past them ,said to be mafia controlled .i have had registered go missing with no way to track where it went missing despite being barcoded from the UK.

parcels of clothing also go missing so now its all recorded .

they seem to like western magazines and CDs especially .

the theft gets worse at xmas as posties need presents and cash for xmas presents for their families so your goods will do very nicely thankyou.

parcels in are x-rayed for contraband so they can make a note of goodies to be arranged to go missing .

When did the average Thai postal workerstart celebrating Christmas?

Never had a problem with the mail here!

[monsieurhappy]

Ricardo is right when he says it's mainly post coming into Thailand.

In 4 years Ive only lost one outbound letter but I have lost about a third of all my known incoming mail. Luckily, none of it has been valuable!

[Tarragona]

In over 15 years I've hardly had any problems with the post in the Bangkok area. Three small packages have arrived from the UK in the past two weeks and all have taken less than a week to get here. The only thing I can ever remember going missing is an edition of a magazine I subscribed to and that was probably to do with a change of address at the time.

[Vespa]

I have had nothing but problems with thai post - in both directions.

At this point when I need to send or receive ANYTHING of importance , it gets sent FedEX at their insane prices.

I know of no other choice

[Thaiquila]

If mailing a small letter of importance from the US, is there any other service that would be comparably safe to Fedex?

[libya 115]

Trevor:

Firstly, the sweeping statement about 25% being stolen at the airport is untrue.

I live in Pattaya and in over five years, not one monthly bank statement has failed to arrive. To my knowledge only one greetings card has failed to arrive, probably because of suspected cash inside it, tell family not to seal greetings cards, just 'tuck in the flap'.

Regarding outgoing mail: Only once (when I posted 10 postcards in a postbox) none arrived. So don't use postboxes.

Small packets, and parcels I always receive; some have been opened for inspection, and some are delayed, but I have always received them.

I say: if you are experiencing a poor delivery of post, it is quite probably to do with the postman. So report it at your main post office. Official complaints made in a calm manner, will be investigated. There was a case recently of a postman dumping mail, in swamps: he was caught and punished for this offence.

[jbowman1993]

Trevor:

Firstly, the sweeping statement about 25% being stolen at the airport is untrue.

I live in Pattaya and in over five years, not one monthly bank statement has failed to arrive. To my knowledge only one greetings card has failed to arrive, probably because of suspected cash inside it, tell family not to seal greetings cards, just 'tuck in the flap'.

Regarding outgoing mail: Only once (when I posted 10 postcards in a postbox) none arrived. So don't use postboxes.

Small packets, and parcels I always receive; some have been opened for inspection, and some are delayed, but I have always received them.

I say: if you are experiencing a poor delivery of post, it is quite probably to do with the postman. So report it at your main post office. Official complaints made in a calm manner, will be investigated. There was a case recently of a postman dumping mail, in swamps: he was caught and punished for this offence.

Sounds like good advice. That looks like a face you can trust!

[taxexile]

i have had mail go missing between the uk and here , magazines and some letters , but not that many.

i have received large amounts of prescribed meds , on repeat prescriptions , never opened or delayed.

i once went to maenam p.o. on samui in search of a missing letter and was taken through to the sorting office in the back and shown the sack of undelivered /undeliverable mail and told to have a look through that!

[nostrel]

there used to be non stop complaints to the BKK post mailbag letters page about mail going missing maybe these disgruntled recipients were making it up. one poster said he sent some monopoly money in a letter and it didnt arrive in LOS.

[Trevor]

Thanks for all replies. Sorry I can't recall the source of the 25% figure on missing mail through Don Muang. An Internet search turned up an interesting story on how a Phuket resident had his $350 cash stolen from a registered letter which was then returned to the USA sender as 'undelivereable'. Sheesh ... really no point in using the Thai postal service for anything valuable if this kind of thing goes on. But, as some satisfied members have remarked above, your mileage may vary depending on what is sent to where ... and pure blind luck!

[madmitch]

I have found Phuket to be much less reliable than Bangkok. I would guess 20 - 30% of my mail to Phuket goes missing. I assume that it is the number of sorting points before it arrives with an element of 'loss' at each of these.

My record is a gift posted to my baby from the UK just after she was born, arriving when she was seven months old. It had arrived in Thailand after about five days. The postman was very amused, not because of the delay but because of the tune this parcel had been playing. I'm amazed the batteries had lasted.