The Russian Postal Service says it has reached an agreement with the Customs Service that will mean delivery times of parcels from abroad will not increase.
Earlier, Russia’s Customs Service decided to stop giving priority to postal packages – in order to “increase efficiency.”
Customs officials said the Postal Service regularly messes up the paperwork needed to give priority to its packages, so customers should not notice any real difference in delivery times.
The Postal Service then issued a statement telling customers they can now expect to wait up to six months for packages to arrive.
Russia’s Postal Service is notorious for problems with the delivery and safety of letters and parcels.
Just recently, the Postal Service caught some of its employees stealing the contents of parcels and replacing them with objects of a similar weight. Since January 2010, the fraudsters have managed to steal goods valued at more than 1 million rubles ($33,000).
In July 2010, the country’s mail service was fined for delays in express delivery, and in April 2010 it had so many problems with international delivery that companies such as eBay threatened to blacklist Russia.