The lost and found experience

This is a short story of administration and frustration.

A while ago I was visiting the great island of Crete. Nice hotel, good weather and lots of good food.

When me and my family got home we noticed that some jewelry and a few other things were missing, and we started to recapture, did we empty all drawers, look under all beds, let’s go through everything ones more.

With nothing found I called the hotel, as we thought there might be one bedside drawer that we hadn’t looked in. A very helpful receptionist went to check our room and to our relief the box with jewelry was found. They were put in the hotel security box and the work of getting them home started.

The traveling agency told us we need to take it up with international lost and found, so we did.

After filling out a web form and paying 5 Euro just to start the investigation, we waited a week to get an e-mail that stated that they would start looking for our lost goods (I stated in the web form where they were).

After another week we got an e-mail saying they found it, and that the transport cost would be 130 euro. It wasn’t the most expensive piece of jewelry, but the sentimental value of it made us pay the fee.

Then, three weeks later we got the information that our package would be delivered to a service point and that we had to pick it up within five days.

As we were visiting family and could not be at the service point in time, we called the transport company to see what could be done. Can the goods be picked up one day later? We asked, no was the answer. The transport company’s system automatically transvers the goods back to terminal if the goods isn’t picked up in time and a new delivery must be administrated. The friendly customer service rep had no authority to make exceptions in the system.

So, a new delivery was made and after six weeks, three phone calls and 135 euros we got the delivery.

If I were to translate this experience into my expectations of MuleChain, I would have called the hotel and they had found my stuff.

Then I would put out a request on MuleChain, as I know there were a lot of guest from my part of the country, there would be no problem finding a Mule going home the week after. After a mule was found I would inform the hotel of the identification code that the Mule would state to pick up my package. Let’s say I found a mule living ten mile from me, I would offer 50 euro to pick my package there and the result would be one week, two phone calls, 50 euro and a 20 mile drive.

Perhaps not the biggest issue in the world, but most likely applicable to cases with greater demand on time and cost.