So I’ve been dealing with Mailboxes Etc. in Panama City for a while now

Edgar with Mailboxes Etc. in Panama City
edgarmbe@gmail.com

6001-6426
263-2719

This review is for the location in Obarrio. Edgar also owns the MBE store on Ave. 12 de Octubre Edificio 11 de Octubre al lado de Dominos Pizza

From the minute I started dealing with Edgar there were issues, but this is typical of ALL Panamanians whether they speak almost fluent English or not.

He told me my price to ship my boxes from Miami to Panama was going to be $400. Then when they arrived, suddenly the price jumped to $732. He claims I told him it was going to be 1 cubic meter. I told him no such thing. I probably said it would be between 1-3 cubic meters.

I had no choice but to pay the extra $332.

Then upon getting all my things, my office chair had been sliced in the back & Edgar refused to compensate me.  He asked me if I had insurance on it when HE was the one responsible for asking me if I wanted insurance, but of course, like ALL Panamanians, they do a terrible job at everything they do. Not one Panamanian shipping company has asked me if I plan to get extra insurance & that should be a GIVEN for overseas shipments.

Again I had no choice but to deal with a sliced office chair. This incompetence, lack of respect & downright stupidity was of course only a foreshadowing of what was to come in the next 2 1/2 years of me living in Panama.

I did end up using Edgar as a mailforwarding company for shipping things from the States to Miami & for the most part things went smoothly most of the time. I didn’t like one of the guys he had working there. He wasn’t always nice, but then again most Panamanians aren’t nice in my opinion.

In April of 2013 I moved to Boquete & so I stopped using Edgar’s Mailboxes Etc. location, but then fast forward to today January 2014, I had to find someone to ship my boxes to the US. Since I don’t have tons of money & I wasn’t shipping a lot of boxes, I got a quote from Edgar, but was hoping I’d find someone less expensive.

After getting terrible service from every Panamanian shipping company I dealt with and one or rates that were out to lunch expensive, I had no choice but to go with Edgar.

While Edgar is a nice guy, again, he drops the ball over & over again.

  • He didn’t respond to my e-mails right away.
  • He didn’t remember which courier I was using to ship my boxes from Boquete to Panama city
  • He didn’t know which Fletes (the local courier) was closest to him & even if both were equal distance, he should have been able to definitively tell me where to send my boxes. I had to guess in the end.
  • I e-mailed him the itemized list after he demanded I get it done, & he didn’t confirm he received it.
  • I told him this ALL had to be done on Tuesday. I shipped him the boxes on Monday, & they were to arrive on Tuesday.I needed pricing & a confirmation of everything because I was leaving the country on Thursday at the crack of dawn.I didn’t hear from him on Tuesday or Wednesday. Finally he called me on Wednesday morning (yes he apologized) & told me they never picked the boxes up on Tuesday. He said he’d call me by noon with the quote.I told him I wouldn’t have a phone after a certain point on Wednesday. Finally at 1 pm I hear from him asking me what the name was under in Fletes. I was FURIOUS.

    Then I never heard from him again. I kept calling & calling (did that yesterday & earlier today as well) & I got nowhere.FINALLY after wasting money calling his Obarrio store & his other store where they don’t speak English at all, I get him & he’s (get this) EATING LUNCH.

    It’s 3 pm on Wednesday & he STILL hasn’t given me a quote & I’m in knots because I don’t know what kind of pricing he’s going to give me.

    I have to demand he get me the pricing & repeat again that I won’t have a phone.

    Finally he calls me back & tells me the price, but doesn’t say a word about how I’m going to pay. I HAVE to ask him how (Clearly I’m running MBE for him).

    He’s supposed to text me his e-mail address as I don’t have it on my laptop & he never texts me.

    I’m on pins and needles because I have to rush to the Fletes to ship back my cell phone to someone in Boquete and they close at 4 pm.

    I have to call Edgar again & this time ask about insurance because he never brought it up. We talk some more & my phone goes dead. He texts me & then calls me.

    I still have to give him written authorization to process my credit card, but because he didn’t do his job, I now have to wait until he e-mails me with his e-mail address & the amount.

    Here are examples of how stupid Panamanians are & how they do NOT know how to run a company even if they’ve been running the same company for years.

  • Edgar FINALLY tells me the price & I asked if that’s door to door & he said no. When he gave me the quote weeks ago, it was DOOR TO DOOR. Now he’s changed his mind & had I NOT asked him, I would have been left thinking it was door to door.
  • THEN it’s suddenly shipping via DHL & NOT FedEx. It was FedEx in the quote from 2 weeks ago.
  • Now I have to wait for Edgar to do HIS JOB & get me a price on insurance.He claims he called the insurance company (what, he didn’t know this information beforehand?) & they said that it’s $100 for the first $1,000 & then 1.1% on top of that. When I asked why that is, he never got back to me, so now my boxes are just sitting there with Edgar taking his sweet time arranging things.

While Edgar isn’t the exception to the rule as they all don’t know how to run businesses here, I’m upset that the day before I am moving & about to fly out Edgar has decided his lunch is more important than a long term customer & I have to stress myself out. I had arranged EVERYTHING days earlier.

I rush around trying to get to Fletes to ship my cell phone because I’m now late. I had spoken to Edgar at 10 am, it’s now 4:30 pm.

 

 


 
              

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