Ever Wonder Where your Costa Rica Mail Ends Up? So Do We!

Costa Rica is well-known for its lack of physical addresses, opting for metered directions, usually originating from a known landmark. For this reason, many Costa Ricans and expats opt to rent an apartado, or P.O. Box. Unfortunately for these paying customers, Correos Costa Rica is woefully irresponsible and inefficient, with more mail lost, stolen, or postponed for months at a time than delivered within a reasonable time frame.

In a completely unscientific case study, I, and several of my friends, compared the arrival records for 2008 internet purchases, gifts, and other packages mailed from the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and even from within Costa Rica. Disappointingly, most of our packages and letters — more than 75% — never arrived. Books, clothing, personal goods, calendars, even utility bills: these are things of little material value. Despite these low monetary values, however, these packages rarely arrive safely.

Renting a P.O. Box should afford some level of package security, and yet it clearly does not. Complaints to our respective Correos Costa Rica venues yield no result - managers simply shrug, blaming another office, Customs, or a foreign mail system for undelivered packages and letters. To be fair, there is no way to prove who is at fault for the lost mail, though there’s only one common denominator to these problems: Costa Rica’s Post Office.

Such issues make life in Costa Rica less convenient: business is inhibited, internet shopping is frustrating and expensive (paying for an item you never receive), and even local product-delivery, like a Costa Rican Amazon.com, would not be possible here. There is hope, though: instead of defeating several enterprising entrepreneurs, Costa Rica’s postal problems inspired them to open small businesses, giving all those interested hope for future package delivery.

These services, like Aerocasillas (http://www.aeropost.com/sjo/) and AirMail Costa Rica (http://www.airmailcr.com/), provide you with a personalized Miami P.O. Box, allowing you to rely on the more-reliable United States Postal Service. When a package, letter, or magazine arrives to your Miami post office box, your company of choice will send it to Costa Rica privately. They will also handle customs for you, and your mail will never go through the Costa Rica postal system.

In exchange for fast, reliable service, these services charge fees, based on your membership level and package weight. Aerocasillas, for example, has four levels of service: at the lowest level, you pay a $20 annual fee, plus $10 per kilogram, with no monthly requirement. The company’s highest level, the Diamond package, has no annual fee, charges $7 per kilo, and requires a minimum $75 monthly consumption, which is ideal for Costa Rica companies. With a slightly different fee schedule, AirMail Costa Rica charges $7 per kilo, plus a commission on the total value of the product.

Many Costa Rica business, individuals, and expat families make use of the above services. Are you one of them? We at Costa Rica Pages would love to hear about all of your Costa Rican mail experiences, good and bad, and what solutions you’ve found, if any.

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Filed under: Reader Opinion & Stories on August 4th, 2008