Ship Phone from France to USA

Does that quote include them packaging the phone, and labelling? I doubt the car company would do that for free.

Maybe you can have it delivered to a hotel housing someone who would bring it back to the US for you...although that might be illegal as it is an electronic device...? Sorry, I'm no help at all. It just reminded me about having a teenager learning life's lessons. ;p

Knowing the cost of international shipping, $104 seems more or less reasonable to me.

I recall several helpful people providing assistance with getting a raincoat back to the U.S. from the Amsterdam airport. Perhaps that could be the case here.

Honestly $104 sounds reasonable. It would need to be picked up, packaged, labeled for international shipping, and shipped. That’s a big service - it’s nit like you have it boxed and just need it dropped at a post office.

You could look for a friend of a friend who can bring it back for you for a much smaller fee. Otherwise, is it worth it or is a new phone a better choice? That depends on the phone, it’s age and your contact.

International mailing costs are quite high. In this situation you must also expect to pay for someone's time to obtain a suitable mailing box, package up the phone carefully, complete the shipping label and customs form, and take the package to the shipping company. When you call upon a commercial shipper to do all of that, you will indeed pay through the nose.

The actual shipping costs would almost certainly be lower if the package were taken to a post office for mailing, but in that case someone would be making a dedicated trip to drop it off and stand in line, on top of buying the box and doing the packaging. The extra labor cost of a dedicated trip to the post office would be significant, and not too many companies would want their employees running such errands--thus SuperShuttle's plan to outsource the whole project to FedEx.

Edited to add: Earlier this year I left my European-trip rain jacket somewhere in my hometown--probably the only time I had ever used it in the US. I didn't realize it was missing until my departure day, at which point I couldn't even remember when I had used it or where it might be. I am seriously considering sewing email-address labels into all my outer garments.

To me it is simple equation -- is the replacement cost more or less than $104. It is substantial different then you just bought a used phone for $104. There is always the option of trying to Id a US traveler who is passing through Paris with time to find and visit the Super shuttle office to reclaim the phone and return to you. The earlier request concerning a jacket was convenient since the lost and found was at the airport. This is very different.

I paid a US airline $45 to ship me a Bose NR headphone that was already in their office in the US. I thought it was a bargain for a $300 item. $104 from France for a fragile item with lithium batteries is entirely fair. Your hopes are not reasonable for the multiple, complex services involved.

Have you read similar hotel/teddy bear stories on travel news boards? Labor is not free. Have you been to a UPS Store in the US lately?

The tiniest parcel sent from Fr to US through unsecured, untracked mail costs $30 in postage fees alone. A secure, tracked service like Fedex is more expensive, especially with on-site pickup. I don't see it costing any less than $80, so I'd swallow the $104. Unless the phone is worth less than that, of course.

Andrew H.,

If I am going to be willing to abandon the phone (as has been reasonably suggested by some previous posters), I am certainly not going to care if someone fails to make an arranged delivery, as I will not have the phone either way.

Probably the only reasonable option to actually get the phone without paying the money.

Knowing the cost of shipping things to the States from France, I would advise you to pay the $104 if you want the phone.

To answer the $20-$30 question, there is no way that will happen unless you know someone who will do the leg work for free and also eat some of the shipping cost. I asked the person in Paris who runs errands for me like going to Orange, etc., and she said it would cost around €125 for any service provider to do it because of the amount of time it will take to go get the phone, get the packaging material, package it, and go to the post office. When my 13-year-old son left his Fitbit in our hotel room in Los Angeles, it cost us about $30 for the hotel to package it and ship it to Palo Alto so $30 for that same service from France to the US is just not going to happen. It's unlikely you could get an item packaged and shipped from France to the US for under $30 but there is no harm in asking in case there exists such an option.

Even if you are still in the country and simply mailing something to yourself, the cost is high--it's just that you pay it in lost vacation time rather than in euros.

There were some relatively cheap Europe-to-US mailing options for small parcels back in the 1970s. Even so, I stopped sending things home after my second trip because I had more interesting things to with my time. It's far easier now to locate things like boxes and packaging tape (and I once had to scour London for sealing wax!), but postage and shipping rates have skyrocketed.

FedEx has quoted $104, which is more than we are willing to pay. We were hoping for an economical option to ship the phone back to the US for around $20-$30, or it just isn't worth it.

In hindsight, OP answered his own question.

USPS to send in the reverse direction is at least $36, just for shipping -- getting the item wrapped and to the shipping point would be extra.

https://postcalc.usps.com/Calculator/MailServices?country=10113&ccode=FR&omil=False&dmil=False&mdt=9%2F2%2F2019&mdz=18%3A59&m=12

If you do have it shipped, the customs form should indicate "American goods returned."

Please note that I've removed a side discussion on this thread. Thank you for avoiding it and staying on topic moving forward.