[Rat3d ///M]

Time to vent a little..

What's the issue people have with shipping to a military APO address? Being in the military and stationed in Germany, it becomes very frustrating at times trying to order something online only to be told "we can't ship to an APO". I work in Acquisitions in fact, so my very job which brought me to Germany involves ordering items via telephone and email all day long, 85% being from the US, so I order A LOT of items which require APO shipping. There is always that one company a day that when they hear I am physically located in Germany, they don't want to talk to me anymore. One company even took my order, then when I gave them our shipping address with "APO" as the city, they asked where I was located and I said "physically, I am in Germany, but our APO is a stateside address" they got flustered, recommended I speak to their Canadian branch, and hung up on me

This frustration extends to my personal life as well. Being an American citizen, I happen to enjoy many of the luxuries we have been afforded, and the US Military tries to accommodate us in any way they can to make us feel more comfortable when we are stationed overseas, because as someone who has lived here for two years and will be here for many more to come I hope, I can vouch that it is a hassle at times living in a foreign country, and resources available to us are limited, so sometimes ordering from the US is a necessity. One of the things the military does to accommodate us and make our time overseas easier on us, is that they provide us with an APO address. There is a simple fact I wish I could illustrate by reaching through the phone or computer screen when dealing with some of these idiots and strangling them, that an APO address is considered by the USPS to be a stateside (continental) mailing address based out of Chicago, therefore it costs you to ship from California to Chicago the same amount it would cost you to ship the same package from California to me at my APO address, regardless of whether I am physically located in Germany, England, Iraq or on the Moon. I've gotten dozens of excuses such as "we can't ship to Germany", "it would cost too much to ship there", "I am not looking to ship outside the US", "it could get lost", etc. If you take a moment to stop being ignorant, and learn exactly what an APO address is, what it's used for, and why it exists, then you will realize that every single one of these excuses all of a sudden becomes null and void.

It's not just Ebay and Amazon, it also happens on these forums that we are constantly shafted because people are uneducated and for some reason scared to ship to an APO address. There is no valid excuse for not doing it. It's a service set up by the US Military so you CAN send me a package for a cheap rate. It's not international shipping, it costs you the same amount as to any other stateside address (which shouldn't matter if I am paying for shipping) and it is just as safe as sending it to someone the next state over.

So, can anyone provide any insight or logic on why I am constantly missing out on products that I want or need, and would otherwise be able to buy as a US citizen from a US company or another US citizen just because I am stationed in Germany and not physically located in the US? Are people afraid I am a scammer from Nigeria asking them to "cash my certified bank check for $4000 extra dollars and send me the difference once you find out what shipping costs"? Are people just uneducated and don't want to deal with the hassle of international shipping (even though an APO is not)? Are they really afraid it will fall out of the plane that carries it over here and get lost in the ocean (which if it did, that is what insurance is for, so who gives a shit)? The ONLY legitimate excuse I can think of is some Ebay and Amazon companies don't use USPS, and UPS or FedEx won't deliver to an APO making USPS a must. Granted this is shit customer service on their part and makes them lazy and cheap for not being able to take a few minutes to drop a package off at the post office, but hey, I can't blame someone for not wanting to be accommodating to a fellow human being. The world we live in is full of people that are too self-absorbed to want to lift a finger to go out of their way and help someone else out, how could I expect anything else?

[/rant]

[Dackelone]

Yep, we all feel your pain brother. People just do not know what an APO/FPO/DPO really is. Put simply they pay for shipping to JFK(for us in Europe) and the military takes over(MPS = Military Postal System) from there.

There are quite a few companies in the states that you can ship your purchases to(for a fee) and they in turn will ship it to your APO.

[Templar]

http://www.apobox.com/

I've used them in the past when deployed and while I was stationed in Germany.

It's been a number of years since I've been out of country long enough to need it though, so I don't remember what the fees used to be, but their site says you pay USPS Shipping rates + insurance + a $9.95 fee for their handling of the item. It was well worth it though, for all the reasons you mentioned above.

[david in germany]

In the same boat here brother. I have had to explain APO shipping literally hundreds of times but there will always be that one person that refuses to fill out a simple customs form at the local post office.
My latest issue is actually getting archery items from Amazon.. They won't even ship bow string wax to an APO because it is a archery product... It is freaking wax for goodness sake. Or a bow stabilizer, just a metal tube with threads at one end...

[The Wind Breezes]

People are dumb as fuck and don't know what an APO is. You can include me in that category because until I read your well-written explanation I had no idea how APOs worked.

[VB5ER]

Rant on brother. I'm with Military Sealift doing fleet logistics underway and we have a FPO address. Amazon, BodyBuilding.com, and a few others will ship to it but I have experienced the pain you are feeling.

[1smokehouse]

I think there should be an "APO Shipping Support Group" for those of us that have to endure the misconception that APO means "international". I could go on for days about it too, especially for Guam. I have two addresses, one local Guam address and one APO. Even though we are a US territory, some companies like Amazon STILL won't ship certain items to either of my addresses

The struggle is real

[Route 16]

I've yet to experience that ordeal while I lived in Japan and was happy to know shipping from the navy base to the mainland was the same.

[F1HAMMY]

Right there with you bro, I'm an official JBL hater because of their non-friendly to military policies. And, I miss Germany every day

2012-2013 Bamberg
2013-2016 Baumholder

[fravel]

It could be a regulatory issue, for example, my company makes hydraulic chairs, but since we market them to doctors they are technically medical devices. As such, the regulations on them vary from one country to the next. As a result we have some products that can be sold in the US but the exact same product is legally prohibited from distribution simply because we haven't seen a need to acquire the credentials for that country.

Alternate example: maybe a set of wheels has been tested and approved by the DOT, but didn't pass TUV. I would assume those wheels could be sold to people in the US, but not to people in Germany.

I can tell you from experience that getting paid by people in foreign countries can also be a hassle, so some companies just choose not to bother.

There's also ITAR, but I'm sure you know about that.

[shadow191]

Is it that the companies giving you issues use UPS? I don't think they ship to APO's so maybe the person taking your order is unfamiliar with the whole process. I never thought it was that difficult personally and have shipped to them plenty in the past without issue.