An email to Alet from Forex, FNB

Dear Alet!

I am totally surprised by the reaction that I got from the Forex department of FNB. Up until now FNB Naboomspruit and especially Mariaan set a standard of customer care that would be difficult to better.

I did a solo motorcycle tour from South Africa across Africa to Germany, and from here on to Russia and then back to Germany, from where I will leave for South Africa.

My motorcycle has to go back to South Africa as well. For that reason I got different quotes to ship the bike back to South Africa.

I accepted Bikeworld's quote, as it was by far the cheapest.

I booked and received the invoice, as well as all the conditions applying to the transport of a motorcycle by air to South Africa.

Then the circus started:

1. Forex wanted an account in English. To my knowledge numbers like 1234 are readable in English, German, French, Spanish and many more languages.

2. Forex wanted proof of HOW the bike got to Germany.

2.1 May I suggest that I send you a serviette from Addis Ababa, or a little stone picked up at the Nile in Egypt? Or maybe you want to read the Diary with 16 000 other people on the website www.naboom2germany.co.za. There you will get an idea of HOW the motorcycle got to Germany. It covered many thousands of kilometers of hard riding in heat and rain, tar and desert sand. It survived a collision with a taxi in Nairobi, and many other crashes in different deserts.

3. And now you want the contact details of the AA in Johannesburg because you want to get hold of the customs documentation. Sure, the number is 011 / 799 1009, and the lady who issued my Carnet de Passage is Melizza van Dyk.

Please call her and experience the next embarrassment. Let me tell you why. She is going to tell you that a Carnet de Passage is the customs passport of a motor vehicle. It ensures that a vehicle may pass through a country without paying any import taxes. The carnet gets stamped when the vehicle enters a country that demands a carnet, and on exit again. If a country doesn't want a Carnet, it is not stamped.

The Carnet for my motorcycle was stamped from Zambia up to Egypt.

Mrs Van Dyk will not be able to confirm that because she has not received back my Carnet yet. That she will receive only once the motorcycle arrives back in South Africa, and the South African customs authority stamped it as proof of re-entry into South Africa of the motorcycle.
This is turning into a comedy. My money is waiting, ready to be exchanged for Euro's so that I can get MY motorcycle that I rode across Africa back to the country where it is registered. What is the problem with that? Please tell me.

I believe you won't mind if I put this email on the website too. We need more to laugh about, and this surely will cause many smiles.

Kind regards

Lodie de Jager, stuck in Germany with a Kawasaki KLR that wants to do only one thing, and that is to fly home.