I missed that step as I just prepped it all at home, the staff at my local post office are obnoxious at best so I tend to do as much beforehand as possible.
(or I go to another post office where the staff are better)
1 Like
Yes you can. They claim it’s for this new electronic customs system that supposedly the US requires and other countries follow. But I insisted and told them I dont have a phone. I wrote the address and it arrived in Canada safely.
1 Like
It’s kinda funny though how the Taiwanese government keeps using “EZ” as an abbreviation for “fucking annoying”. Someone should tell them what it’s supposed to stand for.
9 Likes
What’s worse is they make you print the stuff out. You can’t just make an electronic declaration then write the tracking number or whatever on the package.
It means you have to track down a 711 to print it.
Why can’t they just enter it into their system?
1 Like
They can. And they will if you resist hard enough. My package made it. No electronic declaration. Just a case of overcompliance by burdening the customer.
1 Like
My incessant whinging has paid off!
Post office now has their own equipment to enter forms electronically. It does support phones, yes but you can manually enter such info using THEIR equipment.
11 Likes
Those pillars have a camera and you are automatically charged if you stop for more than 5 minutes in the spot. And another obstacle for pedestrians.
They charge like 20 NTD every hour. You have to install some app to pay digitally, no cash.
Currently they support LinePay, JkoPay and credit cards.
I encountered something similar in a hospital parking lot in Blighty. It took me something like 20 minutes to jump through all the digital hoops required to pay for parking, which was plagued by inexplicable ‘the transaction has failed’ messages and similar nonsense. Fortunately I actually had a smartphone with me - which I don’t normally - or I would have been literally unable to pay. The “helpline”, predictably enough, was unmanned.
More efficient than cash my arse.
9 Likes
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: From coronavirus
I loath it too. It started back with Trump for us services only. Because the US (apparently) told Taiwan to do it this way.
The real reason is liability. Post office isn’t now liable for errors in paperwork, the customer is.
Moving forward, it becomes more about also cutting costs/jobs.
Now a days, I insist if they want to do this, instead of the normal handwritten norms, I get their workers to do it for me. I can’t use computers, sorry. Smiles. You do it . If they say no, I say, then accept this address already written out clearly.
This works easily in less populated areas where most of the time the postal workers also complain about and hate the new system (because it’s total dog shit). Busy areas, they give attitude. Which is met by a smile and 2 choice option: accept the written form or walk outside your counter to the public area and type it in yourself (as opposed to before when they sat inside their air conditioned area and typed it in themselves on their computer on a comfy chair.
Makes no difference to me, other than they are causing me, and everyone else to wait longer. Same with restaraunts etc. If they want automation computer, get the human to assist so they cna still have a job in the future.
3 Likes
Fake codes scam on parking machines
1 Like
And it is already happening.
I boycotted QR codes all the way through COVID. I never scanned them. I considered it to be a form of madness, and an obvious ceding of territory in advance of the up coming robo invasion. I found the presumption that everyone had to carry a phone and have internet access in order to move and function was preposterous. I believed that if I scanned a single QR code it would precipitate a series of events culminating in an inadvertent auto extermination due to an unforgiving robo overlord not accounting for a glitch on my as yet unpurchased future phone, and therefore denying me air: just as prophesied in space odyssey 2001.
Then I had another nightmare, I was running through street, filled with food but I was starving, as I had not learned to communicate with the robo menus. Exhausted I lay down by the side of the street a QR code drop out. A hero of the wars no doubt, but a casualty, a holdout in the middle of the highway standing in front of a ten ton truck: is that what I wanted?
I woke up today and decided that I would be best advised to infiltrate and know the enemy: this is why I downloaded a QR code scanner and used it to talk directly with the beast this afternoon. I ordered a lachangpizza, baomichicken, fries, and a coffee. I pushed the buttons and the despicable monstrosity displayed a message. I showed this message to a waiter and enquired, chenggonglema? The waiter nodded in the affirmative. And so I stepped into the dark unknown and may never return. My QR fate is perhaps sealed now. If there are any other hold outs out there I wish them well. However I myself have fallen.
I am going out for my evening meal now and I will most likely use the satanic scanner again.
1 Like
I will never scan one. One step closer to a surveillance state. I dont need the government tracking me. Our fate may be sealed, but i wont make it easy for them.
Besides, i go everywhere with the wife and she loves scanning them.
5 Likes
“They” probably know you’re there too, unless they just think your wife eats a lot.
1 Like
Now that is paranoid.
2 Likes
Here is a story about how oligarchs in Russia used their political influence to force a mandatory QR-Code on many products to combat ‘counterfeit products’. The Russian government gave the monopoly of handling this QR-Code to a private company. This basically became a hidden tax. They can use it to track all sales of companies and even block the sales completely. Companies that do not put them on all their products are raided by police and handed down stiff fines. The owners of the companies are declared foreign agents and even handed down prison sentences.
The products which must have this mandatory QR-Code are expanding. Giving those oligarch, controlling it, absolute power to destroy any business that does not fold to their demands. This happens when thugs like Putin run the government.
https://www.proekt.media/investigation/markirovka-chestny-znak/
4 Likes
Not just Russia, but really any state actor could do the same…
In Taiwan they force to use the Fapiao. But it is government owned/managed and does not benefit private owners. Also the process is open and nobody decides your products should be blocked for sale.
1 Like
The problem isn’t qr codes, the problem is with oligarchy states.