A friend went on a visa-run to Singapore on Sat. He left most of his belongings here in Taiwan, and just took a small amount of hand baggage (yes, that was probably unwise).
He got a Taiwan visa from Singapore on Wed, but when he landed in Taoyuan early this morning he was refused entry. He’s now in a holding-area, and will have to fly out (probably back to Europe).
We want to take his belongings to the airport, and give them to him before he leaves the country. He will probably return to his home country, France, for now. But Taiwan immigration are refusing to re-unite him with his belongings.
This seems ridiculous - his luggage can’t be infectious, or at least must be less infectious than he is. Can anyone think why they would have this policy? Or who to appeal to?
I guess not so many countries allow passengers who have not passed though immigration get/give some items from/to someone in the other side of the immigration.
It’s pretty reasonable actually that you can’t send someone luggage that isn’t actually yours to send to begin with. Can’t make one rule for him and one for everyone else. My suggestion is ship it to him. You can get very large containers for not that expensive that will arrive in his destination in a few weeks. He should have planned better
yes thats right, remember to bring all your belongings with you every time you travel incase they lock the borders. this is a once every 10 or 20 years thing so get off your high horse.
Could we lose the criticism? Irrelevant here. Yes, he should’ve taken his suitcase. But he didn’t. He was issued with a visitor visa just before the new ban came into force. And Singapore check-in didn’t pick up on the situation.
I accept that there’s immigration procedures to follow, but there can’t be many people currently in his position. Security screening of luggage packed by someone else, wouldn’t be hard to arrange at TPE. Am sure his bags will get further security screening as he flies out.
I’ve been told there are no shipping options available at this time.
My suggestion is just return home. If you have signed for the apartment for a year then sublet your apartment out on Airbnb or something on the sly for some income. It is an unfortunate situation but considering many countries have been closing their borders for days now it was clear that there was a high probability that Taiwan would follow suit.
Airports ask you always: Did you pack this bag yourself or somebody else? So that you claim accountability. If your friend slipped some narcotics or anything illegal into a suitcase destined for you then you would suffer for it along with them. Rules are rules and I’d give up trying to fight them if I were you.
As for shipping there are loads of options available. It doesn’t sound like you’ve looked very hard
You could lose the snarky tone. It would benefit you. No, I haven’t looked for shipping yet, but my friend told me this morning that all shipping abroad was currently suspended. That’s why I said ‘there are no options available’.
