Postal delivery in Hungary?

gosubmit wrote:

Why is it so slow? In most countries, the delivery is about next day.

Hungary is not exactly like most countries.   

Life still goes a bit more slowly here at times *. That may stress out a type A personality type**.

gosubmit wrote:

I have no experience with couriers but i guess it costs about 900-1000 ft for same day delivery.

DHL Hungary once took 27 days to get me an "urgent" letter. UPS has so far been very good (but they are not inexpensive).

*(Unless the PM sets a political deadline, and then everything goes very quickly (even if it only gets done then to half measure)).

**I was almost going to lead my comment with a joke and say "Eight days? When did the national postal delivery speed up?"

Some of my very important immigration papers got caught up in the snail mail here years ago.
I also had a package "misplaced" for 5 months using the Maygar post.
If I do not send out mail for X mas in mid Nov at the latest, I just don't bother since I know they may not get the cards until summer.
When I was touring Hungary in 1978 I sent everyone in the US post cards. My mother got hers 5 weeks after I arrived back in the states after a 6 week visit to Hungary.
I had better luck using the post mailed out through a small village then mailing out from Budapest, doesn't make sense  but that has been my experience.
Workers here are still stuck in the old system mentally at times, it is someone else's job to move a letter in the correct box or double check things are moving smoothly and fast.
I know if you go into complain they always have a good excuse,it was stuck in the Netherlands all this time, the US has a terror alert and we must hand check every piece of mail going there, etc.
Can't win, just mail early and keep your fingers crossed.

My husband just informed me that the Magyar post is laying off at least 250.
Not sure if that is good news for faster delivery or not. The Hungarian attitude is to blame someone else or to pass the buck, it's not my job to move that or stamp that, etc.No one wants to do extra if they are not getting paid to do it and even if they are they think they don't get paid enough to move any faster.
2 years ago I sent my sister in Minn. some important papers to renew my US hairdressing papers, I sent it fast mail and it still took 7 weeks to arrive from Hungary, made it from Minn. signed and sealed and delivered back to her in less then a week after she forwarded on for me. The US post office is still the best in the world!
No one really cares much about doing a good job, they are only in it for the money, have to change attitudes before anything is going to change with the mail service.
What I did think was slow but actually sort of sweet was the Magyar post makes cash payouts to seniors. My MIL had the mail person come in her house, signed she got her monthly payment, gave him his "tip" in cash for his trouble and he rode off on his little green bike.
Totally difference system and attitude from anywhere I have ever lived, even slower then how it went when I lived in a remote area in Hawaii.
They call it "Island Time" in Hawaii, guess we have to call it,"Magyar Time" over here, can't rush anything.
Old ways die hard here, at least we do not have to go into the slow post office and register to make a phone call outside of Hungary while they listen in on your call, that used to be the system here. Changing but very slowly...

BTW,  it's not just here in HU, it's quite a few places hereabouts that the service goes wrong. You'd think it wouldn't be really possible to confuse Austria with Australia. I was somewhat amused to read by the rubber stamps on the letters I received that some of it went via Melbourne.

These days even pizzas are delivered within 1h.
Why cant important papers by snail mail? Unbelievable!
To complicate things, the staff at magyar posta speak no english
Seems to me MP needs a revamp in 2015

I have been living here for 4 years everytime i noticed exactly 7-8 days for a letter to reach from buda to pest or from pest to buda or viceversa.  Sorry thats way too slow in my terms. India post is much much faster these delivering local mail within a day or two.

Maybe you should hand delivery your mail, faster in the long run.
I have been visiting and now living in Hungary since 1978.
I can only survive here by not working, having a Hungarian husband that tends to my needs with any sort of business, drives me everywhere and keeps wine in good stock at home, that and a hook up to Netflix.
Not sure how long  I would last if not for all these concessions.
I would and could not ever actually take this place seriously or I would explode.Has we say in Hawaii, I would loose my Aloha in a flash.
We are retired and couldn't care a hoot most times what is going on around us, when it is no longer interesting here we would get away.
As it is I must go home to the US every 2 years before I go loony, when I first go home I realize I am so off, have a hard time talking and don't really know what is going on. Culture shock in my own country... Hungary has always been unreliable in every way for me, just have to go with the flow and meditate daily.
Only here basically because we are too lazy to work, can live here in our own,"Little Idaho" nothing is real...
People who come here to make a business or raise children I raise my hat to, brave souls indeed!
There are much easier places on earth to have a life, that's for sure.

gosubmit wrote:

These days even pizzas are delivered within 1h.

The pizza place is competing for your business with other pizza places.

The post office is, in its own way, a monopoly. You are just "stuck" with them, with little alternatives in the same price range. So no incentive for them to act quickly or respond to consumer complaints.

gosubmit wrote:

India post is much much faster these delivering local mail within a day or two.

A lot of Indians that I know are business savvy and know how to get things done. 

gosubmit wrote:

Why is the snail mail delivery so slow in Hungary (magyar posta)? It takes about a week to deliver a letter from buda to pest. In my case, a registered letter dated 17th only reached me 25th, which is 8 days. Also ordinary letters takes almost a week to reach.

Why is it so slow? In most countries, the delivery is about next day.

I have no experience with couriers but i guess it costs about 900-1000 ft for same day delivery.

Romanian post is the same, quite slow and unreliable.  Perhaps it's a regional (central/eastern EU) phenomenon.  At least in Romania, if it's important or urgent, use a private company courier to get your stuff delivered on time and accurately. 

Romaniac
Romania Expat Advisor
Expat-Blog

romaniac wrote:

..... Perhaps it's a regional (central/eastern EU) phenomenon.  At least in Romania, if it's important or urgent, use a private company courier to get your stuff delivered on time and accurately.  ..

Yes, it is but it also extends way out to Central Asia and even within the EU.  I've been involved in some minor discussions about how to reform a postal service way out East.  The obvious thing to do is to split up the post office system to get better value out of the profitable parts (like banking or add on services) but it's a perilous journey with some real opportunities to be a vote loser and meet huge resistance from the workforce if not done correctly.

In Germany, everyone has to have access within about 2km of their property to a post office and in many places out further East, delivering the actual post is just one aspect of the post office's work.   The postman/woman is effectively an important symbol of the state in many remote communities. In particular, the post person brings the pensions (and therefore cash) to the village and is in that respect, a banking lifeline. It could even be the only person the elderly see and interact with each month.  There's no profit in that function at all so it's really a social system as much as just delivering the post. There's absolutely no profit in it in remote areas and it's a vote loser to suggest any reform. One can only tinker at the edges. There is real resistance to introducing competition. In the cities, obviously there's greater demand for better services and less resistance. However, that's cherry picking and causing less cross subsidy available for the social aspects. 

Not defending the institutions, just pointing out what else is going on with them.

These discussions bring to mind the 1997 movie, The Postman with Kevin Costner.  Some aspects of the politics of the postal system in post-apocalypse can be seen there. See: The Postman

I ordered an item on UK Ebay, it was posted on August 23 and I received it on August 28. 

Nice to hear the Magyar Post does it's job sometimes.
I admit the 4 times I sent myself packages from the US to HU it was only one time when it was "lost" ,"misplaced" or whatever term they wanted to use for 5 long months!
Only got my package after my husband spoke first to the manager of the Mayar Post, they said it had never arrived in HU.
Was stuck in the Netherlands in a storage unit because the label feel off.
Everyone was blaming someone else, I got sick of it, wrote to the US postal service and asked for my insurance claim on the package, wonder of all wonders; it just happened to show up in Hungary and they were waiting for me to come in a sign for it!! Yea, right...
Good thing I bought insurance or I would of never seen my package again.
Just so happens we noticed it had actually gone through inspection in Hungary months before hand but whatever....

Had another parcel from UK today, Northern Ireland this time. It was posted on 25th.

a package from Amazon (US) was ordered on the 26., got it today (the first). (in Szekesfehervar)

capttamas wrote:

a package from Amazon (US) was ordered on the 26., got it today (the first). (in Szekesfehervar)

So ~7 day delivery time on an international letter or package actually makes it harder to fully explain 8 days for a letter to journey from "just" Buda to Pest (a somewhat shorter distance).

Even the pony express could move a letter between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in 10 days, 155 years ago.

I also have not had any luck with Hungarian post. Each time I send parcels to my boys in Australia, I pay the extra for express air, and it still takes almost 2 months for them to receive the parcels. Just an absolute joke. I have stopped using "Magyar Post", instead, I get online and google the cheapest courier service to Australia and courier it across. Its a little bit more costly, but when I way up how much I pay for postage, how long it takes for the parcels to arrive, and the condition in which they arrive in, it probably works out the same and the parcel is guaranteed to get there in 4 days and all in one peice And as for the parcels we receive, they always seem to get held up here in Budapest for at least 2 weeks before we receive it with damaged contents!!! "Magyar Post" is a waste of money and time!!!

I don't think I have sent any parcels from Hungary but I've received 3 from USA and they have been undamaged and came within about 10 days. One actually had some cash in it as well as goods but it had not been opened. I get bank statements from UK each month but with those I can't tell when they were posted.