International service restricted (Dom. Rep.)
Hey,
I'm currently in the Dominican Republic on vacation. For a couple of years I once was working for my national postal service provider in a middle sized European country.
As per tradition, I wanted to send physical postcards to a couple of relatives at home. However, I was told by a lady in the post office here that my country is not on the list of countries to which exports are made this month. Indeed, there is info on INPOSDOM's website that this April mail can be sent to (for instance) Germany and Japan, but not to (for instance) Belgium or Singapore.
In my understanding this is in violation of the universal postal service agreement. There is no strike, no COVID restrictions, no international sanctions. I have never heard of anything like this. How can this be a thing?
I would not mind if the shipping took ages but to deny shipping because this month the universal service provider doesn't feel like it seems very off to me. I've been to post offices in many countries, and as already mentioned I worked for a national postal service provider, but I have no idea how this could be legal.
I'm honestly thinking about routing my postcards to Germany and relying on them forwarding them to their real destination country.
Any thoughts or advice?