It doesn't get any better when you have the tracking number.
A while back I posted a parcel to Germany - a defective product returned under warranty - using the labels and customs declaration provide by the recipient. A month later it is still with the customs in Frankfurt.
They won't release it until a 'fee' is paid (although no fee is owed) and the recipient won't collect it because a fee is allegedly due. Some jobsworth hasn't read the customs declaration - perhaps because it is in English and they only speak/read German? Neither party seems capable of speaking to the other.
I thought the customs union, which some in Britain want to pay billions to remain part of, and which certainly applies to Cyprus and Germany, was intended to sort out these minor border issues. How naive!
The manufacturer's support (based in The USA, though probably manned from a Far Eastern call centre) is worse than useless. A quick phone call or e-mail would have it resolved in moments, but they won't do that. So I have had to write a letter to the recipient - in German - to try and coax them into speaking the their local post office.
Meanwhile, because of the delay, the recipient has cancelled the return authorisation and issued a new one, so the numbers plastered all over the carton will no longer apply. You couldn't make this up. I believe my e-mail to the recipient's support this morning could at best be described as intemperate. Grrrrrrr!
The only helpful soul has been the young lady at Paphos main Post Office, who told me that the parcel would be returned to them if it wasn't delivered after a month and to contact them when the tracker said it had been returned. I expect to see it back again after Christmas, when I will do what I should have done in the first place and bin it.