Rick's b.log - entry 2025/10/21

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Shein and the missing parcel

I sent a query to Shein because, well, because this was weird. I got an automatic response saying that according to their records, the parcel has been delivered, followed by a personal reply that simply said that I am being reimbursed to the card that I paid with, it usually takes 5-7 days depending on the bank, blah blah.
That they didn't even bother to discuss but went straight to a refund - does this happen a lot?

I then got a bunch of text messages and emails because Shein is really weird in that when you order something, it is broken into separate orders for each individual vendor they're acting for, even if all of the stuff comes in the same parcel.
This was followed by an email saying that the refund was complete, and in bold noting that I can no longer use this letterbox to receive parcels.

I sent back a reply (that didn't get responded to) pointing out that not only did the parcel clearly never make it beyond the main sorting centre, as evidenced by Mondial Relay's own tracking, but my "letterbox" was a Mondial Relay parcel pickup point! I could understand if something was 'delivered' to my letterbox and got swiped, but sorry, there's no way they (Shein or Mondial Relay) can pin any of this on me.

As it happens, I ordered a framed ghost print - because I thought it was cute and I'm a sucker for cute ghosts (and it's how I see myself in this world) - that was apparently 70cm by 50cm or something like that. In order to not get annihilated in the postage, it was probably packed in a pretty study box. Some minimum wage lackey probably thought it was a telly or some stupid crap like that - I mean, who orders a telly that gets sent in a bag marked Shein with a bunch of other things?

The usual progression of events is the parcel goes through customs overseas (China, I'd imagine), then flies to Charles de Gaulle (CDG), then goes to Harnes. From there it goes to Rennes, and then it's out for delivery. Harnes isn't particularly fast, but then that's the main sorting point for France which I'd imagine is understaffed and overworked - like everything else these days...plus, they bring a soft-bag parcel over from China for, what was it, €2,50 or something? It costs almost as much to send a letter to the next town over.
Anyway, when I see Harnes I can think "about two days to go".

Shein, for their part, the only "fault" would be that their pricing and all the coupons stuff is utterly Gonzo. It's like a trained gerbil throwing darts at a wall to see how much you'll pay for something. Going back the next day, expect the prices to be different... Not the same gerbil, you see. ☺

The big questions here lie on the head of Mondial Relay. Who marked the parcel as "delivered" from the main sorting centre? You do have traceability, right? I trust the person that marked this thing delivered gets dragged in front of Cthulhu to explain themselves.
But, then, a bigger question is surely why does anybody at the sorting centre even have the ability to mark anything as delivered? And why does the tracing system not raise a very big warning if a parcel is marked "delivered" before it has even gone out for delivery?

It is worth noting that Mondial Relay's own site does not say any of this. It says the parcel is still in Harnes - so maybe it'll turn up tomorrow or the day after and somebody just pushed the wrong button (again, there shouldn't be a wrong button to push)? Or maybe this parcel's lineage will simply end at Harnes?

I have been back to Shein and reordered most of the stuff I ordered previously ... at least that which I could remember - Shein's site is a bit clumsy to navigate, you can't call up an order and follow links because as I said the order gets broken into a bunch of sub-orders and annoyingly the order page replaces the order list page, making it complicated to even get a list of stuff on-screen at one time, unless there's some magic incantation I'm missing...?

Of course, the prices were all different (many in my favour, some not) and I got about a third whacked off in coupons I didn't even know I had. I have specified it to be sent to the same place, the parcel pickup point. I'll enjoy arguing the logic of that should anybody disagree.

Here's the ghost. Sadly it's rather likely to arrive after Samhain (Halloween), but whatever...

Cute, isn't it?
(picture from Shein, cropped)

Previously there were only framed versions. They now had canvas rolls that you frame yourself. I got that because, well, it's more likely to survive shipping and it won't be so cumbersome. I'm sure I can make/buy a simple wooden frame of the right size and attach the canvas to it somehow.
If it's truly 50×70 (and doesn't have big margins), then it's actually pretty big. It's just slightly wider than a standard size computer keyboard, and the height is about three quarters the width of a standard size 61 key electronic piano.
That'll look nice on the wall, I think.

Express your feelings with a badge!
(pictures from Shein, cropped and composited)

The first two tickled me, I may well wear the second one during my next annual review (my boss understands English), than the last two, well, that ought to be obvious.

PS: If you are thinking of sending me a comment that I could get this stuff cheaper on Alibaba, please save your keystrokes. I've been to Alibaba. I managed to cope with that horrible horrible mess of a site for about four minutes. Not only is it a dreadful disorganised mess that makes Amazon seem like the paragon of online shopping, but far too many times they pulled the "let's group something really cheap with something expensive" wheeze so you look at a little whatsit for a couple of euros and you're thinking "impressive price", but the whatsit is a pretty normal price but you can get a pen for a couple of euros. Massively annoying, garish, fugly waste of time.

Tea v0.25c

The first change is to get the correct programme descriptions showing up. What was happening here was that most of the descriptions used a "crid://" reference where the tail was unique to the programme, like "crid://bbc.co.uk/icc/episode/m002l71s" which is South Today today (the regional news after the main six o'clock news), or "crid://panorama.five.tv/versions/C5474560035A" which was Peppa Pig on Five at seven thirty this morning (wait, it's only five minutes long?).
Unfortunately some (like the movida.bebanjo.net links for 4/Film4) are like "crid://movida.bebanjo.net/mas/version/76413/001/POSTWATERSHED2100/C" (Where the Crawdads Sing on Film4 next Tuesday).
Why this matters is because the original cache file name was made by taking the final eight characters of the ID string. South Today would be "p_m002l71s", Peppa Pig would be "p_4560035A", and a whole bunch of stuff on Film4 would be "p_ED2100/C". 🤦

So, now, the filename is constructed by taking only the final six characters of the ID string, and suffixing a four digit hex value which is the result of passing the ID string through the OS_CRC call. This means Where the Crawdads Sing's file name is "p_2100/C-ABFD", while The Innocents (1961; late Friday night) is "p_2100/C-AB22" and programmes now get the right descriptions.

The next change is trivial, but it bugged me for too long. There were circumstances when saving the iCal file where the main menu remained open - like pressing Enter in the filename writable. So now, when the file has been saved, it'll clear the menu.

And just in case you're the sort of person that likes to rummage in the stuff in !Scrap, the fetcher now checks when creating a cache file if it's a JPEG. If so, it'll set the filetype to JPEG. So now you can double-click on it.

Outstanding: Verify day-change behaviour is correct, or at least, not broken. Also verify that the cache expiry that happens at the same time works correctly. I now have a bunch of files from the 19^th of October, and tomorrow the 21^st going into the 22^nd, those files will be over 24h old and candidates for removal. Maybe I ought to have it run an expiry when the program starts, in case you don't leave it sitting on the icon bar?

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