Frequently Ask Questions about Parcels
Why use French Office ?
- A French address for you or your business.
- Receive parcels, from the smallest up to a container of pallets.
- Scanning services so you can read and manage your mail online.
- Your mail is stored until you’re ready to forward it.
- Completely confidential.
- Administrative services from company incorporation, VAT, translation
- Live call center services
- Telephony: VOIP, French phone numbers, both fixed and mobile.
We offer you a real street address. Wherever you are, this will establish your presence in France. It is available for individuals as well as businesses.
The French Post Office or private carriers deliver your letters or parcels to your French Office address. We sign for your mail and parcels if necessary.
It’s as if you were here yourself.
A real and a virtual office
French Office offers all the services you might need
to run your business in France.
We provide you with a virtual office that receives your mail, packages, or pallets. Ship items to you, or your customers, anywhere in the world. Combine your French address with a French phone number and live call answering and voilà, you’re doing business as if you were in France.
Contract
Signing up online is fast and easy. Clear step-by-step instructions lead you through a 2 minutes registration process.
You’ll receive your contract by email as soon as you validate your subscription.
Feel free to contact us if you need assistance selecting your monthly plan.
Yes. Even if you’re interested in the Express Plan, you’ll have to sign a contract with us.
This contract states our responsibilities and yours. It describes the terms and conditions for all our services and guarantees the quality of our work.
The contract has no fixed duration, unless otherwise specified.
Our plans run for a minimum of 1 month and for the duration of your choice. You choose the start date.
If you elect to store parcels with us, you can select the length of your contract.
If you opt for the Express plan, you’ll be able to use our address for as long as you keep crediting your account (and for a minimum of one month).
At the end of your contract, if your account has a positive balance, we’ll renew it automatically.
If your credit has run out, you’ll receive an email alert to prompt you to renew.
You can close your account at any time by email or by sending us a letter.
Yes, you can switch to another plan at any time, without any fee. To do so, simply call us or send us an email. Please specify the name of the new plan and your desired start date. In the absence of a specified start date, the switch take effect at the beginning of the following month. We will adjust the credit on your account to reflect your new plan and the duration you’ve chosen for your contract.
After you’ve signed up online, you’ll receive your contract by email. You’ll need to sign it and return it to us, along with :
- A copy of your passport or other piece of ID.
- A utility bill readable in English.
- A business registration document if you represent a company.
You can send these documents by email or by mail, within a month or before your first forwarding request.
We will not forward your parcels unless we have received your documents.
You can close your account at any time by notifying us by mail or by email. Please specify when you wish for your account to be cancelled, no sooner than the end of the current month. We will confirm by email that we have received and are processing your request.
If there’s still credit on your account, we will refund it, minus de cancellation fee.
Address
Our logistics platform is located in La Mure, Isère, near Grenoble. However our clients are based around the world. They can forward their mail from France to anywhere. It is a street address, where all mail and parcels can be sent, including official letters.
Our mailboxes are flexible. You can close your contract at any time.
Your address will read:
NAME
CDV ##
350 chemin du Pré Neuf
38350 LA MURE D’ISERE
FRANCE
We recommand that you provide your senders directly with your new address. As it’s a street address, everybody should accept it.
Deliveries can be scheduled Monday through Friday, 9am to 6pm. In order to avoid any confusion, it is important to clearly state your “CDV#” on your address.
We accept parcels from anywhere in the world, with all carriers.
Minutes after you’ve signed up, you’ll receive a confirmation email with your contract and your new French Office address.
The email reminds you how to complete your registration. We can start receiving your parcels at your new address, but you will need to send us the documents needed to validate your subscription within a month in order to access or forward them.
Even with this number, your address remains a street address where all mail and parcel can be received (incuding official mail and goods from private carriers).
It’s short for “Courrier du Voyageur” the name of our company in French, and we assign all our clients, French or foreign, with a number starting with “CDV”.
It is important that you mention those letters in your address, as it is your complete client number.
Even with this number, your address remains a street address where all mail and parcel can be received (incuding official mail and goods from private carriers).
As a French Office client, you will sign a contract that protects you. Our company agrees never to disclose or use our clients’ personnal information.
You and you only can access your information online. During the sign up process, you will create your own username and password. Unless you choose to share it with someone, you will be the only one to know it.
We do not have access to your login information. If you lose or forget your username or password, please reset it directly on our website.
Websites might ask you for a delivery phone number when you order online.
Simply use the French Office number : +33 (0)4-76-30-92-82
Payment
You can add credit to your account by paying with your debit or credit card online. We accept foreign Visa and Mastercards.
Online payment on our site is secure. It’s your bank that dictates the level of security, therefore you might have to enter a SMS or email code that your bank will send you during the sign up process. If you have trouble at this stage, please contact your bank.
You can also pay by bank transfer. It’s free within the European Union but banks in other countries will charge you a fee.
Fees depend on your brank and your country.
Our online software will calculate the final price for our services according to your plan, the length of your contract, and the options you’ve selected.
We ask for payment to be made upon registration and for the duration of your contract.
We also ask for a set up fee, which will be used towards your first mail forwarding request.
You have a 24/7 access to your credit history with us. Just log into your client space on our website.
When your credit is running low, you will recieve an alert and a reminder of how to top it up.
Information exchange between your computer and our website is encrypted using today’s most efficient protocole (SSL 128 bits).
Access to your online account is also encrypted and secure. You are the only one to know your username and password.
Credit card payment is fully secure, with a second verification performed by your own bank.
Receiving
We receive parcels Monday through Friday, 9am to 6pm, year-round. We add your parcel’s information to your online account the same day.
You can choose to receive an email alert as soon as a parcel has been added to your account.
Our offices are open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, year-round.
We close only on normal French bank holidays. Parcels scheduled for a Saturday delivery are received the following business day.
We do not close during common “school holidays”.
We accept all kind of parcels!
We receive standard postal deliveries, parcels requiring a signature, or private carriers deliveries.
We accept standard-size parcels as well as long, heavy or large boxes. We also handle parcels.
Please note you should alert us if you expect a heavy or large parcel (weight > 30kg or L+H+D > 2m).
Each parcel’s tracking number, sender, weight and size are recorded and added to your online account.
If needed, we can pay custom taxes for you. Just ask us for this specific service.
We can receive all kind of parcels for you. Standard size parcels are included in your monthly Express plan.
However, you’ll need to request a quote to send oversized parcels. Oversized parcels are boxes that weight more than 30kg (66lbs) or and longer, higher or deeper than 2m (6ft 6in). When we receive an oversized parcel, additional fees might apply.
We accept pallets under 450kg (992lbs).
Carriers deliver parcels to us every day. We record them and transfer them to our logistics platform.
We assign your parcel a number, and enter the following information in your online account:
- Where/who the package’s from.
- Its size.
- Its weight.
- Its tracking number.
- Its CDV tracking number.
Your parcel is then stored in our secured warehouse.
Thanks to the CDV tracking number, it is easy for you and for us to located your parcel, to ask us to open or to forward it.
- Basic: no mail is scanned.
- Standard: envelops and up to 5 pieces of mail are scanned.
- Premium: we scan all your mail.
Each monthly plan includes a storage limit. Select the plan that meets best your needs. You can also opt for the Express plan, which limits storage to 3 days.
It’s the best choice if you need your boxes forwarded to you right away.
Regardless of your monthly plan, we update your virtual mailbox as soon as we receive a parcel for you. You can select to receive an alert as soon as your account has been updated. You can access your information online 24/7.
By default, you’ll receive a weekly email update listing all the boxes available for you.
When you sign up with French Office, an online private space is reserved for you on our server. You choose your login information.
Your online account holds your list of parcels, your credit history and your personnal data.
You use it to ask us to open your parcels, destroy unwanted documents or packaging, forward your goods to you or any address you provide us with.
We don’t know your login information. If you lose or forget your password, please reset it using the appropriate link on the login page of our website.
If a letter arrives for you, it will be assigned a tracking number and recorded on your online account. We will charge you a small fee.
To avoid this, elect to discard junk mail, catalogs or other advertising materials that may be sent to your French Office address. This service is entirely free.
We will never turn down a letter arriving in your name. It will be handled and recorded the day we’ve received it.
Forwarding
It is very easy. All shipping requests are made from your online user space. There, you can choose to forward all or some of your parcels.
Simply check the box in front of each parcel’s description, and enter an address or use the address we have memorized for you.
Select a carrier and the various options you might like: insurance, special shipping request…
For shipment outside of France, you will have to fill a pro-forma invoice. This is a simple document you’ll find on your online user space.
The invoice will be attached to your parcel in order to clear customs.
Unfortunately, this service is only available for mail forwarding. Too many variables make automatic parcels forwarding impossible (carriers’ tarifs change constantly, one parcel might need a pro-forma invoice while another one won’t, etc…).
However, if your shipping address is always the same, you won’t have to re-enter it each time.
Shipping costs will be the sum of your carrier’s price (varies from one carrier to another) and our services fees.
These depend on your monthly plan and the options you select for a each shipment. You will find the tariff for all our options on our website.
We pride ourselves in keeping our prices transparent. Let us know if something isn’t clearly displayed.
When you request a shipment, we calculate the shipping cost based on the carrier you’ve selected, the options you’ve chosen, and the destination.
If the credit on your account covers this cost, your request will be confirmed. You’ll receive an email summarizing your shipment and its final cost.
If you don’t have enough money on your account, an email will inform you that your request is pending. Simply log in online and credit your account.
You can ask to minimize the size of your parcels by re-packaging them. If you’re forwarding several parcels at once, ask us to open them and combine the good into the most efficient box possible. In this process, we can discard any unwanted material (catalog, averts…) that might add weight to the parcel.
Services
Each client is unique and will find the plan that best suits him or her.
If you can wait to receive your parcels, you might prefer a plan that includes box storage.
This way, you can ask us to combine several parcels into fewer boxes, therefore reducing shipping costs.
If you’d rather receive your goods as quickly as possible, the Express plan might be a better match. You don’t have any storage with this plan.
Our tarifs are explained in great details on this website. Don’t hesitate to look them up!
You’re a professionnal who needsa logistics platform in France.
You’re an individual living abroad and you like to order things online, which are not delivered outside of France.
You can use French Office as a relay.
We receive your merchandise at our address in France and forward them onto you or to any address you’d like.
Yes, we can open your parcels and, if necessary, scan the delivery forms or invoices it might contain. This way, you know exactly what’s inside your parcel and if the merchandise we’ve received conforms to your order. You can pinpoint specific items in an order you’ve placed so that we check those precisely.
If we receive a damaged parcel for you, we notify it immediately to the carrier, so that the insurance can be activated if you have selected one.
If the box is opened, we check its contents directly at the carrier’s warehouse, as required by transport regulations.
If anything is missing or damaged, we refuse the parcel and inform you by email. We then assist you in filing your complaint.
If the box is opened but everything is in order, we accept the delivery but inform you that the box was damaged.
Of course. You choose the address we send your parcels to. The address can change each time if you like!
As a mesure of precaution, we never send scanned images by email unless you specifically request it.
We can store goods, re-package them or handle dispatch.
Contact us for your marketing operations (mailing…), e-commerce or orders fulfillment.
We can receive your merchandise, sort them through, re-package them and send them to several addresses in France or in the world.
We also handle customer returns. Just ask for a free quote!
Our company offers mailing solutions, phone services, or administrative assistance to foreign organizations wishing to have a presence in France.
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