Terrible service and communication

My parcel traveled from the U.S. to South Africa in one week and has now languished in Cape Town since 6 October. That was a full two weeks ago. I'm incredibly frustrated by this situation, especially the lack of communication about what is going on.

Mr. Rabothata sent me a tax and VAT invoice 11 October but the customs value of the parcel was clearly wrong -- about 4x the actual cost of buying the item in South Africa. And the customs VAT and duty added up to about 1.5x the actual cost of buying the item in South Africa. I sent Mr. Rabothata the receipt for the item in the parcel (which my friend in the U.S. bought) and a link to a place where you can buy the item in South Africa (which also had the price of the item in ZAR).

I'm completely willing to pay fees but ONLY if they're correct. I asked Mr. Rabothata for a breakdown of how the taxes and duties were calculated. I never received that. Instead, my item was sent to clearance for a re-evaluation.

What does re-evaluation mean? How long does that take? What do I need to do to help the process along? Who knows, because ever since my parcel was sent for re-evaluation, it seems most FedEx employees I've had contact with really don't know what's happening. I received an email from Ms. Christiel Khan on 18 October as follows, almost none of which made any sense to me:

"We will need to apply for a refund for not using the incorrect value , please can you obtain the attached /Below.

TARIFF REFUNDS- we need below

Identifiable literature which corresponds with the commercial invoice Literature must be detailed with use, installation and application Detailed descriptive Literature from the Manufacturer/supplier which can be linked to the description on the supplier invoice Motivate his/her interpretation of the meaning of the words used in the tariff heading and relative HS tariff section and chapter notices which the client is of the opinion may be relevant to the classification of the goods concerned. LOA to be printed with a letter head , signed & returned to us with the completed clearing instructions & product literature."

What does any of this mean? It seems these questions were meant for someone operating an import business. I'm not operating an import business. I'm just a regular person trying to receive a personal parcel from my regular friend in the U.S. That is all.

When I emailed Ms. Khan on 18 October that I didn't know what most of those questions meant or referred to, she said she would escalate this to a manager. Then she asked me for photos of what is in the parcel. Since I don't have an actual photo of the item, I sent her the same receipt (which has a photo of the item on it) and website link that I had sent to Mr. Rabothata. When I talked to Ms. Khan on the phone on 19 October, at one point she told me that FedEx can arrange to send the parcel back to the U.S. since I'm not paying the fees. No! I'm willing to pay fees -- I just need the fees to be correct and based on the correct customs value. Is that too much to ask?

Why is this all so hard? Why has my parcel now sat in Cape Town for two weeks, twice the amount of time it took for the parcel to travel here from the U.S.? What is this re-evaluation and why is it dragging on? Isn't FedEx supposed to provide speedy and efficient service? How about prompt and useful communication?