Over the last few months to number of times Australia Post has lost items has increased in my experience. In the most recent situation, a post pack, with a barcode for tracking, was lost. It turns out the pack was not scanned at any location. More than $200 worth of goods went missing.
Here is the Australia Post response:
Thank you for taking the time to contact us about the parcel 60204183857099 you sent. I can understand that it’s concerning when your parcel is not delivered as expected. My name is Erik and below is the outcome of your enquiry.
I have checked the details for your parcel and can see that there has been no tracking events. If your parcel was not able to be delivered, it may be forwarded to our Returned Mail Redistribution Centre, which is where undeliverable, damaged or loose items are sent. I have subsequently used the contents description you provided to check this database, but was unsuccessful in finding a match.
I’m sorry to advise that the parcel you have sent has been lost in transit. As you have not taken out Transit Cover for this parcel, we cannot compensate you for the contents. As a result, all possible avenues for our investigation have been exhausted and we are unable to investigate this matter further.
Maybe this is part of the management plan to drive the sale of Transit Cover.
The whole experience is frustrating.
As someone who is a seller on Ebay, The need to use Australia Post is deplorable. The crew at my local office are pretty good but once it leaves this store the problems that are found are at its highest levels i have ever seen.
Items that have clearly been used as footballs in the lunchtime game, items going missing or not scanned. Its pathetic.
Having to take out insurance to ensure that their job is done correctly is an absolute mockery of the service. This means they get paid extra to do their job properly and if it is insured then you have to prove to them how much the item was really worth. Which in my experience they rarely accept as true,despite invoices from suppliers!!
I cannot wait for the day that the dinosaur known as Australia Post is put to rest.
I am surprised that more people (e.g. eBay sellers) aren’t using things like Mailman from Officeworks (and some of the other Australia Post competitors that seem to be out there) to ship their parcels…
Not just Australia Post.
The courier industry is a disgrace. On a average we have a courier damaged delivery once week. We receive advices that consignments were refused or not deliverable, despite us being all hours the couriers work. Yesterday we received a parcel despatched 13 days ago in Melbourne, the driver said it had been on his truck for several days but had no time to deliver.
Don’t even get me started on the papers and magazine deliveries.
possible new revenue stream for distribution agents.
your papers are X amount of dollar per week, however if you take out delivery insurance for an extra X amount of dollars just in case we stuff up, we will replace your paper.
didn’t take out insurance? oh well, no paper for you and we’ll still charge you for it, and “we cannot compensate you for the paper. As a result, all possible avenues for our investigation have been exhausted and we are unable to investigate this matter further.”
I have concerns that some Australia Post services have been outsourced to India. I have noticed that the names of my account managers on my Business Accounts seem to change almost every couple of months and they are always Indian names.
The alarmingly increased rate of “lost items” that I then have to repost at my own expense (both for the replacement product the customers have paid for and the extra postage) has severely affected my magazine’s bottom line.
“Tracking” is a joke. They tell you when it was lodged, and then they tell you it was delivered (if you are lucky enough to have it actually delivered)
Parcels are no longer delivered to the addressee but cards are left in the letterboxes instructing customers to pick the item up from the mail centre. Don’t we pay for delivery???
Add to that, the fact that prices for print and regular post went up in January this year and the cost to post each one of my magazines was increased from $1.80 per magazine to $3 – an expense that I had to wear that could not be passed on to subscribers who had already paid for a year in advance, and now I have just received a letter advising yet another increase in January 2017.
The delivery times for the magazines to subscribers used to average 3-4 days, lately it’s been taking THREE WEEKS! As a consequence subscribers were getting their magazines AFTER they went on sale in the newsagents and they were not happy, so I had to move my print dates forward 3 weeks and hold back the distributor copies. This meant I had to pay the printer account earlier and miss out on another 3 weeks of sales.
That has been the straw that has broken the back of this niche publisher. Thanks to Australia Post’s inefficiency and outrageous prices my magazine is no longer financially viable.
I know I am not the only small business suffering from this. Australia Post has destroyed my business.
There needs to be some kind of enquiry into this.
Lisa, instead of outsourcing delivery to Australia Post why don’t you outsource it to the newsagent.
The customer will get better service, you will pay less for delivery costs and the newsagent will get an extra delivery fee.