The Australia Post Experience
Us sunburnt types do not have the luxury of multiple carriers when we want to send items to far flung corners of our upside down country. We have one option to send things to some places, and that option is only Australia Post.
I sent a parcel, to some far flung corner of the Australian map on the 12th of May. This parcel contained some items that were placed lovingly into a used Amazon shipping box, had a computer generated label, and much tape to secure the contents.
On the Fourth of June, the parcel had its last update. It went from Adelaide, to Melbourne. To Somewhere in Queensland. Then it back tracked to Sydney. From there, it went to Brisbane. What a journey.
The person I sent it to, family, asked where the thing they were expecting was. They contacted Australia Post at some point in late June to ask a few questions. Those questions went unanswered.
I called them to do the same. There were a few emails. They looked. They told me to contact the delivery contractor. The person expecting the parcel did. They told them they couldn't track individual items as they were palletised for delivery to the final destination.
So, its lost? "Oh, but you can have some compensation!"
Yes, I'd like that. How?
"Through our compensation team?"
"That's great. How?"
"Just send them the receipts of what was in the parcel!"
How helpful.
"HOW?"
I suggested that they compensate me beyond the standard $100 on offer. I suggested that it would not be worth their time investigating further, going through the procedural checks, because I was prepared (and believe me, I was prepared to provide all the evidence - and .... repeat it, as I had provided all the evidence to Australia Post approximately fourteen times at this point)
Silence. For a week. Then for another. I raised a complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the place you go to complain about when government services don't work out the way you expect.
I haven't gotten a reply at this point. Until miraculously, the day after, I get a phone call from a helpful bloke who informed me of the process. He wouldn't take my repeated word for it. He would want a statutory declaration.
In it, I'd need to include:
The value of the items, The purchase price, How I determined the purchase price, how much I paid for postage, the contents of the parcel. My identity. The tracking number. An explanation of the life story of an inanimate parcel
Stat Decs are a government document that you can have witnessed, and then they are really, really true - as opposed to you honestly saying something in a letter. Because they're really true (and there's some sort of a crime for lying on them.)
Anyway, I wrote one up, but I really wanted to figure out the sum total contents of the box. Would I need to declare how many nitrogen and oxygen atoms were lost by Australia post, and assign to them, too, a value?
Would I be able to find one of the government approved officials with the sufficient scientific rigour to validate my claims? Probably not. So I filled it and sent it off. And I'm still fucking waiting.
@mobbs - you were waiting for this...
Hazzaa!
Imagine a well established system, with decades of process evolution and automated technology and 1 job to do…and they oopsy a package into the nether. Our postal system is packed with union workers and constantly attacked by budget cuts with each new administration so it is no better in 🇨🇦 Canada really. Luckily we have fedex, purolator and a whole bunch of smaller regional express delivery companies as alternatives. The competition makes it necessary to remain good at what you do as a commodity service that can lose a customer for good from a bad experience.
I didn’t know you are from down under! So many good hivers from Oz.
There are so many good hive users in Australia because we increasingly have only one way to communicate with the outside world given the stellar performance of our national mail carrier.
We are an adaptable bunch, and don't let adversity stop us.
I don't think it is wrong to assert dissapointment at corporate/ governmental incompetence. They say that the process isn't designed to be frustrating, but when the same experience occurs at multiple organisations ... it feels uh, intentional.
So much a waste of our lives. But writing the post made me feel slightly better.
Another power of hive.
US Postal Service is not much different. I've had similar experience, I gave up and didn't even finish the claims process for the insurance on it. It was worth more in my time to just let the package die.
As a currently unemployed, I will go to the end of the Earth to prove my point on this one :p
I have lost countless packages to the US postal service, but I do spend a decent amount of money on postage weekly. Nothing large, only letter sized parcels. It is still infuriating and disappointing each time.
!ALIVE
Where do they end up though? There's got to be some place on Earth they gather.
What the hell is the postal service doing reading god's mail?
Complaint processes are chaotic. People are a disaster, they don't help you and they just want to screw you over. You might find a kind soul, but they are few and far between.
Having worked in complaint management professionally (and trying to improve the process in a large corporate) it boggles my mind at the lack of accountability some organisations can take for their actions.
I just got papers from Germany delivered to me by the Ecuadorian postal system. The content was from transactions of a house that we did in 2022, when my father had a stroke and we wanted to have everything settled just in case. I was highly surprised as those letters arrived at my place in Ecuador. I didn't know why they sent them to me, as I do have a postal address in Germany. And the dates on the three letters that were put into one covering envelope ranged from beginning to the end of 2023.
They got here. At least that. I had many different experiences with things not arriving ever, also within Ecuador - and this country is not quite as big as Australia.
I gave up on complaining. It's not worth it. When people don't want to take responsibility, they won't, in any way. Okay, it depends. Sometimes it's a matter of principle. Sometimes it's really about a lot of money. But most of the time I come to the conclusion that my time and nerves are worth more than $$$, and that I take my lessons and walk away.
And that is when we admit defeat, we let the bullies win ;)
I will be defiant and exercise my rights to the nth degree, in the context of postage. The burden was enormous, but I'll gladly carry it - to ensure that the corporate incompetence is "Working appropriately" and costing the maximum amount of resources.
There's more than one way to get my due recompense. :)
There is that game called "Postal" if inspiration is needed. I mean, inspiration for situations that require patience. A lot of patience. Just saying.
Postal 2 is one of my favourite games, it is a scathing cultural critique. So far ahead of its time!
What if the item was not compensatable in money terms, like a baby or something??
This very specifically reminds me of when the wife and I were in Barcelona airport heading to Rome. They overbooked about 8 of us, all couples. Only one seat left. One guy let his girlfriend go alone and the rest of us stranded until the next day.
But I was not having it so we fought and, amazingly, there's literally nobody in charge in the entire airport. There's staff at the counter, staff walking around, but no managers of any kind. Nobody you can escalate to or get any questions answered. By design, I guess.
Well for us, it was too late to go to Rome by then so we had to cancel. The staff wouldn't let us despite our protests. Thankfully, after walking around lost, there was a shift change, and we asked the new guy. Still being full of energy for the day, he easily found a flight to Florence as we requested. So we did that... but where do we get our suitcases?? Basement, I went down to a miserable woman in a queue moving without exaggeration about 1 person every 40 minutes.
By the time I got to her, she told me they already re-booked my flights to Rome so the suitcases aren't with her. I'm staring at her with the most manly scolding eyes I think I've ever threatened anyone with and did a Neo-style 'No'. In her miserable, Karen-like fear she made a call, then told me to stand aside for another 40 minutes or so and I got my bags.
Anyway we got on the flight to Florence just in time but the process of getting the compensation was months-long. I refused to give up and I did get like 600 euros in the end I think which was pretty neat.
You can't ship humans or body parts via AusPost. You can't ship a lot of things. Presently, you can't even ship the US! - Tariff time! - I will have something on that in a few days, I think...
The world needs more people like you, friend. Persistent. Broken. Persistent in the face of being broken.
What did you spend the 600 euros on?
@topcomment
It pretty much evaporated immediately when considering the general expenses of that holiday...
Immensely disappointing
I got my fancy leather trenchcoat from Florence. It was probably the year 2012, maybe 2013 - and I paid 850 euro. I still have it (the jacket, not the euro), but haven't yet had the "weather" to enjoy it.
That's life, innit?
I don't think he's actually tried, to be fair.
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Hopeless.
AP: they delivered your parcel, look, they took a photo.
Me: that's not MY FRONT DOOR.
Or the guy that came screaming down the driveway to park in front of the shed at back of house, tooting his horn, to deliver a package. I'm in the garden and yelled at him to park out the front and put parcels by front door.
Oh sorry mam, I did not know where front door was.
Me: Try the front of the house????
Ffs. They have one job.
The only humans to ever fail a captcha are Australia Post employees.
"Please select all images that are doors."
I think this is the start of my comedy career.
Be careful what you are whishing for!
Here in Germany we have DHL as the "federal parcel service" as they have a cooperation with Deutsche Post, the federal letter service. They are not too bad, though cases like what you describe can happen at times. But rarely.
But then we have the "luxury" of several other logistics companies: Amazon, Hermes, UPS, FedEx, DPD and more. Amazon does only do Amazon parcels and works pretty good. UPS and FedEx work also well, but are hellish expensive. But companies like DPD (Deitscher Paket Dienst) are total failures. They are something like the Bermuda triangle for mail. And they lie straight at your face if you ask them where your stuff is. "You were not at home when we tried to deliver", "We couldn't find your house", "We try again tomorrow", or what ever else they may make up if you ask them whats going on. In truth one of their drivers or other staff just stole you parcel, since it contained something he fancied. But its kind of understandable - they only employ migrants for minimum wage.
In a country like Australia it must be difficult to transport mail cost effectively. How long does it normally take to send a parcel from the east coast to the west coast? And what does it cost?
National postage is fixed by weight, for the most part. Remote postcodes that are accessible only by barge or long haul trucks typically have their stuff come in through other logistical means, like in with the food delivery, or sometimes in the cargo hold of a visiting flying doctor.
It is probably a nightmare for those edge cases, but most Australians live in the major cities.
But then, theres places like the housing estate that I live in. Its a five minute drive to the local post office, yet people a few streets away dont get their mail delivered, and need a Post Office Box.
The local post office has no spare PO Boxes... as far as I am aware.. so uh... yeah.
Yeah, I imagin there is no way to charge a realistic price for sending a parcel to some remote place in the outback. That would cost AU$ 200 or something. But I guess people who live there are used to difficulties. I really cant imagine to live in such a place. Sure, it gives you more freedom in some ways, but a bit of civilisation is not so bad as well. :)
Well, for the $40 or so it cost to send this parcel which would be four hours in the air - I think about ~1900-2500KM, it travelled over 5000KM (by ROAD!) and still didn't get to its destination! :D
And as to what it costs, too much. But probably not enough to be sustainable.