Fun with Auspost

Australia Post delivery has declined in the past months.

Example: I was sitting in my study at 10.07 a.m. on 15th December when I received an email from Australia Post telling me the wine had been delivered. As I had been home all morning I did not understand this.

I immediately went outside my Apartment block - no sign of wine.

I then walked up to the Retirement Village Office - no-one had received wine. The Office policy is to direct couriers to the addressee and to only receive packages if no-one is at home.

The next question is, “To whom did the courier give the wine and who signed for it?”

I never received the wine. Fortunately the sender sent me another case via another courier service.

Australia Post “investigated” and told me the wine had been delivered.

In two other instances wine has been left outside my building, without notice, while I was at home.

When I received an email from Australia Post asking “How did we do?’ I gave them a zero and explained why. As no-one ever reads these evaluations I didn’t expect a reply.

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Over the years I have lived at my current address which is 5 Magnolia STREET in a suburb of Melbourne. AusPost keeps getting my delivery of mail and packages confused with 5 Magnolia AVENUE in the same suburb about 4 kilometre’s away. I have complained to the local P.O. but that only seems to work for a short period then its back to square one. Once I did not receive a purchase from a supplier and after numerous phone calls I got to speak to the delivery driver who insisted he had delivered the package properly but I knew he had not. the supplier was good enough to replace my purchase however. I have now been in touch with the person at the other address and we now contact each other when things go astray in the mail, which is much easier than going through AusPost and wasting time

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Some of the routing of parcels is quite extraordinary. I live in a central Gold Coast suburb. Recently I ordered an item from another Gold Coast suburb which I reckon is about 20 mins drive away from my home. The parcel was routed from the source suburb to Upton Street, Bundall and thence to Brisbane. From Brisbane it was routed to (you’ve guessed it) Upton Street, Bundall, from where it was picked up by a van that delivered it to my home.

It seems that all parcels originating in the Gold Coast are sent to Brisbane for sorting. Once sorted, any for the Gold Coast are sent there. Wouldn’t you think that a basic sort into two piles in the Gold Coast, with one pile going to Brisbane and the other one further sorted locally would be better?

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Parcel sent on 16 Jan. In my tracking list it displays the following:


 and if I select ‘view’ to see the specific item details it displays the following:

Estimated delivery in 6 days? 7 days? reality 15 days? still waiting and want us to investigate? (investigate what “awaiting collection” means?).


 the mind boggles 


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and Auspost gets the gong for (something or other).

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“Australia Post wholeheartedly apologises for this error,” she said.

“We can confirm all mail has now been delivered with a letter of explanation and an apology.

“This is an isolated incident that occurred when the collection route was handed over to a different team.”

Weasel-words at their finest 


My last experience was a few weeks ago - a delivery to my parcel locker didn’t arrive - then out of the blue my PO box was carded. I presented the card at the window and took delivery of a parcel addressed to my parcel locker with the words “name doesn’t match” scribbled on it. I asked why the parcel was not delivered to my parcel locker a week or two earlier, as I’d expected, and was told the “name doesn’t match” - not surprisingly 
 it was an act of the purest optimism thinking there might be a believable reason. It turns out the name on the parcel was the same as the name on the parcel locker registration - apparently they just ‘made a mistake’ - assclownery at it’s finest.

This one never gets old 


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Ordered something where the sender refused safe drop instructions so expected I’d be here when the postie came or I would go to the Post Office to collect it after 4PM. Most of us know the drill.

Drum roll. Auspost has a new SMS service with choices for us consumers receiving an incoming ‘must be signed for’ parcel. It upgrades the experience of being inconvenienced just because they can.

The intro to this new service was the SMS.

One has to wonder what the difference between choices 2 and 3 are in practice. The web site makes it clearer (not) but reading between the lines 3 appears to give the postie carte blanche to leave a card and run, while 2 requires him to have a go at knocking. Did they hire a media/PR type from a newly unemployed bank officer?

So many overemployed ‘geniuses’. So many extra SMS messages sent around. Such a great service improvement! (/sarcasm)

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I think they are trying to reduce the effort they have to put into deliveries. If you text the 3 they just remove the step of actually visiting the home and go straight to the PO, noting here that how do you know it is packed for delivery that day anyway and may just be a way of sending it straight to the PO from the mail depot. The 2 obviously means they have to make an extra effort to go to the house but no real effort is required to actually knock on the door other than to place a card. I have had enough experiences with delivery marked for the day but some unexplained delay means it is the next business day when it arrives, my cynicism about whether it is actually on a truck for delivery on a day is I believe well founded.

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Around 2012 at about 5:30 PM, whilst we living at our previous residence, I happened to look from our deck to the bottom of our driveway and saw a young woman sitting in a white van.

She sat there for around 5 minutes before getting out of it and I expected that she was going to deliver an Express Post parcel I was waiting for, but she started to walk to our nearby letterbox to obviously “card up” the delivery.

I raced downstairs and down the driveway and confronted her. She commenced spruiking a litany of lies which included that there was never anyone home when she had called with other deliveries, that she was not confident to drive up the driveway, and that she still had other deliveries to make and she had to pick her child up.

I pointed out that she could have walked up the driveway in the time she spent sitting in her vehicle, that our garage door was up and a vehicle was visible so obviously someone was home, and that she obviously did not care that her actions would have resulted in me having to go to the post office to collect the parcel that I had paid Express Post rates to have delivered quickly.

I called the main Cairns post office as way back then they actually had listed phone numbers for each individual post office. The person I spoke with said that they had been having problems with her and they were trying to get rid of her.

I posted this incident on the former NGE site at the time but I cannot find my original document.

Australia Post. We Deliver. (Sometimes. Occasionally. Eventually. If You’re Lucky).

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Postscript. The item was delivered and clearly marked “DELIVERY SIGNATURE REQUIRED UNLESS NO ONE PRESENT”. Would that be option 1 or maybe one they had not thought of, 4?

My local posties have been good, it is Auspost Central that seems to not understand that their people on the ground (at least around here) actually do their jobs pretty well and do not need central office (mis)help that is disconnected from any reality except that of their overemployed cadre looking for ever new ways to make their servcies more confused.

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It appears Auspost is reverting to their traditional game. Today is 7 Dec and Parkville is about 22km SW. It is supposedly registered; it will be interesting if that is the case when it finally gets delivered. The extra costs of tracking must maximise Auspost’s profit by applying a tracking number but minimising those pesky scans (or just not taking care of what should be ‘job 1’).

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One of the secrets of posting comments like this is once it is posted the item might be delivered today; if I do not post it the item might get here before Christmas holidays. :wink:

edit: a package posted from Sydney on the same day was delivered today, the above was not. I am thinking the key to expeditious delivery is to buy things from another capital city.

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I have posted a photo of the front window of the LPO in our local shopping centre.

They even do Mail & Postage Services.

Who would have thought?

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 they claim to 
 it’s a bit like trying to find a park next to a pump at Coles Express to actually buy fuel when people are just using them all as parking spaces to buy products advertised as coffee, drinks, food and snacks 
 most of which has the nutritional value of thin air. Occasionally and somewhat haphazardly Auspost deliver something, somewhere 
 ‘Services’ are only when it is worthwhile I’d suggest 


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On 21.02.2019, I ordered a part from Dyson Australia and they sent me an email on 22.02.2019 confirming it had been sent via Australia Post and included a tracking number which Auspost Tracking claimed was an invalid number.

On 26.02.2018, I received an email from Australia Post stating my order was on its way and to expect it by 01.03.2019.

On 01.03.2019, the tracking number was still displaying that it was on time, but on 02.03.2019 it was displaying that it was “Delayed” and its last known location was Brisbane where it was originally lodged.

It was finallly left in our mailbox on 04.03.2019 but as of today. the tracking is still showing “Delayed” with the last known location being Brisbane.

What a bunch of turkeys.

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I think this is the one from AusPost that really gets to me . On the 6.03.2019 you receive an email advising you that the parcel will be delivered on the 7.03.2019 . On the morning of the 7.03.2019 you receive another email from AusPost that the parcel " may not " be delivered on the 7.03 .2019.

Lets break this down . To say an item " may not " be delivered actually leaves you in limbo because it is both a a positive/negative . It does not say it wont be delivered and carries the implication that it still could be delivered .

I know my driver delivers to my area between 12–1.30 pm . Yep when I stay in he doesn’t deliver . When I go out , even briefly , there is the dreaded card in the security door advising me to pick up the parcel from the local Post Office . That means going to the shopping centre at 5.00pm , standing in a que , dangerous in winter with people coughing all over you , a definite flu risk .I’m more paranoid about germs than Howard Hughes .

The point being why doesn’t AusPost just email me and say we "WON’T " be delivering to you today . So easy, yet so hard for them .

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Yes, there have been quite a few occasions when I’ve been at home, gone to the front door and found a card claiming there was no-one home to receive the delivery and I should go to the local post office, or worse, the parcel distribution centre which is even further away. If I mention it at the counter, I’m brushed off and basically told it didn’t happen.

But it’s not only Australia Post - couriers are just as bad. I’ve ordered products on line that have been dumped in the front garden, wrapped in black plastic so I don’t realise they are there for a few days (until I called the seller and was told the item had been delivered).

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One simple courtesy worth noting here. Many local Post Office outlets are actually franchised. They have little connection to household deliveries. The delivery of mail and parcels is an independent business facilitated in our area by contractors working out of the regional mail distribution centre some 40mins drive distant. Our local APost Office outlet operator franchisee is always empathetic, however they are just being polite. I use the feedback form on the AP web site or link from the emailed tracking advice to complain.

Alternately you could also approach your local Federal MP to complain in person if you really need to make a point.

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My experience must be out of the norm them! I recently ordered 3 t-shirts from a US company. They were fan designs of one of our fave Netflix shows and 1 was for my mum and the other 2 were for me. They had 3 shipping options for international deliveries, all of them through DHL and all the same delivery window of 7-14 business days including the making of the t-shirts. We chose the middle option of DHL Local. Within 24 hours of the order I received an email saying they had been shipped and a tracking number with DHL. The tracking showed it was on it’s way to the DHL DC on 22/2 and arrived at the terminal location 1/3 before showing as transport to destination country the following day. This is literally within the same US state.

As the DHL tracking showed a USPS tracking number, I loaded that into both the USPS and AusPost apps to track. Previous experience has told me USPS tracking is much better and more detailed. There was no movement on tracking for a the best part of the week, so I tweeted AusPost, DHL and USPS. AusPost was the only one that replied, and asked me to DM with the tracking number. They replied with:

Thanks for sending that through Bryan! So there’s nothing to indicate that a physical parcel is with either us or USPS currently, that’s why it’s showing ‘Pending’ on our end and ‘Pre-Shipment’ from USPS. This may just mean the item is travelling with DHL overseas so I’d recommend continuing to track it with them and getting in touch with their customer service for any questions

So I contacted DHL who replied:

Hi. Thank you for contacting DHL Parcel and DHL eCommerce regarding the delivery of your shipment. According to our information your shipment is in transit to Australia on 26 February, 2019. Once your shipment arrives in your destination country, it will be handed over to Australia Post. The arrival of your shipment may take up to 11 business days and the estimated delivery date will be by 12 March, 2019. If you do not receive the shipment at your shipping address within 10 business days from the estimated delivery date, kindly contact your online merchant/sender. Your online merchant/sender will advise you on the next available options. Please note that an official investigation can only be raised by our contract partners, in this case your online merchant/sender.

I randomly went into the AusPost app to remove the tracking from something else on Thur 14th and it showed had arrived in Sydney 12.20am that morning.

I updated AusPost and they replied with the following:

Hi Bryan, thanks for the update. International articles can be a little tricky sometimes, I do agree. Generally, the universal tracking number you have used (AB123456789CD) will show the entire journey from the sending country, to the destination country. In this case however, it just looks like your sender has used a method that doesn’t integrate with our tracking system, and vice versa, without getting too technical. I’m sure next time you have something heading from overseas you’ll have no troubles, and I’m glad to see item LXxxxxxxxxxUS is along the way in NSW as we speak. Please let me know if you have any additional concerns :slight_smile:

It then arrived in Melbourne the afternoon of Friday 15th and was delivered in Adelaide Mon 18th. There was no update made to USPS tracking between pre-shipment and delivery and no update between transport to destination country and delivered on DHL. So in my case AusPost was actually faster and more efficient with better tracking than DHL or USPS. I actually emailed the retailer just to give them feedback, and within an hour they had refunded the entire shipping costs, which was $30.30

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Is this the Problem with Australia Post?

POSTAGE NOT INCLUDED! :roll_eyes:

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Crazy prices. The five minute chef is is $41.30 at Big W.

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