*Rant* - Aussie Post

[ricktas]

This is what annoys me about parcel couriers in Australia. If I order something from Hong Kong or the USA, when the item is despatched I get an email with a tracking code and from that I can basically track an item every step of the way, even telling me when customs have the item etc.

But send a parcel in Australia and they might as well not have tracking in the first place.

I posted an item Express Post via Australia Post Monday morning at 9.15am, to go from South Hobart to Victoria Park (Perth Suburb). Now I expected that the Next Day delivery might not happen cause stuff in and out of Tas usually takes an extra day. Which is odd in the first place cause a flight from Melb to Hobart is shorter than one from Sydney to Melb. So in reality it should have gone to Melb on Monday, hit the Perth flight monday night with all the other mail heading west and been there Tuesday (or maybe today).

On Monday as soon as I sent the item I sent a text to the receiving party giving them the tracking code. They called me a few minutes ago to say they have received it..BUT. The Australia Post tracking system is pathetic. Not only do they not have that it has been delivered but they also have not even acknowledged the item is even in transit.

100167

If you are going to offer a tracking service, at least make sure you offer one that works!

[I @ M]

Totally normal for the tracking page from Aus Post, it has been like that for at least the last 12 months.

The same totally useless service exists if you send or receive anything with Australian Air Express as the tie up between them, Aus Post and Star Trak freight has resulted in basically zero tracking ability of items. Even when you telephone, none of the entities involved can actually tell you where the item is until you sign for it. :D

[Pixley]

I found out that you either have to pay more for the tracking service or specifically ask the post office employee to scan the item when you post it - I also learned the hard way that paying for an express insured package does not automatically include tracking!

[kaiser]

Australia Post won't even delivery parcels to my house anymore- they simply card the item and I have to go pick it up from the PO. This occurs even when I am home (not that they bother to check). The parcels do not even leave the PO for an attempted delivery. When I enquired at the PO after the third parcel I had to go and pick up they said somethign along the lines of "Our contractors are not allowed to enter your front gate to attempt a delivery."

Well for a start, I dont have a front gate:confused013 and secondly- this never used to be the case six months ago. May be they should give me a postal discount for only fulfilling part of the delivery:rolleyes:

[MrQ]

I had a similar experience when I posted my old camera recently. I specifically asked for tracking (and was charged for it) and handed the parcel over at the post office counter. I got a tracking number. No tracking info for a week. The tracking page finally told me it had been delivered the day after I got an email from the buyer to say it had arrived.

We also had something sent via express post which took a week. There was a sticker attached to say the guaranteed overnight delivery hadn't happened as our address wasn't correct - even though our address details were neatly, completely and correctly filled in.

Great service ... not. No wonder they feel justified in their recent price rise. :(

[davidd]

Three times in the past few months I have had parcels delivered by Australia Post. Every time they just stuck a card in the mailbox, and I had to go to the post office to collect them. They were marked 'Delivery attempted - unsuccessful', which was a lie as it is an office and someone was there the whole day. Last time I complained when I picked up the parcel at the post office, so the lady told me it is contractors who deliver the parcels, and gave me a complaint form to fill in. I filled it in and handed it in the next day. Earlier this week I got a phone call from Australia post telling me their contractor had been told that he must attempt delivery, not just stick a card in the mailbox.

Today we had a delivery... the office door was pushed open and the parcel was thrown on the floor, and the person disappeared. He was supposed to get a signature. Obviously annoyed at being reprimanded. :confused013

[Allie]

I have had similar problems with lack of updating/incorrect tracking information for parcels sent and the paid for "confirmation of delivery" was not returned either (not even removed from the parcel as advised by the recipient) however the contractor Australia Post used in our street is fantastic and goes out of his way to deliver and with a smile too! It does appear that since the AP post offices themselves have been contracted that the service is very dependent on the actual people concerned - I think AP should monitor that service much better than they do.

[Rattus79]

I've been through all this with our local Aus Post just yesterday.

Only very recently, Australia Post started including tracking as a free option on all regular parcel post deliveries. Turns out, it's totally dependent upon the staff to scan the barcode to make it work properly.

So,
It needs to be scanned when it's deposited at the post office,
Scanned into the truck to the sorting centre
Scanned at the sorting centre
Scanned onto the next truck
Scanned at the recieving end Mail Centre
SCanned at the truck to the door
and finally
Scanned when delivery is made and signed for. (assuming signature is necessary)

and all of this is totally up to disgruntled Australia Post workers who have already got a hard enough job. Not even the major mail centres actually have automatic scanning facilities. It's all done manually.

[Mark L]

Recently purchase a good second hand tripod from W.A.. Wasn't interested in insured, express, tracking type stuff (what do I care if it takes 3 or 6 days for to get here). The postage price for something heavy was good, our local parcel contractor (like Allies) is good, and it arrived 4 days after being posted, including a weekend.
On the other hand. My first major w.w.w. purchase was my camera from B&H. Tracking was excellent from them to Oz customs. Our local happy Aus Post contractor delivered it before tracking had said it had left customs. :confused013

[MajorPanic]

Congratz ricktas & others who contributed to this thread so far!

You know/have researched - nothing about mail delivery in Australia.

If you live in a flat/unit you will ALWAYS have to go to the PO to pick up mail because of low-lives stealing car/vans/motorbikes full of mail. We don't let YOUR mail out of sight now.
If you live beyond sight of the road (long driveway etc.) mail & personal security reasons apply due to incidents that have occurred & you will have to pick up signature items at the PO

Aus Post in in the middle of rolling out 26,000 new Motorola hand-held scanners so we will do a better job of tracking items via scan events, that's $208M of your money!! @ no additional postage costs to you.
That's more than the profit AP made last year!

All international items have a barcode but unless signature item price is paid it is NOT tracked, although the customs item # is recorded, at the moment, this may change & WILL COST THE SENDER & HENCE THE RECEIVER MORE!

AP has one of the world's cheapest, most reliable mail delivery services, handling almost 52 MILLION mail articles a DAY covering an area larger than the US 48 states.

If you want to know more you should read the AUSTRALIAN POSTAL CORPORATION ACT 1989 to find out what your entitled to.

..... or you could ask me, I've run a delivery team for 20 + years.

By the way - Aust Post parcels are delivered by contractors who get a grand total of less than a $1 per parcel & have to pay all expenses (car, fuel, insurance, registration, ect) to get it to you. Then again you want the service as cheap as possible....

[Mark L]

Congratz ricktas & others who contributed to this thread so far!

You know/have researched - nothing about mail delivery in Australia.
........


Thanks for the congratz and did you read everything?
Allie highlighted a problem and complemented her contractor that you advised gets paid sh#t (by Aus. Post). So did I.
Read my previous post and it implies complements to Aus. Post and not customs!

[Allie]

Congratz ricktas & others who contributed to this thread so far!

You know/have researched - nothing about mail delivery in Australia.
........

By the way - Aust Post parcels are delivered by contractors who get a grand total of less than a $1 per parcel & have to pay all expenses (car, fuel, insurance, registration, ect) to get it to you. Then again you want the service as cheap as possible....

Major Panic, I am happy to read that you are proud of the company you work for which IME does not seem much in evidence elsewhere these days.

However, after having recently finished working (after over six years) for a company at a second job as a picker/packer, I do have first hand experience with parcel delivery in Australia as, after items were packed, I was in charge of calculating the cost of delivery and choosing the best (not always cheapest) method of transport. In that regard I can say that the company I worked for avoided using AP where possible and used a variety of small and large courier companies instead (usually not a choice available to individuals at all or at other than premium rates) where the scanning at each stage (as indicated by Greg) was just a part of doing business not something that employees could decide whether or not to do.

The non-preference for AP was for reasons of lack of care with goods; delivery rates offered; not combining multiple parcels in one consignment (25kg limit); cost (AP was mostly, though not always, more expensive especially by but not limited to the previous reason); prohibitive insurance rates; difficulty in recovering costs for damaged goods and inaccuracy in or lack of tracking. Those courier company contractors were lucky if they got anywhere near $1 per parcel, so stating that AP paying their contractors a pittance per parcel is hardly a way to put AP in a better light.

For all this, I am not saying that every team in AP is deficient, however, like many companies there are some links which can be and they do give Australia Post a sometimes deserved bad reputation as evidenced by the personal experience of the people on this thread.

Cheers ;)

[ricktas]

major panic, I dont have an issue with Australia Post in general. Just this one issue that is a consistently re-occurring one. That being, you offer tracking on express post but it is non existent in reality. I am heartened to know you are passionate about your job and employer, however, the issue I ranted about exists. Aussie Post offer a tracking service and that service is hopeless, repeatedly and consistently hopeless.

If this was my company and my customers were saying to me that one of my products was repeatedly and consistently not good, I would be either, fixing it, finding an alternative that did work or dropping the product.

Australia Post do a lot of things very well, but tracking express post is not one of them. I hope these new scanners resolve the issue. Cause from a customer point of view there is an issue, and it does need a resolution.

[zollo]

Major Panic - here's my research so far - au post tracking sux. it doesnt work, even when you pay for it.

but then why should i have to do research on why a service i pay for is not working properly? why do i need to second guess if a parcel delivery driver is having a bad day or reckons they are not being paid enough? that is an internal aupost issue, and needs to be sorted out with the people handling the money, not taken out on the customers.

[paulheath]

i remember last Christmas sending on the same day a letter to good ol' blighty (England to you Aussies) and a letter to Brisbane ( im in Sydney ) now the one that travelled 10,000 miles landed 3 days later on my very surprised parents doorstep ( was never very good at remembering important dates :) ) but .....you guessed it....... Aus post took an amazing.....24 days to get a letter to the neighboring state.....there excuse....Christmas is a busy time, now this suprised me as ...well...it was busy in England too, but the Royal Mail in uk do actually care about there jobs.... just thought id let you know lol

[Rattus79]

Ya'all needs to be careful with this thread lest an Australia post employee goes postal on us all! :D

Perhaps with all those new hand scanners, the rest (not including Major Panic) of the disgruntled AP employees may actually scan the barcodes more often now.

[MajorPanic]

I've stirred up a hornet's nest here :o... sorry if I've upset anyone... There was a time lag from when I started my post to when it was posted

After 30+ years with AP I'm definitely not passionate about them. & what they do to the parcel & mail contractors is horrific.

All I meant to say was most of the public have no idea what is tracked & what's not, even the delivery staff are not sure.

My delivery centre (in a capital city) services 45,000 delivery points & we went live with the new scanners 2 weeks ago. At the moment I'm instructing my staff to scan everything with barcodes that comes through the door.
I know the roll-out will take quite some time to reach country centres but it is on the way & the service should get better.

Have a look at this page http://auspost.com.au/parcels-mail/domestic-parcels.html & look at the first paragraph of the small type.