Australia Post in Canberra - what's the point?

My postie gets off her bike and brings a little book to the door for me to sign when I get a registered letter or small parcel. My parcel contractor also takes the time to knock on the door and wait. I think that it all depends on who is on your mail route and the mood they are in! I have also had parcel contractors in the past who didn’t give a toss and would only leave a card in the letterbox….

Phone Australia Post. Complain. Deliveries in O’Connor took a turn for the worse mid last year when the previous contractor moved on. The new guy didn’t last long, after numerous complaints like those below.

if you’re regularly getting parcels, why not leave a cheap ute box out the front of your house (with an open lock attached. Leave a note on the inside of the lid that says something like “place parcel in here, and lock please” then leave the lid open.

No they can’t leave a parcel on your doorstep, I would recommend to tell the person sending the parcel to write on it, and say card if no one at home with a smiley face. Yes I’ve been home all day and had a card left, in regards to the postie saying we can’t leave our vans open to deliver to units, well lock it up ‘Lazy’

No they can’t leave a parcel on your doorstep, I would reconmend to tell the person sending the parcel to write on it, and say card if no one at home with a smiley face. Yes I’ve been home all day and had a card left, in regards to the postie saying we can’t leave our vans open to deliver to units, well lock it up ‘Lazy’

silentMac said :

At least you get a card. My local Australia Post delivers the parcel whether I am here or not. Three times I was away on short work trips of 1-3 day duration and arrived home to find a parcel I was not expecting on the front doorstep and it had been consistently raining each time. When I complained to AP, I was told that the sender had to indicate not to leave the parcel otherwise they were allowed to “Safe Drop” the parcel. ie. leave it in a safe location other than the letterbox. What could have possessed them to think on front door mat in rain was a safe place…

i see your ‘safe drop’ on the front doorstep in the rain ….. and raise you a ‘thrown over fence into my courtyard, then sit in the rain all day’ as the ‘safe drop’ delivery of my parcels!

inb4 contractor blame. oh wait.

Sadly, I’ve also experienced this. I have to say that they’re usually pretty good in my street, but sometimes I swear some of them just drop the card and run.

At least you get a card. My local Australia Post delivers the parcel whether I am here or not. Three times I was away on short work trips of 1-3 day duration and arrived home to find a parcel I was not expecting on the front doorstep and it had been consistently raining each time. When I complained to AP, I was told that the sender had to indicate not to leave the parcel otherwise they were allowed to “Safe Drop” the parcel. ie. leave it in a safe location other than the letterbox. What could have possessed them to think on front door mat in rain was a safe place…

This is extraordinarily common of the poor service of Australia Post. I am way too addicted to buying things online and have, in the past two years, been home on leave on five days when Australia Post left cards saying that they had attempted delivery of a parcel. One of those times I even watched the postie leave a card saying they’d attempted delivery but watching him had assumed it was normal mail because there was clearly no attempted delivery. Only when I checked the mail did I realise there had apparently been attempted delivery of a parcel. One of these days I knew I had something being delivered express post and had requested a leave day so I was home to get it as I needed it urgently. No express post package, but a card telling me I could pick it up the next day – helpful!!

I accepted this the first two times as being poor service on their behalf, but have complained each time since with no improvement in service. I have had to either waste a lunch break or take time out of my work day to go and pick up parcels which I should have been able to accept at the door on the day they were delivered. I have been given the appalling excuse that posties have the discretion not to deliver to apartments such as the one I live in “because their van might get stolen delivering to them having to walk inside”. My response that ringing a doorbell at the front of an apartment building and me walking down to get the parcel is far less of a security risk than a postie going into an enclosed, fenced-off space goes nowhere.

When we hear that Aus Post is going nowhere because people are increasingly using email, it’s amazing to see this level of extremely poor service. They seem to be going backwards when they need to be looking to increase service levels. Arguments that contractors are responsible for the poor service are invalid too – those contracts are managed by Aus Post

Welcome to the world of lowest price tendering.

The parcel post contractors are not paid enough to actually spend the time to deliver parcels, they are barely paid enough to drive around with those cards pre-filled out dumping them in letter boxes.

Rather than seize the trend in Internet shopping and provide a quality offering, Aus post seem to do their best to make their service below par at best.

Did you stay home specially to receive the parcel?
Doesn’t sound like it. So you were home anyway and just needed to go to the local PO. Big deal.
Next!

I have the same problem. I live in an apartment complex so I can understand the postie not wanting to go rolling around trying to find each place, but do they have an obligation to at least attempt door delivery?

I have mail requiring post office pick up at least once a week and I have NEVER had someone come to the door, it’s always automatic card in the post box.

So if anyone knows the rules for actual delivery it would be great to hear it.

I’ve had a motorbike postie come to the door to sign for something small. He was wearing a helmet and one of those bright yellow fluoro jackets, I asked him if a shovel had come with that jacket to which he responded that it did not. I signed a page on a clipboard.

The parcel contractor I used to have did the ‘knock and run’ and would then leave my package three post offices away for collection. Current fellow is awesome, he comes at 5:30pm and Saturday mornings, even takes the risk and leaves it at the door w/o signature.

On the back of your collection notification does it indicate that it is your second notice? Contactors only attempt package delivery once and the motorbike posties deliver the second notification to remind you to pick up your package.

Perhaps the contractor tried to deliver previously but ran out of slips or maybe somebody further up the distribution chain messed up, delaying the delivery or maybe the package requires that you attend a post office for collection or maybe there’s a problem with the pda gizmos he uses to capture signatures or maybe the postmaster said ‘deliver this’ to him and he’s doing what he’s told… point is it might have nothing to do with the motorcycle postie as you don’t have all the facts.

Now I live up on a hill with a slight slope (not as bad as Bugden Avenue FADDEN), the Postie is quite happy to ride his bike to the bottom of my steps & walk the 2m to my front door to grab a signature. Or if nobody is home, he’ll just sneak it under the doormat. However NO delivery van will do this, be it Australia Post of Australian Air Express. They are happy to drop off parcels to my neighbors across the road, but not me. It could have to do with walking up a hill, or the fact that they can’t hear their car radios blaring from my front door. Nobody knows & I never get the chance to catch them.

I have been carded in the past without an attempt to verify if somone was home.

I would like the ability to tell Australia Post not to bother attempting to deliver items requiring a signature, and to just email or sms to say an item is available at the nearest collection point.

It seems they offer this service for deliveries to postboxes, at an extra cost though.

Although these days i have a Postbox but even that is not without frustrations.
Such as:
– Sometime they ‘forget’ to put a card in the box to say a package is available for collection.
– Most couriers and some online retailers (which may even use australia post) refuse to deliver to Postboxes

Youre lucky, Ive often been waiting for parcels to be delivered, after a week of no parcel I goto the post office and they find my parcel out the back waiting to be picked up. I cant remember the last time I got a card, often the contractor cant even be bothered leaving one if they cant deliver the item they just drop it at the PO and move onto then next hundred deliveries.

joy18 said :

Don’t blame the postman on the motorbike, he only delivers your letters. He wouldn’t have even known you had a package. Packages are delivered by Australia Post contractors in vans.

Apologies in advance but that is rubbish.

Our postie regularly delivers A5 sized padded envelopes and, on one occassion, registered mail requiring a signature. Even signed an old fashioned book rather than those impossible to sign on electronic gadgets contractors carry.

Besides, irrespective of who put the card in the letterbox, why was no attempt made to deliver the parcel? I have had numerous arguments with the Post Office at Woden wrt a lazy parcel contractor who refused to even attempt to deliver parcels at an un-named apartment complex in Woden.

By the way I no longer live in Woden and am more than happy with our postie.

allyroger said :

the point is, since every one seems to have missed it, I was home all day (for once) and they made no attempt to deliver it, they just decided to deliver a card saying “sorry we missed you, we attempted to deliver it, you can pick it up from 4pm”.

Practically every time I have had a parcel delivered in the last 5 years this has occurred, for the first 3 years I would often come out of home and check my letterbox on the way to work only to find the card. Once I came out as the delivery driver was putting it in, he said “oh, no one is ever home” as his reason for doing so. It’s very annoying particularly when the parcel is big enough, or heavy enough, or awkwardly shaped enough that it’s a pain in the butt to carry home from the post office.

The last two years they have often been delivering later so I am not always at home, but instead they have been doing another annoying thing, instead of being able to pick it up at 4pm that day, you have to wait till midday or later of the next day.

the point is, since every one seems to have missed it, I was home all day (for once) and they made no attempt to deliver it, they just decided to deliver a card saying “sorry we missed you, we attempted to deliver it, you can pick it up from 4pm”. Since according to you all, the postie never delivers these cards, I guess he m-biked up to my postbox to inspect the empty contents?

Also its a pain in the arse getting to to a post office 30 mins away when you work and finally Australia post won’t even deliver letters to my office for some god forsaken reason, courier companies have no such issue.

I’ve had a parcel post delivery guy do the same. Out of his van just long enough to slip the ‘we missed you’ note in my letter box without even checking to see if I was home (I was).

I thought they were meant to knock at least once?

Did that one piece of paper arrive in an envelope that carried the words, “do not bend”? Were there other markings on the envelope such as “important document” or “private and personal” that suggested the postie shouldn’t be folding the document and leaving half the envelope sticking out of the letter box for J Random Stranger to pull out, rain to spoil or other calamity to arrive?

Somebodies a grump Gus today.

If it required a signature, it was the contractor, not the postie, regardless of the size of the letter.

sorry when i said package, I should of said “a4 certificate” ie 1 piece of paper that required a signature – and I definatley saw him put the card in my box – there was nothing else there.

Don’t blame the postman on the motorbike, he only delivers your letters. He wouldn’t have even known you had a package. Packages are delivered by Australia Post contractors in vans.

Packages are normally delivered by Parcel Post contractors in vans, not posties on bikes. Are you sure the postie you saw placed the card in your letterbox?