Is it just me or have Austpost been very slow with their parcel delivery lately? I have been waiting on multiple parcels and they are all "in transit". One of them arrived from San Francisco quicker than it is now taking it to come from Sydney to Melbourne.
The rest are also from Sydney.
Yep they lost mine too, after about 2 months of having a claim open they gave up and said can't find it…and offered $50 on a $180 item…and then complained about me not having insurance…
You know…why am I paying for insurance for your screw up? At the end of the day, insurance or not, they should still be liable as a bailee as they are delivering the items…you can't just absolve yourself of responsibility to deliver by saying "oh you should have gotten insurance".
Mine too. Last seen at the Sunshine mail sorting centre…that place is like the Bermuda Triangle.
Yep, they recently lost my soon to be wife's wedding earings. Got the hole you should have payed for insurance line also. Not that it's even offered at the post office. We got them sent express tracking. Kinda thought that would have been good enough
some1 signed and collected my amazon parcel inside the australian post office in ultimo. WTFFF auspost
Ouch, I agree
WTFFF
Mine too and many times
option 3: They have always been slow
And expensive and unreliable.
Don't forget those.
What about them being lazy and leaving a Sorry we missed you card when I've been at home all day?
This is the fault of the independent contractors that they use right?
I submit complaints to AP about non-attempted delivery all the time and nothing ever happens.
Who is choosing to use these independent contractors - it's not the users of their "service"
There is an "independent contractor selection committee" consisting of independent contractors.
I read at Christmas time that this is exacerbated by the fact that AP pay the delivery people not at an hourly rate, but instead by number of items delivered (which includes cards left). Some of the contractors were saying they were physically running a lot of the time to deal with hundreds of deliveries of parcels a day with no lunch breaks, just to make ends meet on the terrible pay rates.
I did hear that AP tenders the delivery. Their fault to put in such a low amount that they cannot make ends meet.
I think they get $.50 per delivery.
It's chain of sub contractors, person who deliver gets around $1 to $1.30 per parcel, have to deliver at least 30/Hour get minimum wage .
@mohan76: Can you imagine delivering 30 parcels per hour ? Including the drive ?
No wonder if I don't open the door before the postman rings, he is off.
They also seem not to be happy if I am there, as the signing of the parcel delays their time-schedule.
Maybe if I keep a jar of $2 coins at the entry door, and every time a parcel is delivered, I hand out one coin tot he post man, he might wait a tad longer then normal.
@cameldownunder: Actually making friends with your postie gives you much better service. In reality a tip jar would be weird, but next time you were expecting a delivery - leave a bottle of wine or a six pack with a thank you note. Like you say, they really are paid bugger all for their work. A little bit of kindness and understanding goes a long way.
@AddNinja:
I used to do that but my postie changes every few months.
Not sure if contractor or a full timer.
@mohan76: I thought the minimum wage is much lower? I have friends who work in retail full time and get paid $19.40 per hour as their base rate. $30 per hour minimum wage is pretty amazing.
@AddNinja: LOL!? Let them leave the card and I'll get it from the post office tomorrow, instead of bribing them with grog to do their job.
@GregMonarch: I think if you want to demand professionalism from someone, you'd best give them a decent salary and a full time job. Otherwise you create a race to the bottom where the employer says "how can I pay my contractors less" and the contractor says "how can I do as little work as possible for this money". Both of these positions are rational and both are accurate characterisations of Australia Post I think.
In a situation like this when you're a customer caught in the middle, I think your best bet to get good service is to make friends with the contractor. Telling them to do their job won't help - and shows a naive understanding of what's happening.
If you're happy with a card - why not tell the postie - you can save them some time and money?
Last time they rang the doorbell, I opened the door within 20 seconds (I was upstairs) to see them driving off. So the guy must've rang the bell, carded and just hopped back on the van.
I am pretty sure he carded first then ring the bell and then leg it to the van like he just drop off dog poo in a paper bag on fire.
I'm gonna be devil's advocate here but there may be another reason that they couldn't get the item to fit into the van or truck and decided to card you instead. Just a hunch.
I hate finding the cards in my letterbox. It usually means they didn't even bother to knock (otherwise the cards would be wedge in the door).
AP are absolutely useless. I use Officeworks Mailman for sending parcels these days (cheaper too).
Me tooooo! Not only reliable delivery but cheaper and faster.
Well for me, they left the parcel on doorstep & someone passing buy stole it.
No refund for me. Only loss.
passing buy? Is that like a mobile pop-up store or something? Coffee or kebab van perhaps?
I wish that'd happen. Means my stuff is here and I could go get it.
This is so true! EVERY time for me!
That's why I use parcel locker now, no need to wait at home and they can't missed it.
Parcel Locker usually works well, but twice now AP have delivered my locker items to the post office instead and not bothered to let me know that they had arrived. One got returned to sender in the USA after 2 weeks of no tracking update and no email/notification.
What about next level and not even leaving a card, having to check tracking to know they've chucked it to the post office.
Years ago, I got one of those "You missed your delivery" cards delivered into my mail box while I was in the front yard sweeping leaves!!!
I immediately asked for my parcel and postman just shook his head and said "can't" while walking off, so I ask why not and he said "we don't deliver" or something similar.
……Australia used to have a REALLY good postal system……not anymore!
We have multiple complaints and disputes opened by buyers (we are vendors) for products purchased around Easter Friday/Saturday/Sunday which were posted the Tuesday after Easter and still haven't arrived. I'm not sure that the system is any slower than usual but Easter coupled with Anzac day has definitely slowed everything at least by the number of public holidays.
I have experienced this also. Speaking to the Post Office Manager the tracking system went down for a couple of days between Easter and ANZAC Day which didn't help.
Yeah i've got a couple of items posted 13/4 and 14/4 and they haven't arrived yet, which is unusual.
I'd started thinking they were lost, but they may still be out there, somewhere…
Just checked one of them - it's been stuck in Granville since 20/4.
Still in Granville.
Hi, it happens to me last month. My parcel is stuck in one of their facility for more than a week. Coming to post office does not help. Then I try to use their online support: https://auspost.com.au/portal/#/register/product_enquiry (I already have the account, and my parcel is tracked, so it is pretty fast process). Surprisingly, the staff responded within 24 hours, and 3 days later finally I receive my parcel.
So, try to send your enquiry to the online support. Good luck.
I might just let it holiday in Granville for a while.
Still in Granville - posted from within Oz.
Something ordered later from China arrived today.
Nice one Granville.
Public Holidays will slow things down.
any day of the week will slow things down.
Not Sundays. On Sundays it STOPs.
so, only slightly slower than usual?
Not Express post, they usually have flights on Sunday and public holidays.
What's new? They jacked up their prices and lengthened their standard delivery times in January 2016.
At work, we now have to allow 6 days for a domestic letter to arrive at a residential address. It's ridiculous.
Business days you mean.
Yes - business days. So when you're talking about "elapsed time", it's actually 8 days!
There are certain 30 day notices we must issue to clients. So instead of the 30 days plus 3 day postage timeframe (on certain posting days like Monday or Tuesday, we didn't need to factor the weekends) that we used previously, it's now a minimum of 30 plus 8 days for postage (because every 6 business day delivery must include at least one weekend).
As long as Australia Post don't put their grubby hands on it, I could get a parcel delivered from the other side of the world in less than 8 days!
blame it on the previous CEO of AusPost who got a $10 mill salary and $1 mill bonuses on top of that for 'doing absolutely nothing'.
It was a $5mil salary… still a huge amount but it's on par with CEOs of other large scale organisations. Remember AusPost isn't taxpayer-funded, if you want a world-class CEO you've got to pay for one
The CEOs in that article are earning much much more than $5mil per annum… not sure what your point is?
Most people would disagree that Australia Post CEO's performance is 'world-class' and therefore, deserving of a major pay cut instead of a bonus.
I think it's gotta be the most outrageous salary cap in the Australian history books.
and what I'm angry about most is how on earth it can be approved by their 'Board of Directors"? perhaps he should be given a salary cap penalty like in NRL. Like P-Hanson says, "Please explain"? LOL Disgusted that he seems to have gotten away with it and probably wiping his hands clean of any 'wrongdoing'.. spewin' mate! Feel sorry for those who work hard and get taxed like good citizens and then you have people who get rewarded for doing zilch.
Seems like I've lost 2 parcels with them - even with tracking enabled from overseas. Same time period as mentioned - pre-April and post-April (now). Had to open requests with both sellers.
Not a good look for AusPost - considering they had gotten pretty good with customer feedback and trying to resolve stuff.
Even their normal mail has been slow, I had a letter dated 13 April arrive on Thursday!
2 parcels (both batteries so road shipment) from melbourne from same supplier posted the same day
One took 6 days the other 3 plus weeks. After being due for arrival, I got notification it was delayed. a week later they said to shipper we had to wait before they would do a trace. 2 weeks later it surfaced in Perth and was shipped back to NSW.
Faster deliveries from China.
And the Gerry thinks that imposing GST will stop us from buying OS.
The faster deliveries from overseas thing isn't a joke. Many Asian companies now drop ship to logistics companies here who then send each item individually. These arrive faster than items sent within Australia.
Hmmm learnt something new today. I thought once the parcels hit AusPost, they get the same priority as all other mail
Had a dhl delivery within 3 business days from HK. Thought that was pretty impressive since my order from Melbourne took a week.
It blows my mind how fast an iHerb order can get to Australia from the US. Shorter time frame than Sydney to Melbourne sometimes.
I posted a letter on wednesday last week, whacked a $1 stamp on it. It's only had to travel 70kms..Still yet to arrive. It better be tomorrow! I dont understand why they are so freaking slow, in days of old it would have been there the following day.
Vendor here…
They have been slow since Nov last year. They blame the Christmas,Boxing Day, NYE,NY,Aus day,Easter,cyclones,floodings,road work,dogs in the yard,floor mats at the front doors…..But it's never their fault!!!
How will Amazon manage?
They'll use someone else most likely, and/or do 'smart' things like run their own trucks between syd/mel/bris as it'll be way faster/cheaper than getting auspost to do it, then dump the items on to local delivery companies to do the final leg.
A little bit, although I was awfully surprised to see the package guy come and deliver a package at 7pm (I was happy since I was home from work). Pretty sure aus post said they were increasing delivery times though I think that started last year. I know it increased some deliveries to some places by a day or so.
3 days for express post is now standard
Yeah, right, that is the standard meaning of Term 'Express' for Australia Post.
Really? Link?
None of my express post items have arrived by next business day this year so far..
And soon they'll offer another service called super express, which will be the same as express used to be but for double the price.
Can't say I've had any reports from domestic buyers about slow postage. If anything, they have commented on how quick it's been.
Overseas buyers - that's another story. It is taking a month plus for items to get from AU to US and Canada via airmail, constantly causing me the risk of disputes against me on eBay and PayPal. I somehow manage to sweet-talk them into waiting another week or two, but over a month is way past their 14 business day quote.
I received 2 parcels (Ebay) on the same day last week the bigger one came with the postman & the smaller one came via parcel contractor .. no idea how the system works anymore!
I always find that funny…. van rocks up for a tidy parcel, yet the postman also brings parcels of the same size and like you, you can have BOTH deliver on the same day!
yes, it started for me late 2016 when untracked international parcels were either suffering long delays or non-delivered. Since then the whole system has slowed to a crawl,including tracked deliveries. Complaint paperwork hand lodged gets no action nor any follow-up. I have even had a Post Office Agency refuse to personally accept Complaint paperwork and I was on-sent to an Aust Post owned outlet. Now if I send an important letter, it costs me $4.95 just to ensure it is a "signature delivery" anything less than this and I risk it disappearing forever. (One delivery took 77 days Hong Kong to Townsville, with documentation showing it arrived into Aust Post's hands within 14 days of ordering)
I'm waiting on 3 parcels. One from Singapore which arrived in Aus on the 2/4 and the other two from WA, which was sent on the 10/4. My last parcel from WA only took 4 days to be delivered a few months a go. My friend works for Aust Post and he told me there was problems at a main processing facility in Sydney.
Thanks!
my parcel from wollongong to sydney took 3 months …. i should have taken the train down and pick up.
No, been fine for the few items I have had delivered.
I sometimes order stuff from overseas: England, China, USA…. etc. Also mostly from around Australia and locally.
Depending on WHEN orders are placed, and WHEN they are actually dispatched does make a difference.
Sometimes orders from USA, UK arrive earlier than Items ordered from around Australia.
I love the excuse; Our computers are down at the moment, please check back later.
Is this because, their cheap 5hit Servers are inadequate for the amount of traffic using them, (shows they might be 'fly-by-nighters') or they have no idea to questions being asked…, and to buy them some time, they might resort to temporarily Unplugging 'em so that that they don't have to constantly field answers to questions, "where is my stuff I ordered"?
I don't really think that they would resort to THAT. but I'm just putting it out there.
Don't blame Australia Post all the time…
I think that most of the time it is the retailer not posting items promptly, (processing orders at the end of the month, etc..)
Depending on WHEN orders are placed, and WHEN they are actually dispatched does make a difference.
Thanks Captain Obvious! haha
I think that most of the time it is the retailer not posting items promptly, (processing orders at the end of the month, etc..)
The length of time something spends in the postal system starts from when it actually reaches the postal system (seen in the tracking history), not when the order is placed/dispatched. Any delays in dispatch just adds to the whole amount of time already taken by the post system.
I myself am an impatient ass so I never order anything that states a longer dispatch time than 24 hours. haha
Yeah, I noticed that over the last 10 years or so, it has been taking a week-and-a-half for parcels to arrive from Eastern States to Perth. So if I need something quickly, I order it from overseas by express.
Not to mention the additional delay when Australia Post does not use my parcel chute and leaves a "you weren't home" card, because:
hahaha so true, but sadly if its been 'carded' then it means they needed a signature on delivery. so can't use the parcel chute.
They have brought in a 'safe drop' thing now, to bypass (waive rights) needing a signature on delivery
That said, I've seen my auspost delivery guy, fake my sig and leave the package (I have a camera overlooking the door).
Many times when I got carded, it did not need a signature. I have had many situations where they either couldn't be bothered to read my signs, and before I had this letterbox they often wouldn't even knock on the door. Often they can't even be bothered to bring the parcel, they just card you so you have to pick it up.
you must have a bad contractor. Keep reporting them. Mine are mostly ok, they do manage to leave the package on my door out of sight from the road if it doesn't require a signature. Only signature ones get carded, but I do wish they would deceide which post office is my 'local'. 80% of packages end up at one, and 20% at the other!
I have had them 'card' next door for me! Got a not home tracking update. Looked at my camera (as I was home) at the time, can see the guy go next door and leave! Wonder next door, yep a card with my name on it. Grrr
Also had packages left next door too! Numbers are standard numbering, nothing funny. So not sure why.
@Level380: Yes, the problem is dodgy contractors. I have reported it once, and it got better.
I have had a large international parcel delivered to the same number in a different street, and some things went permanently missing.
But some posties are good, and go the extra mile.
@Make it so: yeah…. comes down to the contractor really and if they care 'enough' to read the label and understand what street they're in! :)
I word in defence of AU-Post: They are flooded by cheap Aliexpress, Gearbest, Wish, Geekbuy, …. small parcels.
From what I've heard, AU post gets 10 cents from Chinese shipping. So what do you expect? Your Chinese parcel get an ULTRA-MIGHTY-LOW priority.
that's interesting, I thought the trade agreements guaranteed at least the cost of delivery, 10c doesn't sound like that's gonna cut it!
"old" article
http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/united-nations-subsidy-chinese…
"As part of this reform process, China will be transitioned in 2016 into a category for more developed nations, who generally pay higher terminal dues.
However, critics are skeptical of the substance of these changes. “[China will have] the same rates as before, they’re just going to nominally be in the target system,” says Jim Campbell, a former DHL executive and policy consultant who is critical of the UPU."
damn, I mean, I get that we can get things on the cheap because of this but it certainly isn't fair for AusPost, especially if they are already making losses. No wonder they keep increasing domestic rates.
Yep fully understood, but the gist of this thread is that parcels/letters from Australia are the ones being affected. In some cases taking longer than mail from China, so Aussie mail gets ULTRA LOW priority - you just save the MIGHTY
Hope you aren't a lawyer as your defence argument would be fairly weak. 😄
If aus post ever delivers!… they lost mine.