Underpaid Mail Invoice from Auspost

LJoker789 on 14/07/2017 - 11:16

Hello Everyone

It's our First post so pardon me for any error.We have today received an Underpaid mail invoice from AusPost for over $500.00 stating we underpaid the postage when we sent a parcel to someone in NSW from VIC. The letter states the date of lodgement, Quantity as 50 and correct postage to be paid $13.80 plus they have put a charge for admin fees and some other charge for 0.70, totaling it to more than 500.00.

Now we have a small online store where we sell our goods from and we purchase the Prepaid Satchel medium size 3 kg bag in bulk from AusPost themselves. Often time when the PO is busy we will put the satchel in a big bag and drop it at the counter and they scan it when they get time.
We are really stressed as we have received this demand letter from AusPost stating "Recently mail was detected within the postal system that had been lodged with insufficient postage. Rather than have the mail delayed by returning it to you, Australia Post has acted in good faith and delivered it as addressed.

We had lodged the mail over the counter in a prepaid satchel, we have the tracking number and the cc receipt of the purchase. The article was around 1 kg.We can`t seem to understand how they have put 50 satchels as underpaid when we have not even sent 50 parcels and whatever parcels we did send were already paid in the form of the prepaid satchel.

Could anyone please advice and shed some light on what we can do, or has someone dealt with a situation like this? We have spoken to AusPost who said they will investigate.

Regards

General Discussion

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Comments

  • msmhw on 14/07/2017 - 12:00
    +5

    Ask for evidences, some of their workers just put numbers and ask for more money from their minds without even checking.
    It happened for me before, they sent me this letter with $100 unpaid postage. There were a lot of errors on it such as the date we supposed to sent the mail was in future. (For example they wrote we sent some mail in December while we still in Jun). After fighting with them couple of weeks the just cancel everything. Since that date we give our mail to the counter.

    Also I read somewhere, Australia Post doing this to force people to open business account with them which has more problem than this.

    • Joker789 on 14/07/2017 - 13:29

      Thank you for your reply. We did speak with someone from their deliveries team who said they will start an investigation.We also believe that they have just randomly put the number also we did lodge the parcel over the counter which in its tracking shows the received by the PO on that date. The PO did not say anything about it being oversize of overweight as it perfectly fit in the Medium size satchel.
      In regards to the Business account, they actually have been trying to sign us up for the business account as we had few missing parcel and they had to compensate us for that.
      Can they take us to court if we decline to pay?

      Regards

      • msmhw on 14/07/2017 - 14:35
        -1

        Usually, their investigation is BS. They are the laziest people I ever worked with. Most likely they will tell you after investigation the letter is correct and you need to pay …etc.

        But stand your ground that your packages meet their guidelines and if they think not, ask for evidence again and tell them you lodge the packages over the counter so the counter usually refuse anything over the limit.

        I don't know about the court thing, and I don't believe they will take the matter to court level. It will cost them more time and money than it worth and they need to provide evidence otherwise the court will reject their request.

        You can take them to the ombudsman if you have evidence that your packages meet their guidelines, such as your orders history and the weight of each item …etc. But I recommend you wait until they reply to you.

        I won't recommend you to open a business account with them. And don't even think about it. They will try to sell it to you as it's a better option but what we went through didn't even worth the discount they give. If you open a business account you will be chasing them for overcharged and money they took from your account…etc.

  • ronnknee on 14/07/2017 - 15:23
    +1

    I've had this happening to me before (slightly over but bumping it to the next bracket) which is why I've stopped putting a "return to" address.

    • Joker789 on 14/07/2017 - 16:15

      Thats what we were thinking to do moving forward. Our satchels were prepaid 3 kg and item weighs 1 kilo so we dont know how in the world we underpaid the postage.The letter has $0.00 paid for postage. Can`t seem to understand.

      • ronnknee on 14/07/2017 - 16:22

        Like what others have suggested, it's best to call them and ask them for proof.

        • Joker789 on 14/07/2017 - 16:24

          Done it already, it's under investigation they said.

    • msmhw on 14/07/2017 - 16:39
      +1

      the will charge the receiver and won't release the package until it gets paid. Which you may get negative feedback if you are selling in eBay. Also, this will not be eligible for compensation if the package gets lost.

  • whooah1979 on 14/07/2017 - 15:35

    Two words. Speculative invoicing.

    Ask them for evidence that the sender has underpaid for each and every mail article that has been allegedly lodged.

    • Joker789 on 14/07/2017 - 16:16

      We send them a message on Twitter asking the same where they replied saying " it seems a bit excessive". Waiting to hear back

  • ozstamps on 31/07/2019 - 21:34

    What is the cost they levy - double the deficiency or something?

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