Post Office Blues

I just returned from the post office, having handed them a number of complaint / compensation forms.

In three short weeks I have had:

- A book from the UK 'go missing'. This has taken my wife 3 months to find (Don Camillo in the original Italian).

- Nintendo game cartridge for my daughter 'go missing'. This was the one bought to replace the one that 'went missing' when I bought it for her birthday.

- Package of modeling supplies (guess what?) 'go missing'. Amazing.

And today's peice de resistance, a 1 metre long cardboard box, crumpled to a 30 degree angle. "I hope there's nothing important in there" says the oxygen thief behind the counter. I opened it in front of her for maximum effect.



My eldest kid will be doing work experience later this year. While the other kids around him go off to spend time at Dad's work, or laze about under the summer sun, my son will be doing something that most people seem to need these days; taking a simple counter job in a customer service role. Dealing with consumers face to face. Learning the the customer is in fact always right, even if they are a jerk.

What annoys me most is the level of disinterest from the staff I dealt with. I was calm. I was thorough. I was polite, even though I wanted to scream. But they were simply untouched by the importance of the fact that the company they are paid to front, has been less than satisfactory in providing service.

Give me strength.

Hang in there. Government or private postal service? If government take solace - it could be worse. They could charge you extra for the lost and damaged mail justifying it by saying that since it required more manpower and effort to deal with it was only fair. I'm not aware of anywhere that does that -- they haven't thought of it yet...

Uh oh. I let the idea out in the wild. Now we're all in trouble.

Not having experience with civil servants in Oz, I will not presume the stereotypes of bureaucrats I have personally experienced.

I just get the feeling that there might be a package handler with the same tastes as you if stuff goes missing.

The local Vogans - er bureaucrats- around me I would out and out accuse with much less data. Then again in the US the phrase "going Postal " is in common parlance (in honor of a postal worker who went on a shooting rampage). Perhaps body armor?

Sorry for your losses.

The postal service here is Government run, but in many places privately staffed. Our local office went from a reliable (yes, really) government run branch, to a privately run "agency" staffed by mouth breathing troglodytes.

They told me I wouldn't be compensated, so there wasn't any point in lodging the paperwork. I said that I still wanted to, because sooner or later someone, somewhere would realise that there were a great heap of complaint forms from this agency, and perhaps they would start asking questions.

Their reply? "What sort of questions?"

Someone with the same tastes as me? Unlikely! Interestingly though, the most expensive item I ever bought from the states, a Selmer mouthpiece for my son's saxophone, came through in 4 days without fuss!

I've always had good service from the UK postal services (Royal Mail and Parcelforce) Over the years I've had dozens of packages from the US and all arrived safely.

However - what does annoy me is the way the import charges are levied. Don't get me wrong - if I import something of value I expect to pay duties on it. I just received a package of several excellent T-shirts from skyshirts.com. in the US (a nice selection of historical Pan Am and BOAC posters ).

Royal Mail wouldn't even deliver them because there was a fee to pay and our posties don't seem to be allowed to take money. I had to call at the local depot (not far away, fortunately) and pay £12.

£4 duty - AND £8 HANDLING FEE

I should have charged them my expenses for collecting the package.

Someone recently sent me a letter, and neglected to put enough postage on it. Because of that, instead of delivering my letter, the post office delivered me a postcard saying that I had a letter to pick up at the sorting office, (which is only open in the mornings) where I could collect my letter after I had handed over the shortfall in postage - 6p plus £1 handling charge!

Yeah, the Royal Mail handling fees are rather high, but at least they tell you there's a fee to pay... I got a parcel from ThinkGeek in the US via DHL, and a whole three months later they sent me an invoice for the VAT/duty/handling fees. Nothing with the shipment to indicate that there would be any fees payable, just an invoice months later. I was surpised to find that DHL's handling fee was quite a bit lower than Royal Mail's, though.

Phil

Why can't they just knock on the door and ask for the 6p?
Instead, I had to make a special journey to the sorting office, paying for the privilege, and I didn't even know if it was anything important until I paid up. Imagine how I would have reacted if it had been junk mail!

skippy - you're outgoing mail service seems to be functional. The package you sent arrived just fine. Thanks very much for that.

I haven't had too many problems with things not arriving. I did have an Asimov book go missing a couple of months back, but it only cost me tree-fiddy so I'm not losing sleep over it.

Originally posted by matthew
...but it only cost me tree-fiddy so I'm not losing sleep over it.

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Thanks for the post - I laughed out loud when I read that as I watched that episode again only yesterday!

Originally posted by North Star
I've always had good service from the UK postal services (Royal Mail and Parcelforce)

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Do they speak Parceltongue at Parcelforce?

Originally posted by kenobi65
Do they speak Parceltongue at Parcelforce?

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You need to read less kids fiction and more technical journals

BTW next time I call in there, I'll asssssssssssssssk

Well, I've had something of a victory.

I filled in complaint forms for all the missing packages, and also for the damaged kits. No joy on the missing packages ("We believe they may be missing..."), but I have been compensated for the damaged kits.

So people, the golden rules are:

- If the outer package looks damaged, open the item on the Post Office counter.

- Keep every piece of packaging for evidence.

- If something is damaged, complain in writing. Your post office will have official complaint forms. Stay cool, whining and swearing gets you nowhere.

- Insurance is good if you need to deal with idiots...

Let the vendor know their stuff ain't making it all the way to ya in one (or any) piece. They can 'lean' on 'em too.

Originally posted by by basher
Let the vendor know their stuff ain't making it all the way to ya in one (or any) piece. [snip]

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Yep, I did that too.

Surprisingly, very little gets damaged. Only "lost".