AUSTRALIA POST is set to start charging up to $9 for customers to pick up undelivered parcels .

[csv8]

"AUSTRALIA POST is set to start charging up to $9 for customers to pick up undelivered parcels in a change to delivery services announced today.
The once-government run delivery giant says the initiative, due to be introduced later this year, was formulated in response to customer demand.
Undelivered parcels are currently held at post offices for 10 days at no cost before being returned to sender. But Australia Post says its customers want their packages to be held longer, and they think they’ll be happy to pay.
From August 1, if a package isn’t collected within five days, its recipient would have to hand over $3 to pick it up.
An additional $3 will be charged for each week the package is held. Packages will be held for up to 30 days with customers paying up to $9 to retrieve an item.
In a statement sent to news.com.au, an Australia Post spokesman said the idea was to allow customers more time to collect their parcels.
“Most customers want to pick up their parcel quickly, with 92 per cent of parcels collected within five days,” he said.
“We believe this service will help the small amount of customers who can’t collect their parcel straight away.”

Australia Post said it had conducted “extensive market research” before proposing the changes, speaking with more than 1500 customers.
“They have told us they want to avoid parcels being returned to sender and they would go out of their way to pick it up sooner to avoid the fee,” the spokesman said.
Speaking on 3AW radio, the company’s manager of postal services Christine Corbett said the changes were expected to make “a few million” for the company, which she said was “a very nominal amount”.
Communication Workers’ Union spokeswoman Joan Doyle told news.com.au there would be outrage over the “new service”.
“We think it’ll bring a lot of grief to our members at the retail shops who’ll cop a bit of abuse,” she said.
“We just think it’s another price gouge by the CEO of Australia Post and another step away from the right to receive mail as a community service.”
Australia Post has said it will drop the “Hold at Post” service if public reaction is negative.
Ms Doyle said she was confident a backlash would force Australia Post to “moderate some of the plans”.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman says Australia Post is the second most complained about entity in its jurisdiction.
Already this year the delivery giant has caused public outrage over increasing the price of stamps and changes to delivery times.
In January, the price of a regular stamp rocketed from 70 cents to one dollar, and delivery times for regular parcels were pushed out by two days.
The changes were made in response to a decline in traditional letter volumes.
Despite looking less and less likely to make a profit ever again — in February Australia Post announced an 84 per cent slide in half year profits — the company has been forced to defend its CEO’s multi-million dollar salary.
Earlier this year, the company defended CEO Ahmed Fahour’s $2.1 million takings, saying he turned down a $2.8 million performance bonus.
In 2014-15 Australia Post paid its executive team $13.47 million, while 900 workers lost their jobs thanks to the company’s dwindling profitability.
Along with its business practices, the company’s delivery service is also cause for complaint from millions of customers.
Late last year, Australia Post copped a storm of criticism after CCTV footage was published showing a Sydney courier making no attempt to deliver a resident’s parcel.
The footage, published by news.com.au, sparked a deluge of complaints from customers with similar experiences, forcing Australia Post to take action on the delivery driver and remind its workers of its “knock and call” policy.
Australia Post lost $221.7 million last year." http://www.news.com.au/finance/busin...8c3d918cd7f255

[Trump]

I'm surprised they hadn't implemented this ages ago.

[csv8]

I use : http://www.officeworks.com.au/mailman its cheaper...

[Beastie]

I wonder if there will be an increase in "undelivered" parcels...

[Ross 1]

That will apply to every parcel that is meant to be delivered to our unit complex, I have actually caught out the postie putting in the cards re failed delivery, without him even trying to buzz our apartment or get any of the parcels from his van. We get a lot delivered and have only ever been home twice apparently, one of the post contractors comes either late afternoon or crack of dawn to put the cards in the mail boxes, I assume they get paid each way and this is the easiest, laziest option.

[nstg8a]

Not an unreasonable fee in reality, but they will need to crack down on the useless lazy courier drivers that don't even try delivering it first.

[LG17]

Originally Posted by nstg8a

Not an unreasonable fee in reality, but they will need to crack down on the useless lazy courier drivers that don't even try delivering it first.

Try living where I do!
It's extremely common to get a message from the couriers saying, "Invalid Address." :(

[brismike]

The Startrack courier drivers who deliver parcels for Australia Post are contractors. They mainly deliver larger parcels. These days small parcels are delivered by the Postie who also delivers letters. I know this because I work for Aussie Post as a Van driver. I pick up mail from businesses and have to sort any parcels into large and small before they leave my van.

This is to try and keep the Posties in work because the dwindling numbers of letters is a major concern for their ongoing employment.

When I personally receive a small parcel my local Postie always rides his bike up to my front door and rings my bell. My local Startrack guy is also very good when I get a larger one.

Couple of times when I haven't been home I copped an "Advice" to pick up from the local Post Office. Biggest issue is then having to queue up because they never have enough staff on and sometimes they can't even find it. Again this is due to not enough staff in the Post Office to sort and store the undelivered parcels. Once they lost one of mine but it was later found at another Post Office.

Don't be too hard on the Aussie Post workers at the coalface though. They are a good bunch of people and from what I see they all work hard for fairly low wages.

Cheers Mike

[LG17]

Originally Posted by brismike

The Startrack courier drivers who deliver parcels for Australia Post are contractors. They mainly deliver larger parcels. These days small parcels are delivered by the Postie who also delivers letters. I know this because I work for Aussie Post as a Van driver. I pick up mail from businesses and have to sort any parcels into large and small before they leave my van.

This is to try and keep the Posties in work because the dwindling numbers of letters is a major concern for their ongoing employment.

When I personally receive a small parcel my local Postie always rides his bike up to my front door and rings my bell. My local Startrack guy is also very good when I get a larger one.

Couple of times when I haven't been home I copped an "Advice" to pick up from the local Post Office. Biggest issue is then having to queue up because they never have enough staff on and sometimes they can't even find it. Again this is due to not enough staff in the Post Office to sort and store the undelivered parcels. Once they lost one of mine but it was later found at another Post Office.

Don't be too hard on the Aussie Post workers at the coalface though. They are a good bunch of people and from what I see they all work hard for fairly low wages.

Cheers Mike

Startrack is wholly owned by Aust Post.
Posties may deliver small parcels in some suburbs but do not in rural/semi-rural areas.
The vast majority of customers in rural areas have to go to their local post office or agency (and that could well be a distance!) to pick up any parcel that really should be delivered. If they can deliver a letter, why not a parcel?

[Adamz Ghia]

Dunno why anyone would have an issue with this? You have 5 days to collect your parcel before you're charged.

[Legit290]

Maybe if they knocked harder? Effwits

[brismike]

Originally Posted by LG17

Startrack is wholly owned by Aust Post.

Thanks for that .... I work side by side with them every day so I think I already knew it. Our new uniforms even have both Australia Post and Startrack on them with the red and blue "P" on them. Eventually they will both be totally integrated.

Australia Post also have majority ownership of another mail delivery company called "Mail Plus".

Mike

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by Legit290

Maybe if they knocked harder? Effwits

It's a conspiracy. Couriers love knocking really quietly on your door, standing around for 20-30 seconds wasting time, then they love getting out their cards to write on and drop in your letter box. They also love going to the local post office with 50 paracels and dragging them all into the post office.

[Legit290]

Originally Posted by Ben73

It's a conspiracy. Couriers love knocking really quietly on your door, standing around for 20-30 seconds wasting time, then they love getting out their cards to write on and drop in your letter box. They also love going to the local post office with 50 paracels and dragging them all into the post office.

I knew it!°

[wodahs]

ive even had my parcels delivered to one of three official austpost post offices that are quite some distance away from me and not my local official one which is just a few k's up the road
just to be told that this is their driven route today , and yes ive been home all day for them ones and there has been no knock on the door as even the slightest of taps gets my shepherds attention and gets her barking (coz of this I don't need a door bell)

[csv8]

"Like most people, residual fondness and simple inertia kept me using the old dinosaur even as it cut services, increased prices and turned the local post office into a Two Dollar Shop full of one dollar crap with 10 dollar price tags. But this latest plan to charge people to pick up undelivered parcels is the end.

It seems Oz Post CEO Ahmed Fahour might have found the perfect way to finally kill off the business. Paying millions to his executive team while laying off 900 postal workers who actually did something useful like, you know, delivering the post, was a good start.

Australia Post's well-paid executives won't have to answer to angry customers who've just been told they have to pay for a package they know the sender already paid for.
But shaking down punters to collect packages that have already been paid for by the sender is the coup de grace.I think it's almost certainly illegal. Oz Post has no contract with the recipient of the package, you see. The contract to deliver, for which payment has been made, was with the sender.

You can't forcibly create a contract for which payment is demanded just by holding onto somebody's stuff and putting out your hand. Not unless you're going into competition with the mafia. It's not just an insane way to blow up what's left of your business and drive people to the private couriers. It's extortion. There are laws against it.

Ahmed, you just can't do this, son.

According to one of Fahour's spokesdrones the plan to charge people to collect their own parcels is an exciting enhancement of the Post Office's customer service offerings, but this is such obvious bull**** that if Australia Post is subject to the Competition and Consumer Act it should be prosecuted for deceptive and misleading conduct; right after the organised crime squad have done them like a dinner for kidnapping your parcels and holding them ransom.

Fahour's "introductory offering" to his new "pick up" service will top out at $9 a parcel, if you miss the postie because you're at work or you simply don't hear them as they tippie-toe up the steps to knock ever so lightly on the door before running like crazy for the van, yelling at the getaway driver to put the pedal to the metal.

But you can expect the price to grow very quickly.

Eventually they won't even bother pretending to deliver. You'll just get a phone call from a heavy breather late at night. "JB, we got a little package here for you, brother. Looks fragile. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

The people who'll suffer the first blow, as ever, are the frontline staff.

Fahour and his well-paid executives won't have to answer to angry customers who've just been told they have to pay for a package they know the sender already paid for. The poor mugs on the front desk, however, will have to cop the rage of the poor mugs who've been forced to front up at the Two Dollar Shop and hand over nine dollars for something they didn't even buy in the first place – a simple parcel delivery."
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/quee...02-gokhgy.html

[ford71V8]

Do I get to charge when my parcel is late / undelivered? I would clean up.

Our local post office is hopeless. The guy running it gets flustered at the simplest requests. "If I have to go look for your package who will serve these other people?"
Last week my wife got told off by him for coming in a day early to collect a parcel.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by csv8

But you can expect the price to grow very quickly.

But it already has grown. I can understand recouping some costs if they were already offering competitive pricing, but their price rises over the last year forced us to go back to a courier service for work. AusPost just werent viable anymore, especially considering how unreliable they were becoming. And now they want to charge even more???

[nstg8a]

Thing is auspost is probably charging what they need to to in order to actually make a profit.

Some of the smaller courier mobs are undercutting each other so much it's ludicrous. We have a program at work some of our customers use to get last minute pricing, and jet couriers have been charging less than $25 to get a 200kg pallet from Brisbane to the Gold Coast.


While cheap prices seem good for the consumer, many of these prices are unsustainable.

[Sabantien]

It all seems reasonable, if their service was actually as promised.

In my old job I'd often have weekdays off and work weekends, so i'd be home waiting for the package. No TV or radio so I could hear the knock (in my small, one bedroom flat).

No, no knock, just a note in the mailbox. A few times I even saw them pull up and drop the card in. They'd be gone before I could get out the door.

Wait until 4pm to pick it up only to find... no, sorry, the driver didn't drop it back here, try again tomorrow.

Complain at the post office when you finally pick it up, they tell you nothing to do with them, they're contractors. Call up Australia Post, they tell you to complain at your post office.

Check out the AusPost FB page and you'll find hundreds, if not thousands, of people with similar stories.

I can probably get to the post office these days as I finish at 4 and I either cycle home in 10min or walk home in 30, but I'm probably among the minority to live that close.

Anyhow, this is all leading to the post office being killed off. They actively destroy a once good service so that no one complains when they get rid of it.

[The Yeti]

I really don't have a problem with this, I get parcels delivered 3 and 4 times a week, if I haven't picked it up with in 5 days there is something really wrong.

That said I'm fortunate in that I don't have to collect them from a regular post office I have a sub postoffice that is open 7 days between 7am & 7 pm so for me its a nonsense

if I had to go to a regular 9 - 5 mon - fri post office it would be a massive PITA but then so would getting any non delivered parcel and I think I would be organising something else aside from aust post irrespective of the cost

In my case friends and family get there crap delivered here as they cant get to the local post office in their opening hours THIS IS A PITA for me as i get the card in the box I think woo hoo car parts only to find its some BS delivery for a friend of my wife's or some other non yeti related crap, I liken it to the biggest box under the christmas tree being for some one else :( :( :(

[sprintman1]

Good idea, they aren't a warehouse!

[malazn mafia]

A little bit shocking that Australia Post, basically a monopoly for domestic post (what is the alternative to Aus Post to send things around Australia..), can't even turn a profit, while management sits on a pedestal with millions lining their pockets. Similar examples are Qantas, Telstra and Woolworhs. Looks like a massive fail, like failing to shoot fish in a barrel, or failing to sell drinks at a pub... If this is a reflection of the state of affairs in Australia, and our work culture and ethics, this is really pathetic. If 3rd world nations can turn profits from their national enterprise and actually complete infrastructure and other projects on time, on budget and on spec , what does that make us??

[SYZ]

Living in a small country town, we never have any issues at all with Australia Post deliveries. Both of our two regular courier blokes are faultless when it comes to banging on the door, and we usually end up having a chin-wag about what ails the world LOL.

Picking up the bigger stuff at our LPO has never presented the slightest of issues either, as they leave a card in our PO box. I'm guessing that the majority of parcel delivery complaints are originating in the metro regions of major towns or capital cities, where you're a number and not a name?

[LTDHO]

I don't see the problem with it. In fact, it's cheap storage!

[sprintman1]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

A little bit shocking that Australia Post, basically a monopoly for domestic post (what is the alternative to Aus Post to send things around Australia..), can't even turn a profit, while management sits on a pedestal with millions lining their pockets. Similar examples are Qantas, Telstra and Woolworhs. Looks like a massive fail, like failing to shoot fish in a barrel, or failing to sell drinks at a pub... If this is a reflection of the state of affairs in Australia, and our work culture and ethics, this is really pathetic. If 3rd world nations can turn profits from their national enterprise and actually complete infrastructure and other projects on time, on budget and on spec , what does that make us??

Quaintarse are making a shed load. You're a bit behind the times........

[blackf6]

I can see it now. Postie van man chucking "you have mail cards" out the window, aka the paper man. Saves time, home for beers quicker.