My letter to the postman

[dazzler]

Hi all

We have a contractor who delivers our mail as we are living rural. Lazy sod never delivers parcels but just shoves the pre written "parcel waiting" card in amongst them so we need to drive to 'town" to collect them.

Anyways, phoned Auspost and they said that was ok under the contract..:o but that I could write to the manager to complain. Here is my letter;


The Contract Manager
Australia Post
GPO Box 4000
Hobart TAS 7001

CONTRACTOR MAIL DELIVERY

Dear Madam/Sir,

I am writing to raise an issue with you that is of concern. I currently live at XXX YYYY Road Margate Tasmania and our mail is delivered by a contractor. The previous contractor delivered parcels to the front door of our property however the current contractor does not.

This contractor makes no effort to deliver the parcel even if they can see us standing on the front porch 18metres away. It appears that they already have the red “parcel collection” form completed as they stop and it is already in the mail they are putting in our letter box. The latest one that arrived yesterday (20/7/09) was actually placed inside a food catalogue. These are normally thrown in the recycling directly however my wife dropped it and it fell out.

Today I spoke with the call centre on 131318 and the lady advised that as part of the contract they are not required to get out of their vehicle and deliver the parcel if they don’t want to. I have watched Postman Pat on TV and he seems to be able to deliver parcels in all types of weather including when its snowing and even when the bridge to Alfs house is damaged and he had to go all the way past Mrs Goggins place. Maybe having his cat Jess helps him.

Hoping you could advise on the following;

1. Is it correct that the contractor can decide whether or not to deliver a parcel?
2. If it is correct then please record the fact that my jaw dropped and hit the floor. I now have a bruise on my chin.
3. Is there any way that I can have parcels delivered to my address other than using a separate courier?
4. If I have a “Parcel Sized” mail box is the contractor then obliged to deliver parcels that fit?
5. Would the contractor deliver my parcels if I painted his car red and gave him a black and white cat called Jess?

Many thanks,

Dazzler

PS. I am aware that Postman Pat is a puppet……but he is a very good postman

[wheelinround]

I'd be checking out Australia Post Contract status online if the lazy dope is being paid to deliver parcels and is only delivering the slips he is in breach of contract. Unless of course they are COD.

Might be the same fellow we had in Tamworth did the same thing till he got caught

[Big Shed]

Great letter Dazzler:2tsup:

However, you don't know how lucky you are, at least yuo get your letters put in your letter box.
Like you, we also live in the country, but unlike you we do not even get "roadside delivery".

We have to pay extra to get a Post Office box, so that Australia Post can save money and not pay a contractor to deliver our mail.

A couple of years ago Australia Post sent all the people in the area a questionnaire asking whether we wanted roadside delivery (we've only been asking for some 10 years plus!).

Everyone answered in the affirmative, so we were all expecting roadside delivery "real soon now"!

Imagine our absolute astonishment when we all received a letter from AP which in effect said:

Thank you very much for your overwhelming support for roadside delivery, however due to contractual arrangements we are not in a position to provide this service"

So why ask the question duh!:doh:

The wonders of bureaucracy.

Count yourself lucky my friend to get most mail delivered to your letter box on your boundary.

[snowyskiesau]

My previous mail contractor used to be of the same ninja variety. He could manage to leave 'sorry we missed you' card in the letter box even if I was working in the front yard (only 3 meters from front of house to footpath) Not having a car meant a 2 kilometer walk to pick up the parcel.

The current contractor is great. Unless the parcel requires a signature, he'll always leave it on the front verandah and cover it with the door mat. He's never too busy to stop for a chat if I'm home, but I suspect that's more to help with his English.:)

[dj_pnevans]

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David

[Shuttle]

Can't wait to see the reply.

BC

[Cliff Rogers]

The 'lazy' bugger probley won it by quoting to low & can only make it pay by taking shortcuts.

[Burnsy]

Made us laugh greenie on the way:2tsup:

[weisyboy]

mine dose teh same anyhting bigger than a dl letter and i gotta pick it up

[watson]

We drive to town.......or no mail.
Drive to town.......or no rubbish clearance.
Take away means drive to town.
Sometimes I'd pay $50 for a home delivered Pizza, if there was one.

[Ben from Vic.]

Dazzler, you'll probably find that the postman leaves the package at the post office and just brings the pickup slip. Thats what they do here.

However, we're just inside the free pizza delivery radius as the pizza joint is up our end of town.:2tsup:

[Barry_White]

Before our previous mail contractor retired she always brought any parcels> When the new contractor took over on his first delivery there was a parcel to be delivered but he just left the note to pick it up from the post office.

I rang the post office about it because it is a 140klm round trip and that isn't even on the way to town. The lady at the post office said "I will just send you a form to sign and he will deliver any parcels and that gives him the authority to sign for any parcels that have to be signed for" and then they are left in my box which is one of those tradesman's boxes that the use on the back of a truck.

[Christopha]

I don't know what you are whinging about? Before I moved over here to the beach to live we had NO postal contractor that drove past our driveway even though a hundred or so uncontracted cars did every day. Neither us nor any of our neighbours who lived off the main highway had any either. We had to go to the PO in town..
Now I live in a small seaside town and here there is no postie at all. We have to go to the little PO to collect everything. The ladies who run it are beaut and go out of their way to oblige but sometimes I forget to check my mail box for a week or so and boy does it pile up!
The contractors I see about the place usually have a small 4 cylinder car as they have to cover a fair distance every day and as they are contractors they need the most economical vehicle they can manage. I wouldn't fancy filling up a little bubble car with bloody parcels either!

[weisyboy]

pizza delivery in my dreams.

an its only 10 mins to the pizza place.

[mjmjm]

Postman Pat's only a puppet?
Wish ya han't tole me that.

[Jim Carroll]

Had a chat with our local delivery guy and he claims that the guy is just plain lazy and abusing the rules.

He has to make every effort to deliver the parcels even leaving them in a secure place if available and leave a ticket in you box saying where he left the parcel.

Our local guy reckons the ones you do not deliver waste time as you get back and have to sort them out and log them into the book for pickups so you may spend an hour doing this instead of getting back filling out your sheet then going home.

Stick it right up the guy who is abusing the rules and see how long he lasts, most are contractors and there is a clause there for aus post to get rid of him if he does not follow the rules.

[RETIRED]

The ladies who run it are beaut and go out of their way to oblige but sometimes I forget to check my mail box for a week or so and boy does it pile up!
Same here but Bruce is our Postmasters name.

[weisyboy]

ladies anmed bruce where do u live ?

[RETIRED]

Husband and wife. Can't do enough to help. If they know I am expecting an urgent parcel they have even rung me to let me know that it is there.

[funkychicken]

Same here but Bruce is our Postmasters name.

Cindy's her name over here, I'd rather her than a posty we never see

[rotten_66]

Our guy is Sudanese I think (Exceptionally tall and very, very, very well tanned :q), an absolute top notch bloke, bends over backwards on the parcel front. He has even left a pick up card in the letter box telling us to look up the sideway as that was where he hid a parcel that had been sent. He could see the wrapping paper and wished my son a happy birthday!

[Woodwould]

I receive quite a number of important A4 sized documents, photos, trade publications and catalogues, which weused to have delivered to a large PO Box, but when we moved, we thought we did the right thing and had the largest, Australia Post-approved steel letterbox installed at home so the mail could be delivered unfolded, uncreased and be dry until it was retrieved.

Despite numerous phone calls, emails and polite requests in person, the b****y posties persist in folding the mail in two and jaming it halfway into the letter slot so half of it gets drenched! I am so sick and tired of their beligerence with this matter, yet there seems there's nothing we can do about it. We'd almost prefer to live somewhere remote and have to collect the mail.

[malb]

I am a Parcel Post subcontractor in suburban Port Melbourne. For the princely sum of 90c per parcel I have to attempt to deliver anything that comes through. Size can vary from thick normal envelopes up to 1.2m cubes, weight to 20kg per package. Daily loads can vary from 60 to 280 packages, plus 2 runs stuffing postie bags into the green depot boxes spread around the suburb so the posties don't have to go to the mail centre 3 or 4 times a day to reload. My two runs and two depot runs run to about 80km per day.

"Attempt to deliver" means exactly that, must carry parcels to the point of contact at the address, and attempt to contact the occupier. Point of contact may be a locked gate in a wall (with or without a bell), front door, or central intercom point in an apartment block. If I make contact, I have to wait for customer to accept package and sign if required.

If I cannot make contact (not home or don't want to answer, locked gate without bell or intercom, etc) I can elect to leave a package if I can access a secure weatherproof drop off point and no signature is required, but must leave a safe drop card explaining where the package is. Otherwise, I must leave a card indicating the class of package, any ID no, and the pickup point location (not the local retail POs as they don't have the room to store the packages).

Contract set up will be different in rural areas as the contractor may only be required to size vehicle for the letter load, rather than combined letter and parcel load. I know that when I lived near Wilsons Prom as a kid, the mail contractor had a 600 mile run with a station wagon as the required vehicle level and had to split the run into multiple loads at high demand times, back when mail parcels were quite rare. It may be possible that the contract does not include carriage of parcels with a mail run, but it could also be possible that it is just inconvenient for the contractor. Only the contracts section would be able to offer a definitive answer. General mail delivery and parcel delivery are completely seperate sections within AP.

[dj_pnevans]

How about the postie in Sydney who kept all the mail.
David