I used to really like it when parcels delivered to my home, when I was not there, would be taken to the local post office where I could pick it up on a Saturday or late afternoon. So why do you now send the parcel off to a depot where they are only open during hours when I normally work (more than an hour’s round trip away too!) and not open at all on the weekend?

Australia Post, do you not understand that delivery is supposed to be a service – a benefit to the consumer? I am sure that it is convenient for you to have this novel arrangement but I would not have ordered things to be delivered to me if I had known that you would create rules (without notifying me at that) that prevent me from picking up a parcel for which I have paid for both the contents and the postage.

Can we understand that I am the one paying and that I am the one being forced to take time off work in order to comply with what you want me to do instead of delivering me a parcel. Of course I understand that you have to operate efficiently. I can also understand that this kind of arrangement would be ok for a lot of people – especially those not working. The problem is that I am not one of those people and you give me 5 days (working days by your definition) to collect the thing I paid for to be delivered to me or you will return it to the sender. Great service that. The place YOU choose to send the parcel is 8 Km away (and it takes 30-40 minutes in the hours you are open for me to go there from where I work) from where I live and completely out of the way that I would normally travel to anywhere I normally go.

My local post office is less than 1 Km away and importantly open on Saturday mornings when I am able to get there. Now you might want to say that I should have been home to receive the parcel. Well, here we have a small discussion that must be had. First thing is that the delivery required a signature confirming the delivery. I get that the sender might want this for proof of delivery. I get that this might slow your delivery contractor down a bit. However, I do not accept it as reasonable that the delivery people might not even ring the doorbell to see if someone is home to accept a parcel. Despite the contractor not putting a time on when they attempted to deliver, I can be fairly sure that someone was home the day that the parcel was supposedly undeliverable. Two people were at the house for all but two hours in the day and that was after normal delivery hours. Your telephone operator became immediately certain (yes certain) that the delivery driver had arrived at my house precisely when it was unoccupied.

Well, the likelihood of this story being true is low. Deliveries are almost all in the morning to early afternoon … this is why the failed delivery notice says it can be picked up after 4:30 that day. Nobody was home that day between 4-6 PM and it does not add up. So, if I might have a problem with delivery what should I do? Have it delivered to a post office close to where I work so lunchtime pickup is feasible? Sadly if you pay with PayPal you have little choice where the delivery must go. It must go to the place identified in your PayPal account. Seems like a catch 22 situation here.

My helpful person on the other end of the telephone advised me that if I lived in a different city then I might be able to pay for a special mailbox or get a special service that allows for a parcel to be picked up at any hour. Clearly the capital city is not a worthy place to have such services! Australia Post you are doing your best to ruin the business model for online ordering and selling in Australia because you seem unable to understand that a lot of  things have changed since the 19th Century and you are not operating in the 1960s where someone is almost always at home and the postal service delivered letters with a whistle so that the home owner knew that they had mail that day. Please enter the 21st century and operate as if you understand that people work and that your business model needs to change!