Auspost: Sorry We Missed You Card When We Were at Home

Auspost delivery driver dropped the card without even knocking on the door. he just slipped it in the mailbox and left. I have him on camera.
I contacted auspost on twitter complaining but how can we stop this from happening?
I paid for home delivery and not parcel pickup.

edit 02/01/2018:
thank you all for your comment. I wanted to get the message out there so maybe auspost will care about having a good feedback channel and improve the service.
I ended up pick the item from the post office. this item was bulky and hence I wanted it delivered. I always have other carriers deliver to my door, austpost is the exception.
Here is the link for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m73I1IeBuy8&feature=youtu.be

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Comments

    • +6

      AusPost hack, have a pretty girl always answer.

      • +3

        Life hack. (Psssp, don't tell anyone). Be good looking.

        • +2

          Okay, hacked at my face. People have been running away - is that normal?

          • +2

            @HighAndDry: I don't have to hack at my face first to get that reaction.

    • +1

      I've tried that too, having deliveries sent to my office which has security staff at the front who work there 24/7. Yet i still receive "sorry we missed you" cards. F U Aus Post, how can you say no one was there when the security's job is to be there 24/7. They are just too lazy to get of their bike.

  • +22

    I believe this issue started getting really widespread after Australia Post outsourced delivery to third party contractors.

    A delivery driver I got to know told me they get around $1 per item delivered. Assuming that is true, you can't get to enough houses in an hour to make a living on that, especially when providing your own vehicle and fuel. He said they rely on business addresses that get multiple parcels for their income. I get really upset when it happens to me and it's not an excuse for what the drivers are doing. However Australia Post need to provide a workable business model for contractors or bring delivery back to staff drivers. Saying they have spoken to the driver isn't enough.

    • +5

      you can't get to enough houses in an hour to make a living on that,

      Then don't accept the contract. No one is forcing them to deliver for Auspost, and if no one takes the contract Auspost would have to up their rates to attract delivery person.

      The only blame Auspost has here is that they don't have processes involved to catch this and penalise delivery drivers pro-actively, instead of needing to wait for complaints first.

      • Yes, I agree. I certainly wouldn't.

      • +4

        Talking like a monopolist. Apparently you never deal with corporations before, they set the rule, not people

      • Then don't accept the contract. No one is forcing them to deliver for Auspost, and if no one takes the contract Auspost would have to up their rates to attract delivery person.

        So you'd rather they went on the dole?

        • +6

          Ah yes - work for Auspost or go on the dole. No other options available.

          • @HighAndDry: Presumably all the jobs on offer to the drivers pay equal or less (else, being rational econs, they would have already changed jobs, right?). So yeah, if they quit in speculation of being able to later find a better paying job (or to exert a form of strike pressure on the industry), a proportion of them are gonna be unemployed for at least some period.

            • @abb:

              being rational econs

              Honestly the most important lesson from econ is that people are nothing but irrational. But no - because you can be paid a low rate but at a high enough volume your income is still high. Or - if rates are raised, volumes may fall, and mean you earn less in total.

              • @HighAndDry: Sure, smaller slice of a bigger pie, I get it. But really I'm just trying to say that it can be hard to escape a bad job without ending up unemployed. You seem to have taken my initial comment as "100% of them will be on the dole forever", where I really meant "some would be on the dole for a while (longer)".

                • -1

                  @abb: There are always jobs, especially delivery jobs, available for people who're willing to do the harder jobs, and work the longer hours. Worst-comes-to-worst? UberEATS is a thing.

                  At that point, is it really up to society to serve them up jobs on a platter so they don't just fall back on the dole? Because they can do that at any time, but it'd be out of laziness, not necessity. I just don't see there being an end to that.

                • @abb: You realise you can look for new jobs whilst still having your current job. And to be honest shit happens not everyone can have a good job but if you aren’t willing to do your job properly you don’t deserve to keep it.

          • @HighAndDry: Actually, it is a struggle to find good people willing to work for you. I would say a high percentage of Auspost couriers are not Australian. The Australians literally say 'it's easier to be on the dole' and bail when they find out how much work is involved for the pay.

    • -1

      A delivery driver I got to know told me they get around $1 per item delivered.

      So by dropping off a card instead of the item, they've essentially earned… nothing?

      • nah, the fee is paid for attempted delivery, so leaving the card counts. so much quicker to just card em and drop them all to the local PO.

  • +1

    Happens to us all the time too, every time I call up they just say they will leave feedback to the driver. Nothing else they can do. I stop online shopping if I can grab in store now, auspost is so useless.

    • +2

      Yes, same here. Thanks to the previous CEO of Aus Post, we are paying much higher fees for deprecated service from the past. Delivery just 2 days a week and real snail mail. Spend your weekends picking up parcels for which you paid home delivery. And he gets paid $5 million of tax payers money !!

  • I have the same problem. It really is unacceptable.

  • +5

    Are you gonna show us the video for laughs?

    • Actually please just post it to all social media & let the internet do its thing

  • It seems to be par for the course nowadays, has happened with the last 2 items I had delivered.

  • -7

    The only way to address carding it so privatise auspost.

    • -2

      People hate privatising national services (and I agree for some things), but it might be as easy as just removing Auspost's government-enforced monopoly on the delivery of letters. If other companies can also compete for business, Auspost would have to improve their game or go broke.

      • +1

        Auspost's government-enforced monopoly on the delivery of letters.

        no carrier is going to compete for the sub 250g mail service if they want to make money. this part of auspost mail service will never make any profits ever again.

        it's either privatise or amend the act to remove the cso and the federal oversight. give auspost full autonomy.

        • I think that'd have to fall into two categories - 1. delivery of letters and other unprofitable but arguably essential post. This would be an essential service, and taken over/continued to be managed by, the government like a utility or other essential service would be, and operated not as a commercial venture. And 2. delivery of parcels and non-essential items. This should be opened up for competition, operated as a for-profit venture.

          And you would have to separate the two so that one part does not confer an unfair competitive advantage to Auspost in competing for the other.

          • @HighAndDry: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I certainly wouldn't.

          • +4

            @HighAndDry:

            1. delivery of parcels and non-essential items. This should be opened up for competition, operated as a for-profit venture.

            the parcel service its't protected by the act. anyone may setup a rival parcel service in australia.

            • @whooah1979: Yes, but Auspost's monopoly on letters gives them an unfair advantage because the two are so interrelated (including sharing infrastructure, staff, back-end systems, marketing, etc).

              Pretending that letter delivery is still profitable is (I think I'm agreeing with you here), unworkable. So accept it's not profitable, that it's an essential service, and have the government run that at a loss. And separate it out from the rest of Auspost's (non-essential) services, so that its competitiveness and performance can be actually reasonably assessed.

              • +2

                @HighAndDry:

                Auspost's monopoly on letters

                auspost doesn't have a monopoly on letters. they've an act that prohibits other carrier from offering a sub 250g service.

              • +5

                @HighAndDry:

                letters gives them an unfair advantage

                there is no advantage for auspost. their letter serivce is a 180m sink-hole. they would be more than happy to see it gone.

          • @HighAndDry:

            1. delivery of letters and other unprofitable but arguably essential post. This would be an essential service,

            the sub 250g are all bills and junk mail. it shouldn't be protected by the act.

            • @whooah1979: Wait - what are letters? Protect that. (Bills unfortunately are protected, because they're in effect legal notices. More for the recipient, because you can only force debtors to give proper notice if there's an avenue by which they can give proper notice).

              • @HighAndDry:

                what are letters?

                auspost definition of a letter is.

                Does your item qualify as a letter?
                To be considered a letter, your item must:
                weigh less than 500g
                contain flexible items only (if being sent within Australia)
                have a rectangular shape
                be no larger than a B4 envelope (260mm x 360mm x 20mm)
                be no thicker than 20mm
                Is your item bigger than this? We would classify this as a small or large parcel.

            • @abb: That wasn't the 'revolutionary' bit. This is was the main point:

              And separate it out from the rest of Auspost's (non-essential) services, so that its competitiveness and performance can be actually reasonably assessed.

              • @HighAndDry: They are doing the opposite. Startrack is being further integrated into Auspost at the moment….They are in the process of f***ing up the dispatch process right now.

    • +7

      Once again everyone on this thread is ignoring that this terrible service only started once AP was made into a business rather than a government department.

      Now, it's simply crazy to operate AP as a profit seeking entity with a legislated monopoly in place, that I agree with and people are laughing all the way to the bank while providing terrible service, but the service standards only dropped after AP shifted from being a government department to being operated like a pretend business with greedy CEOs and all the rest of the wastes of money that occurs when you shift to this inappropriate model of operating what is a government owned entity.

      • Now, it's simply crazy to operate AP as a profit seeking entity with a legislated monopoly in place

        I need to see my GP. I'm agreeing with you…

        But no, this is such a fundamental element of any industry I honestly don't know why it even happened - "for-profit" and government monopoly" should never co-exist.

      • +2

        legislated monopoly

        The protection on sub 250g letters isn’t for Auspost benefit. It allows customers to mail a 125g letter from Sydney to Perth or Townsville for on 70c.

    • It is privatised. Parcel delivery is mostly done by independent contractors. They can't be reprimanded as they are a contractor, and as there is a high cost of entry (they have to buy their own van), they can't be easily replaced like employees.

      • It is privatised

        A GBE isn't the same as privitise entity.

        • It is privatised. Parcel delivery is mostly done by independent contractors

          A GBE isn't the same as privitise entity.

          Please don't take my words out of context.

          Unless you mean:

          "A GBE is… the same as privitise entity."

          Which is clearly wrong.

          • @This Guy: It was meant to say that auspost is a GBE which is not a privatised entity.

      • They can't be reprimanded as they are a contractor

        Of course they can. The pcbu used to hold payments to sub contractors for non-conformance and sasked them if they refused to rectify the complaint.

        • It is dodgy to withhold payment. They need to (unfortunately) do this though our legal system. Terminating them is another no no as they have to supply their own van.

      • +1

        there is a high cost of entry (they have to buy their own van

        You're right about this one. The pcbu persuades the subcontractors to purchase a brand new 40000 dollar van on finance. This locks in the contractors to what we may describe as paid slavery. Some pcbu pay as little as 95c per mail article which works out to be about $10 to $15 p/h after expenses.

        • Which justifies the subcontractors behavior. A business should not be designed so that subcontractors earn less than a waged employee as they take on debt and risk.

  • The only thing worse is forgetting to take your ID with an address to the post office.

    • +1

      This makes me so annoyed, in South Aus you only need the name on the ID but in Sydney I've always been forced to have the same name and address as the parcel. As someone who moves a lot this is slightly annoying.

      Whats worse is that I believe I'm right 100% of the time based on the OR in:

      Collecting Missed Delivery
      What you need to bring
      You'll need to take suitable ID with you that matches either the name OR the address on the item.
      https://auspost.com.au/receiving/collecting-missed-deliverie…

      Sometimes all I wish is that staff knew their own policies.

      • Just take your passport. It's valid ID and doesn't have your address on it.

    • +2

      or when you have something under a false name. Try explaining to the post office that noone alive or dead has ever had the name Jerry Buttsquirter

  • +11

    I have a Ring camera, and I’m usually fast enough to rush out and catch them when they do this. Twice when I’ve caught them, they didn’t even have the packages on board. They were just driving around leaving the cards everywhere and making people come to the depo to pick them up.

    • I would have filmed them telling that to you and put in complaint.

  • The same, even with out signatures the driver just leave the parcels on front door step for anybody to just come in and take it.

  • This literally just happened to me today. Someone was home too! FFS.

    Well, guess I'm gonna be standing in that damn queue tomorrow…

  • What's worse than getting the card? My parcel got delivered to the wrong address & I was home waiting when I got an email saying that it has been delivered. Two weeks later going back and forth multiple times with Austpost, the item was gone and they promised to pay the seller who sent the item to me. I got a refund but it was such a shit fight that I wished he just put in the bloody card into my mailbox.

  • OP, it's probably either LPO (franchisee) and/or contractor trying to cut costs.

    https://auspost.com.au/locate/ is your local post office a LPO?

  • According to auspost they dont do this and no recourse for complaint… our work has a daily mail service but out reply paids come in every 4 days…. auspost say they dont hold them back but their all stamped by the sorting machine and you can see when received at the centre.. sent them to auspost .. nothing … cpomplained over last ten year period … they dont give a monkeys…. worst case is for a six month period they came every two weeks.. but deny any wrongdoing… that and now express post doesnt seem to be next day .. you call they say sorry we'll send another one in the mail… of the handful of times I have called I have never received the replacement.. ironically.

  • I gave auspost negative feedback once when they asked me for it in an email. They emailed me back asking why. I restated the issue. Then they said they understand. That's as much as you can expect in terms of a resolution. Avoid them as much as possible

    • +11

      how about posties be grateful they live in a 1st world country and actually have a job. how about they actually do their job, and not expect their customers to give them praise and backs rubs, for doing their job.

      • how about posties be grateful they live in a 1st world country and actually have a job. how about they actually do their job,

        This could be said for everyone that has a job.

        Vote with your wallet. Use a different carrier. There’re plenty to choose from.

        • yup. cant wait for au post to get some real competition. then they will start to cry poor just like the taxi industry did when uber arrived.

      • +1

        I'm sure they are; but it doesn't change the fact that complaining won't get you anywhere. I'm just stating the reality of a place I worked for to give you some idea of whats going on.

        It is indeed upsetting that a service you paid for doesn't get honored and seeing card lefts in the mail while home is sure to piss a lot of people off. But its not just the individuals fault either despite they are the ones delivering. There are a whole range of factors affecting their job.

        You can choose to fight this; by all means go for it. But you will be wasting your time. Just like the guys post has showed him asking for a refund and him getting no where with them.

        That's why I say just take what you can get. If you can get parcels safe and sound, that's a win in my book. Id rather that then always complain and fight over something I cannot control.

        • +1

          I don't know for a fact that posties are overworked, but I'll take your word for it. But the answer to that shouldn't be to just throw that back in the customer's face.

          I'd rather posties did their job properly for 50% of their round and let their bosses know it's not possible to complete the job. AusP will either find someone else who CAN do it properly and in time, or they'll find it really isn't possible and have to rework the routes/schedules.

          If I'm working on a busy check-out I won't just stop giving people their change because I ain't got time - manager will put someone else on till to help manage the workload (or at least they should… I don't really work retail so not sure).

        • But its not just the individuals fault either despite they are the ones delivering.

          Yeah it is. They're the ones that instead of taking a parcel to the door, are taking a card.

    • +2

      My brother is also an Auspost and I agree with your comments. Makes me so sad to see him leave for work at 3.30am and come home at 5pm exhausted and barely able to hold out until dinnertime. Worst he says is trying to look for a toilet when you are in a middle of a suburb, oh and being bitten by dogs! And he always appreciates those drinks or even the ones that smile at him and makes a special effort for them.

      • Yeap and most likely he is copping shit for his deliveries and told to meet unrealistic expectation. And I totally agree on finding toilets. I was lucky enough to have one at the start of my run but after that there was nothing but houses.. who is going to let a postie use their bathroom ?

        I had some real aggressive mutts on my run as well; one German Sheppard was absolutely raring to gnaw my leg off but he was too fat and old to jump a low fence LOL..

        • He recently got bitten by a big dog as well, that ran out when the owner opened the door. He had to kick the dog to get away, then the owner submitted a complaint and threatened to sue! He was like I'LL COUNTERSUE. Never heard back haha. Luckily he wore quite thick pants..

  • +1

    auspst lost my registered amazon parcel with signature required, in the post office. figure that

    • Auspost 'delivered' an iPhone to me with ID and Signature required… never got it - and they never did tell me who 'signed' for it. It took me nearly 2 months, calling everyday, to convince Optus I never received the handset as their system stated it had been signed and delivered. Eventually they sent me a replacement basically to just shut me up - they never believed me. T'was a mess.

      • +3

        Can I have the other phone ?

      • exactly!!!! It was signed by god knows who before I got to the post office and basically lost it

  • +1

    I’m raging that suddenly now that we have a new delivery guy, suddenly our house with an enclosed porch out of street view is suddenly unsuitable to leave packages in

  • +1

    You're not alone mate. That's how posties work now a days! It's bloody disgrace.

  • minimum wage + quality of service do not go hand in hand.

  • +4

    Waiting on an [AMA] from postie.

  • +1

    This is the Aussie tax. Get used to it.

    Auspost is shtpost

  • -4

    Do you have a dog, gate that looks like perhaps it's locked, or do you live in unit

    Auspost delivery person is not allowed to leave their bike/motorbike and go up to unit.
    Similarly, it's reasonable that they do nit deliver to door if you have a dog in yard.
    If gate was closed, maybe when you see him/her mention and show them how the gate opens up, possibly a latch on the property owners side of gate, or a lock mechanism that might be tricky to open, when not ysed to it.

    Also, What was the size and weight of this parcel ? I believe parcels up to 18kg can now be sent for only about $10 cost. You cannot reasonably expect postie on pushbike to carry round 10 large heavy parcels, even on their honda scooter, would be hard (and possibly illegal and dangerous) to carry a bunch of large and/or heavy parcels.

  • +1

    This behaviour really does remind of the taxi industry - at a high level it has a reputation for doing crap like this, but there are the "good local" ones too. Then for the taxi industry Uber came along now look …

    It's a bit harder with parcel delivery services but who knows, one day someone may come up with a business idea that poses [/real/] competition then watch these dodgy delivery drivers either shape up or ship out.

    The sad part is I agree with the previous comment block that I consider post service to be an essential service and if it's run at a loss so be it. But like all other privatised or business profit focused things, the service just tanks instead.

    • There already are a STACK of delivery services including uber app style, and they are mostly quite profitable, so I really don't think it's for lack of competitors. The Auspost monopoly more seems to be kept alive by overseas packages with freight services that do not operate in Australia. Those companies, particularly from any country with a government operated service, always seem to forward onto Auspost for the last leg for historical reasons. Until major shippers overseas, for example USPS, decide to stop forwarding to AusPost, we will always be stuck with them.

  • +1

    My old postie retired and suddenly all of my signature on delivery items were not delivered just 'sorry we missed you' every single damn time.

    So I complained. A lot. Australia Post carried out a 'thorough' investigation and determined that they could not deliver to my address because my driveway was too steep (OH&S issue apparently)

    They never explained why it was too steep for signature on delivery items but not too steep for 'leave in a safe place' deliveries.

    Anyway I changed all my deliveries to leave in safe place and issue went away.

    TLDR: don't complain to Auspost about it. They won't help you out and they'll cover their arse.

  • Well, the new default option is the item is kept in "a safe place". I would prefer being carded, even if it causes a minor inconvenience.

  • +2

    Tom Ballard (and his Angry Man) did a segment on this a while back:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc6pJK2V7uQ

    TLDR: Contractors

  • +1

    I've had Auspost leave things on the doorstep that required a signature which THEY FORGED. (It was for an item of substantial <$1000 value.) I lodged a complaint and were basically told "better luck next time".

    • Wow, thats another level…take it to court

    • Anyone who works with freight daily will tell you this isn't uncommon. Sometimes the signature is a stylized version of 'reception' or similar. We have used cctv provided by customers against a few major parcel services.

      • The signature was just a scribble based on the first letter of the intended recipient's name. I was just shocked at how blatant it was and how little they cared.

  • +1

    I had this same problem so many times. Now I have a survellance camera pointed at my letterbox and my front door/doorbell(visible from road) with a bit sticker on my letterbox advising auspost not to leave notes without ringing the doorbell and informing them of the surveillance equipment.

    To be honest the camera has never worked but the auspost guys now ALWAYS ring the doorbell :)

    Problem solved!

    • +1

      gold jerry gold!

  • Makes me appreciate Japan's system where you can use the slip to reschedule a delivery online. They also deliver on weekends. After 7pm as well.

  • We need a postie to do a AMA on ozb

    • No Auspost workers are allowed to comment on online forums or social media.

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