Pay $150 a year to a PO BOX at Australia Post Office and sellers wont post to a secure PO BOX ? JOKE

[bigblockfxstb]

Leaving a parcel in a open letter box at a block of flats its just stupid.

The Courier companies and service I have now found in Australia to be a joke and unreliable. I am no way going to not goto work , waiting for a courier to then NOT turn up as sheduled. they are unreliable and it does not work.

I now pay for a PO BOX at a actual AUSTRALIA POST OFFICE and most sellers in Australia now say NO PO BOX ? are you totally stupid. 

So now I spend time looking for sellers who send to the PO BOX or I simply have to goto Hong Kong and wait extra week or two because the sellers here... well done.

I HAVE A PO BOX - I PAY $$ FOR IT.

EBAY should have a LISTING FILTER option now that has DELIVER to POBOX ONLY as it will stop me wasting my time

Rob

[digital*ghost]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
I found the trick with Chinese sellers. I bought some stuff and the sellers checkout showed it couldn't send to my po box. But when the address was changed from "PO box xxx" to "post office box xxx" it worked.

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That's not a trick, it's circumventing a block. 

I get addresses written like that frequently, and although I post to PO boxes, I can't help but internally twitch a little (on behalf of other sellers, I mean) because I know they're writing it like that so they can provide an address the seller has exlicity set up their listings to prevent. It's not fair to override the terms of a seller's listing just because you want to. (I realise the sellers obviously just post to you anyway, otherwise you wouldn't say it works, but I stand by my opinion none the less, as you could be forcing them to use a one-off postage method they don't normally use, at greater expense). 

Then there are the buyers who write [street address], [PO box address], [Suburb] [Different Suburb] to kind of do the same thing - am I supposed to just pick one? 

[letscleanupmycupboards]

Digi I'm not sure how it's circumventing a block and getting sellers to post to an address thevwr excluded. A seller posting with the mail system ie it's eventually delivered by Australia Post pays no more or less to send to a po box or a street address. I would think given that everything going in a box is pretty secure as opposed to left on the doorstep or letterbox at a house that sellers would experience less fraud as it's a lot harder to say something didn't turn up to a po box.

Overseas sellers in china rarely if ever courier stuff. It comes by post. So there's no real reason to not post to a box.

Enigma and Dave maybe the box prices go on locality. Our last one was $65 a year but that was discounted due to no mail delivery to our street address. It's certainly under $100 a year currently and that's a normal small size box.

[stickerswa]

Then there are the buyers who write [street address], [PO box address], [Suburb] [Different Suburb] to kind of do the same thing - am I supposed to just pick one? 

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As someone who lives in a small town with no home delivery (Everything goes to the PO) I use the address AND PO box number because some sellers wont send to PO Boxe addresses.  Thats mainly because they use couriers and couriers wont / cant deliver to PO's (But some couriers will in small towns - they just wont tell you that). I -have- to use the PO box number as the PO folks cant remember all 1000+ peoples address and corresponding PO box numbers. So if you have to make a choice - go PO Box number. 

Also - some people put the address of the actual post office then thier PO box number . Dont ask me why ....

Having said that I -always- check with a seller -before- buying a large item, what courier they use. We have aToll agent here and also Startrack (Who will deliver mail to the PO but take parcels for our area into the main town 30km away?? ) 

I thought paying $32 a year for a PO box was high but seeing what people are paying elsewhere ......... 

[digital*ghost]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
Digi I'm not sure how it's circumventing a block and getting sellers to post to an address thevwr excluded.

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The seller ticks a box saying they won't post to a PO box address.

Buyer wants it posted to a PO box address, but can't write it as "PO Box..." because ebay's checks for "PO" flag it and recognise the seller has blocked addresses to these locations.

Buyer then writes it as "Box...", thus supplying a PO box address to a seller who has expressly blocked them, and hence why i say it is circumventing a block.

The postage method the seller uses isn't the main issue, just one that I happened to mention as a possibility - there are other reasons why a seller may decide not to post to PO boxes, and that's their choice. I say it is unfair because a buyer who writes their address that way to get past eBay's block, is taking that choice away from the seller.

@stickerswa - thanks for the extra info, that's mostly what I suspected for rural addresses but it's good to have it confirmed. It's more of a problem when the street address is clearly a home or work address, and the PO box address is in an entirely different location, which happens several times a month, and so the package can't go to both addresses, and if I pick just one, then I'm technically not posting to the address provided by the buyer.

I remember a while back the staff at my local PO (major city suburb) where my box is put notices in all of them to try and stop people from supplying senders with both a street address and their PO box address. I never do that and it wasn't a big problem for me as a seller at the time, so I skimmed and dismissed the notice and can't remember much beyond the subject, just that they wanted people to stop doing it, so I'm guessing it causes other issues when packages are addressed that way. 

[lyndal1838]

StarTrack is owned by Australia Post.

If they cannot deliver a parcel to your street address they are supposed to leave a card and take the parcel to the nearest Post Office.

If a parcel is addressed to a PO Box as opposed to a street address it will be handed to Australia Post for delivery.

[outback_blends]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

StarTrack is owned by Australia Post.

If they cannot deliver a parcel to your street address they are supposed to leave a card and take the parcel to the nearest Post Office.

If a parcel is addressed to a PO Box as opposed to a street address it will be handed to Australia Post for delivery.

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Yup but in rural areas they are supposed to leave it at the PO and thats what they did up until about 3 -4 months ago! . If I get a parcel that was posted using  aust post ...it goes to the PO. If the seller uses starTack to send the parcel ....it goes to the depot 30km away. I have been through this with them and they say they stopped delivering packages here because there was not enough parcels to make it worthwhile. Its the same dam van that drops the mail at the local PO but they wont drop parcels. They take them to the Star track depot 30km away. 

Kinda leaves me scratching my head but hey .... watcha gunna do ! !!

[*tippy*toes*]

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@imastawka wrote:

Awww c'mon!  How hard is it?

https://auspost.com.au/receiving/alternative-delivery-addresses/use-a-247-parcel-locker

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My nearest parcel locker is 200km away. Parcel lockers are only available to city folk. Us rural/regional folk only have parcel collect, which is sent to the nearest participating PO of your choice. It takes over 60 steps on their scanner to collect a parcel collect parcel. Despite what AP says, you aren't notified that you have a parcel ready to be collected. 

[letscleanupmycupboards]

Digi if the seller had some legitimate and compelling reason for not sending to a po box (and I cannot think of one single reason for a seller to not POST an item to a po box as opposed to a street address) I'm sure they would speak up when the buyers address showed.

[digital*ghost]

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@letscleanupmycupboards wrote:
Digi if the seller had some legitimate and compelling reason for not sending to a po box (and I cannot think of one single reason for a seller to not POST an item to a po box as opposed to a street address) I'm sure they would speak up when the buyers address showed.

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This is missing the point, though. 

Aside from the fact that the seller doesn't need what anyone else considers a legitimate reason to block PO boxes in order to have their preferences respected, perhaps since someone has bought and paid already, and the only choices they now have is post the item, or cancel the transaction and risk both a PO'ed (no pun intended) buyer plus a neg, they choose the former (Chinese sellers in particular are sensitive to less than positive FB, as we all know). 

PO boxes are commonly associated with scams, perhaps less so in Australia but they still provide a level of anonymity from the seller's perspective. If a seller is given information and data that sending to PO boxes, on average, increases the risk to them of fraud and theft, and they make the decision that they won't post to them anywhere, that decision should be respected. 

No different than me deciding something like not to post to Italy because of all the anecdotes I've heard about mail theft, regardless of all the other sellers who have zero issues posting there, but then having someone go 'nope, I'm buying and you're sending to me regardless'. If someone in Italy were to contact me and request an exemption before purchase, I would probably allow it since they've shown resepct for my terms / choices. (Note: this is an example, I do post to Italy when I offer international shipping - fully tracked only, but). 

[kopenhagen5]

When I got a PO box it was $25.

It very quickly climbed and seems to be going up every year, now it's $110 for a small normal box.