Australia Post - current issues

[offroad7400]

Discovered yesterday no mail was collected by contractors from our local street red boxes due to COVID staff shortages.   We are now dropping our mail at a Post Office as cautionary measure.  Worth considering.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

any mail that has tracking should always be handed over the counter at a PO.

Lodgement receipt should always be asked for.  This ensures it is scanned into the system.

[south.coffee]

If you want to line up to hand over your prepaid items, you might as well pay for them while there.  Totally defeats the purpose of prepayment.   Our local post office is so busy the queue runs out the door and not uncommon for 15-30 minute wait.  They do have a lodgement chute inside, then you have to check-in.

We use the external chute and never had an issue with items not scanned.  Maybe we are lucky with a good back room crew.  Staff are happy for our larger items to go in the bigger Express Post box or Parcel Collect boxes which are really good too.  Receipts are old school, we've moved on...

[davewil1964]

MY local PO has wait times of a few minutes, max, if I pick my times. Even when I'm working and lob at 1300, it is rare to have to wait more then 10 minutes.

I ALWAYS lodge over the counter.

And your comment doesn't relate to the OP using red boxes.

[*sons_and_daughters*]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

MY local PO has wait times of a few minutes, max, if I pick my times. Even when I'm working and lob at 1300, it is rare to have to wait more then 10 minutes.

I ALWAYS lodge over the counter.

And your comment doesn't relate to the OP using red boxes.

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Same here. I don't know about other states or territories. but at the moment you have to "check in" wherever you go in NSW. Not sure how they police it, but majority of people do the right thing.

There have been quite a few times where I have felt I've waited FOREVER to get a lodgement scan for my pre paid parcels and satchels. Then when I look at the times, I have actually only been waiting a few minutes. Just last week, I walked into the PO and saw the line and rolled my eyes. I was going to be waiting for ages. When I got back to my car and checked out, I'd actually only been waiting 6 minutes. In the big scheme of things, that was actually a lengthy wait. 

I feel sorry for people who think waiting an enormous 6 minutes is such a blip on their life. Me, I want the lodgement scan, even though I pre pay postage. It protects me, not the buyer.

[bmanly3]

I don't post at street post boxes, I take a walk to the Post Office 100% of the time. As all my items are sent with tracking I lodge them over the counter and get lodgement receipts for each article. I use prepaid satchels and pre paid registered post labels to save time doing it at the PO and save money too.

Not lodging over the counter and not getting the receipts is a recipe for disaster. I have had a fraudulent charge back made on my PayPal account previously and the first question they asked me was "please provide proof of lodgement and any other evidence showing your article was posted". I provided both the receipt plus a photo of the package and I won the case mostly because of the lodgement receipt.

I have tracked hundreds of items. A lot of the time the first scan at the PO is the last until delivery. Sometimes (rarely but has happened) the delivery scan was not recorded either. So if you post at a street post box and you are unlucky enough not to get your item scanned at any point including delivery then there is no record of anything and if they buyer puts in for a claim you have no way of proving the item was posted. Just something to think about, cheers.