Gotta Love Australia Post

Bless their automated sorting centres. The parcel is going to Melbourne outer suburb. I have to admit, I got quite excited when I saw it was at Sunshine West the next day. The buyer originally asked for express, but then changed his mind. He'll be kicking himself now, not to mention wondering where the heck his parcel is. Apparently it will be delivered by next Wednesday according to AP. Yeah right! It probably has to go back to Sunshine West.. It's still at Chullora today.

 

tracking nightmare.jpg

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Re: Gotta Love Australia Post


@clarry100 wrote:
It's known as "looping" and according to my son who works in the Brisbane call centre they know about it and are attempting to implement something that I'd supposed to trap anything that visits the same centre 3 or more timed in a certain period.
If you call them and bring this specific one to their attention they will put a manual trap on it.
He says it's very often due to some form of damage occurring to the address label that causes one machine to read it correctly whilst another to misread it. So causing it to bounce back & forth.

I'm not privy to how the machines work, but wouldn't that suggest a machine issue rather than a label issue?

 

What I mean is, if one machine can read it, it would suggest (to me) the label is readable, if another machine can't read it, I'd assume the problem is the machine. 

 

Unless the error is at the software level, and the barcode or QR code returns a different reading depending on the machine that's scanning it (but would still suggest an internal /  system failure). 

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Re: Gotta Love Australia Post

Yeah I think you are quite likely correct.

 

They do have a "fleet" of ageing machines and are gradually replacing/upgrading them as budgets permit.

 

So it could also be a newer machine reading the "damaged"  (read partially obliterated/obscured) label correctly while an older one at another facility reads it incorrectly and directs it back to from whence it came. In any case "looping" is a well know phenomenon that it seems may well be difficult to fix until all machines have been upgraded. It would be interesting to be the recipient of one such package that has been "looping" and see just what the address label looks like. Is it dirty? Is it partially obscured/damaged/wrinkled? Is it covered by a shiny surface? Is it hand written? How clear is the font? Probably many similar questions to this.

 

You know how in the supermarket sometimes the barcode scanners refuse/have trouble to read a barcode. Just my humble opinion... but I think it's got to do with the surface colours (colour balance or contrast) or reflectivity or lighting or any similar combo causing reading problems from one machine to another. The scanners use a red laser light so some colours will respond better than others.

 

I don't think my son knows any more about exactly what's actually causing this than the next man TBH. He is probably being fed with info from the various centres where it's happening. And they will likely each be blaming the other I'm sure.

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Re: Gotta Love Australia Post

Makes sense ๐Ÿ™‚ and as you say, there are a lot of variables that would make it difficult to pinpoint the issue if it's not something that's immediately obvious.

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Re: Gotta Love Australia Post

The estimate for this parcel has now changed for the 3rd time. Just a shame the eBay estimate doesn't change with it. There has finally been a new tracking event, it's back at Sunshine West. It remains to be seen what happens after that. At least it's back in the correct state (for the second time).

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