Australia Post customer 'forced' to close business amid postage delays
An Australia Post customer has slammed the postal giant’s postage delays, which have forced her to close up shop for her small business.
The customer, who does not wish to be named, contacted Yahoo News Australia earlier this week.
“Australia Post has an enormous lack of transparency about their current delays,” she said.
“There are no notifications or communication to any of their customers and nothing on their website apart from the general Covid response that has been there since the start of the pandemic.
“I am currently waiting on several Express Post parcels for over three weeks to arrive.
“I have had to make the difficult decision to stop trading as I can't afford to refund my customers for late deliveries and deliveries that aren't showing up at all.”
Australia Post has apologised to the customer and said they "are assisting them further with their deliveries".
The Victorian woman, who runs a business selling plants, has told Yahoo News that if she continued trading, she’d be running at a loss.
“The delays that Australia Post are open about, say that there could be a nine business day delay - this is fine because if you pack a plant well they can survive that,” she said.
“But it’s taken three weeks for some packages to arrive, and when they do, the plants are dead - that’s with Express Post.
“Australia Post also doesn’t compensate for damaged/dead plants, which is an exception to the rule.
“Customers always blame the seller - I’ve had my customers asking me: ‘Where are my plants, I’ve paid for Express Post’, and all I can do is refund them, so I’m running at a financial loss.”
The customer slammed Australia Post’s communication around delays, saying: “I get marketing emails from them all the time, but I never receive notifications about delays".
"Small businesses like mine are suffering from this lack of transparency.”
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Customer calls out enquiries process: ‘Doing my head in’
The small business owner has made multiple attempts to get in touch with Australia Post about delays, but has slammed the postal service’s policies.
“They have increased their fees twice this year, yet I can’t get through to anyone to tell me anything,” she said.
“It’s not until parcels are a week overdue that you can open an inquiry, and then you have to wait 15 days for someone to get back to you.
“When you call them, they say the only calls they will take are for passports or urgent medication or they won’t help you," she said.
“There is no transparency and I feel like they are omitting information about delays in processing facilities - it’s doing my head in.”
The customer said that she intends to recommence business once delays have settled down, but is weary of financial loss.
“I’ll hopefully regain what I’ve lost when I start back up,” she said.
Australia Post responds to delivery gripe
A spokesperson from Australia Post has told Yahoo News that Australia Post is working harder than ever to deliver parcels for their customers.
“We’re still experiencing significant volume through the network, and while we’ve hired an additional 5000 team members, and opened more than 40 additional facilities and delivery timeframes are improving, there remains some congestion at some facilities, which means some customers may experience delays,” the spokesperson said.
“Our people around the country are working harder than ever to deliver parcels for our customers.
“We sincerely apologise for the delays this customer has experienced, and our team are in contact with them and are assisting them further with their deliveries.”
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