'Soggy, mouldy mess': Mum blasts Australia Post over state of son's parcel
A mother who sent her son a care package has blasted Australia Post after the parcel disappeared for almost two weeks and finally reappeared “a soggy, mouldy mess”.
Heather Dux’s son adores his mother’s homemade relish so when coronavirus restrictions forced them apart she decided to make him a special batch of relish and pickles to mail to him.
Ms Dux told Yahoo News Australia that she carefully wrapped each jar with bubble wrap and lined the sturdy box with more padding.
On April 30, she labelled the box fragile and took it to her local Australia Post office in Stanthorpe in country Queensland to mail to her son, who lives in Brisbane.
On May 13, the package of goodies still hadn’t arrived, so Ms Dux used the tracking number and discovered it had been sitting at Lutwyche post office since May 7 – but her son hadn’t received any notification to come and collect it.
“He only had one day to get there before it would be returned to sender,” Ms Dux said.
When her son arrived on May 14 to collect his care package, he was in shock at the state of it.
“It had been completely rewrapped in plastic,” Ms Dux explained.
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“One of the jars inside had been shattered so the cardboard box was a soggy, mouldy mess”.
Ms Dux believes the box had to have been dropped for that kind of damage to have been done.
“The contents had been individually wrapped in bubble wrap by me and there was no movement of the contents possible,” she explained.
To add insult to injury, the day after her son picked up his package, Australia Post sent out a notification to collect the parcel.
When Ms Dux emailed Australia Post to ask about what had happened, she was told her son would need to provide evidence.
“As if my son would have kept soggy wrappings and a broken jar,” Ms Dux said.
“I did send photos with the complaint but they want him to take the wrapping and contents as they were to the post office and they will keep them there while they asses if there is any compensation.”
Ms Dux said she isn’t after a refund for the cost of the postage or homemade condiments, but she would like to know how the box ended up so damaged and why her son wasn’t notified that he had a parcel to pick up.
Ms Dux said she has never had problems with her local postie but the next time her son is craving her condiments, she will be sending them through a private courier.
An Australia Post spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia they will follow up with the customer directly and agreed something did not go to plan with this delivery.
“While the vast majority of our mail arrives safely and on time, something has clearly gone wrong here and we apologise”.
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