Australia Post comes under fire: Delivery drivers slammed by residents for being “lazy”
Australia Post delivery drivers have been slammed by angry customers claiming posties have been displaying bad behaviour by not delivering packages to their doors.
Many customers all over Australia are upset drivers are leaving “sorry we missed you” cards at their doors without bothering to knock on the door or check if someone is home.
These drivers have been accused of failing to do their jobs properly, and those upset by the service have taken to online forum Reddit to vent their frustrations.
Instead of drivers ensuring no-one is home to deliver the items, red cards have been left in customers' mailboxes telling them to collect their packages themselves, Aussies all over the country have claimed.
One upset client shared a screenshot to Reddit on Tuesday of a text messaging chain between them and the Australia Post customer service team.
The customer’s response was timestamped one minute after the original text message was sent, but the sender informed them the driver had already been to their home and it was too late – within the timespan of just one minute.
The post sparked an angry online storm of people all over the country complaining the same treatment had been given to them by “lazy” posties failing to deliver their packages.
Over 400 comments identifying the poster’s text screenshot told their own stories.
“Happened to me too,” one disgruntled customer wrote.
“Was sitting in the garden with my toddler and saw the van pull up. By the time I'd got up and walked to my gate, he'd left the slip and driven off. Was furious.”
Another comment read: “I saw the guy drive up to my driveway, sit in his car, and then put the slip in the mailbox. He sheepishly told me that he couldn't do anything because he already marked it as 'couldn't be delivered'.
“Forcing him to stick around and calling up AusPost a few minutes later, I had my parcel.”
A similar story came from another customer who said it happened to them four times.
“I’ve submitted an online complain to Auspost and also called. The most ridiculous thing that they even have a term for this – ‘carding’.. and the guy on the phone was super casual about it,” they wrote.
“Casually not even a follow up call/email on any of my complaints, no apologies whatsoever.”
An Australian Post spokesperson told Yahoo News most posties do the right thing when delivering their parcels.
“Our posties and drivers must knock at the door three times and call out before leaving a card or safe-dropping the parcel, and the majority of our parcels are delivered without a problem.
“We do sometimes receive complaints from customers who received a card instead of a parcel and if this has happened we ask people get in contact so we can investigate.
“Sometimes our people may leave a card without knocking because of access or safety issues – such as an off-leash dog – and this might happen when a customer is home.
“We regularly remind our drivers of our policies and what we expect of them to ensure our customers receive a great service.”