Dealing with Australia Post..and over worked retailers?

I've had fun with Australia Post a few times during this pandemic.

Just to give cover off the first part - our house is surrounded by security cameras. They're recording, they're remotely accessible.. and motion causes them to send me emails with pretty pictures just in case some meth head decides that they'll just steal the NVR (should they find it...). 

I've been fairly reliant on online ordering this year. What? No really, I've been an online ordering person since before most people knew what eBay was. But I have used it a lot, and the increased load on the postal service has shown its weaknesses.

So far this year, I've had clearly labelled packages - wind up a few houses down - often being handed back to the driver as a "not at this address" despite them never coming to the right one. I've also had a few where they've been dumped on door steps, and those residents have wandered over and put them on the correct door step. Like most modern neighbourhoods, no one actually speaks to anyone else.

More than once I've had the conversation with Australia Post that I have high resolution footage showing the van drive past (I have visibility in both directions), not delivering to us. Something we haven't had so much since we moved into this house with its clear camera presence is the "sorry we missed you cards" that used to frequent our letter box at the last place because the contractors could get away with it despite there being cars in the driveway and someone often home during the day. 

That was when they'd deliver to that house - in the two years we were there, we had a period of months where we wouldn't get any mail at all unless no one was home. Eventually one postie stuck a note on the XYL's car asking her not to park (in our driveway) next to the letterbox (which was about 6 inches from said driveway). After numerous complaints and phone calls, there seemed to be evidence to suggest that the postie could in fact choose not to deliver mail to us as they couldn't ride their bike up to the mail box, deliver and move on without either dismounting, or having to back up to get around the car.  That ridiculousness was resolved by a trip to Bunnings and purchasing a Pakman Parcel Box and installing it further away from the driveway, then covering the slot on the existing mailbox (with an arrow painted on it no less). A stupid circumstance to be honest, but in the end, the parcel box has worked out well. It took years, but finally even the AusPost contractors will dump parcels into it if they don't require a signature, or otherwise don't fit in the mail slot.  Anyway, I digress. The intended yarn is far less historic....

Recently, I purchased a Yaesu FTM-400DXR for the car - it wasn't cheap. The company I purchased it from is a popular HAM retailer. Their service before then had been great, though I'd sent a few emails a couple of times asking a couple of questions that were never answered.. 

 

Unfortunately their back-end book-keeping system isn't directly tied to the web site. I place the order making note to ensure that all the addresses are correct. I noted on a previous invoice from earlier in the year that the billing address was old, so I was sure to double check (even though that invoice, and one previously had been delivered to the "Send to" address as I entered it). 

Alas, I woke up to an email telling me about my order being onboard for delivery that day. I was excited, I'd been waiting for my tax return so I could buy a good radio for the car, and this one really stood out to me. 

I follow the tracking in the afternoon and notice that it's reported as a futile delivery and no other information. I had been home all day, and the monitor that displays the cameras is in my line of sight while I'm working from home. 

I call Australia Post. The lass I spoke to was most concerned, and when she asks for the address, I give her mine and she tells me it's not correct. I give her my old address and she confirms that's where it was sent to.  Great. $900 worth of gear and it's going to somewhere I haven't lived in 3 years. 

The lovely lass speaks to a supervisor who tells her that they deliver based on address rather than name, so that'd be up to the retailer to handle. Yeah sure.. the parcel contractor will dump the box at the Post Office. The card will be in the letter box, and the resident at that property can just walk in and take it. Like hell!

I emailed said retailer asking them to do something about that old address given it wasn't on the order when I placed it, and there are outstanding items on back order. That was 3 weeks ago, and as yet, I'm still waiting for any kind of acknowledgment of the problem or any kind of apology for what could have been an expensive cock up on their end.

I found an old rates notice addressed to us at the old address, and went to the post office and spoke to a chap there. As far as he was concerned, if I had something with a matching address and my name, and some proof of who I was, he was fine with it. The problem was that the contractor hadn't been through. I dropped in at 5pm and he still hadn't been past. I sat in the car, and at 5.20 the contractor appeared. I sat watching him scan everything in, then I ran inside.. at 5.28pm, and took possession of my new toy. 

The expensive new toy that the retailer still hasn't acknowledged that they sent it to the wrong address, and that Australia Post would have been quite happy to hand over to anyone from the address it was sent to, no undoubtedly ending their liability on the issue. 

I'm not going to name the retailer publicly; they're respected and I appreciate that they're busy. They're also still my preferred retailer given the quality of their goods and their pricing. This is however really disappointing.

In nearly any other circumstance I wouldn't have had the luxury of chasing up something that was supposed to arrive on my door step - especially at that time of day.  What then? The retailer argues he sent it, so he's liability has ended because it shows as delivered to somewhere? Or he does the right thing and potentially has to replace it at his own cost?

Either way it's a pretty silly circumstance; the retailer screwed up, and Australia Post (at the corporate level) doesn't actually care that much. They take it from point a to point b without much concern of who the intended recipient is. It was only because of a local post office worker who applied common sense to the situation that I was able to resolve it. Of course I should have been working at the time, and I wound up having to recover almost 4 hours of my work day in my own time to make up for it. 

Still, no one actually seems to care. Except me, given that it's my hard earned. I don't even really want an apology, just an acknowledgement of the problem and an indication that changes have been made to stop it happening again.