March 9, 2022
Retired Kingaroy journalist Heather McCallum reckons she probably has some of the most travelled parcels in Australia Post’s history.
Heather has been dividing her time between Kingaroy and Melbourne for almost a decade but on December 21 moved back permanently to Kingaroy after her partner died.
She went into the Kingaroy Post Shop the next day and filled in the forms to stop the redirection of her mail to Melbourne.
Because of Christmas, weekends and holidays she was told this would take effect on December 30.
“The days went by but I wasn’t getting any mail,” Heather told southburnett.com.au.
She didn’t think too much about it, telling herself that with COVID and Christmas, people might be too busy to write.
Then an Australia Post catalogue turned up in her letterbox.
Browsing the pages, she spotted an ink cartridge that was on special so she promptly put in an order.
A day or so later, Heather thought she may as well get a second cartridge, too. Another order went in.
Then the “fun” began as Heather began receiving tracking messages on her phone app.
She was first notified that both cartridges were in Melbourne and had been sent to Kingaroy but had been redirected to Melbourne.
Heather rang Australia Post and asked why …
She was told her redirection request had not been cancelled and to go back into the Kingaroy Post Shop. She did and was assured the redirection stickers had been torn up and her mail would be delivered.
The cartridges then began their return trip to Kingaroy but Heather received a message on her phone saying they had been “incorrectly sorted” and had now been forwarded to the “correct” location, ie. they had been sent back to Melbourne.
They were then delivered to her former address in Heathmont, where the occupant understandably refused to accept them.
“Heathmont Post Office rang me and asked me if I would care to pick them up,” Heather said.
“I said no. There’s a small problem, I am in Queensland. Then they asked could I come and fill in a transfer form …”
Heather went back to ringing Australia Post, having to repeat her problem multiple times, and stay on the phone for up to half an hour at times.
“By this stage I had collected nine case numbers,” she said.
“In desperation, I wrote to the Federal Communication Minister, the CEO at Australia Post and (Member for Maranoa) David Littleproud.
“I received an answer back immediately from David Littleproud.
“Australia Post appointed a national resolution manager as a result of his intervention.”
Heather and the resolution manager eventually exchanged a total of 24 emails, including screenshots of the app tracking the parcels.
But the ink cartridges still had a few more boomerang journeys to complete before they finally made it to Kingaroy.
“The first ink cartridge went three times to Melbourne. The second was about to make its fourth trip when I intervened,” Heather said.
Finally after more phone calls, the first ink cartridge order arrived on February 11 but there was no sign of the second.
Heather was keeping in close contact with the resolution manager who also did not understand why the small boxes kept on going back to Melbourne.
It was finally decided to cancel the second order and create a new one with a new paper chain …
But this order then ended up at another Melbourne post office, Bedford Road, marked “to be picked up”. Apart from being in Victoria, this post office was actually closed at the time due to COVID!
“I thought, this is madness,” Heather said. More phone calls and emails …
On Monday, Heather was notified on her app the package had been sent from Brisbane to Kingaroy but was being held at the facility for redirection, ie. another trip to Melbourne.
She immediately rang the resolution manager who contacted the Kingaroy Post Office.
“They found it! The next minute the Annex manager rang me and said they would send it around in the next half hour. I burst into tears.”
Her phone app had the last laugh: “We couldn’t redirect the parcel” it alerted her.
Footnote: When southburnett.com.au spoke to Heather she hadn’t yet opened the parcels … she’s hoping they are the right cartridges for her printer
Eye roll emoji!!!
That is incredible – but I do believe it as I have had some experiences with parcels as well.
One was sent by my niece in Europe, with a tracking number and all the modern gimmicks. After having left the origin country, it did not seem to move any more and two months later, had not arrived in Australia.
My niece finally found out at the post office where she lodged the parcel that – despite pages and pages of paperwork – the parcel had ended up in a Canadian sorting centre and was undeliverable there.
How the postal clerk could confuse Australia and Canada is beyond my understanding. But fortunately, the Canadians than sent it directly to Australia and I received the parcel three months after its dispatch.
I sympathise with Heather – she should not have had to endure all that stress. The situation doesn’t surprise me though. At least twice this year I have posted parcels to Victoria which have arrived there only to travel back to Brisbane and then return to Victoria. Nothing to do with redirections and everything very clearly addressed! Thank goodness the addressees finally received the items, but like me, they must have wondered why (according to the tracking details) their parcels were doing so much interstate travelling.