Grrrr! Damn NZ Post..

We have had a "new" Rural delivery guy for 18 months, maybe two years.

We keep having mail go missing[!][!]. I think nearly 2 years to learn a run is long enough!

Recently my AA membership turned up but DHs didnt. I left it for a bit then rang AA - DHs was posted the same time as mine but never arrived so they sent me a copy of the bill. The origional has never turned up.

Another bill due to be paid on the 20th of the month hasnt arrived so I rang the company and yes they were all sent on time....but of course mine hasnt arrived.

I complained to NZ Post last year as important bank papers went missing.

We also get other peoples mail on occasion - last time it was for a guy down the road so I stood out on the road till the delivery guy came back up, flagged him down and handed him the letter and told him I wasnt walking down in a howling southerly to deliver it.

I rang NZ Post yesterday and got a stupid woman telling me that they couldnt do anything about the missing mail unless I knew where it was being deliverd to!!! Well its going somewhere but how the hell do I know where???:confused: She said I need to get the persons who posted the mail to complain if I dont receive the mail, which is all very well when its mail like expected bills that go missing BUT how do I know who is sending other mail I'm not getting?

I ended up pertty shitty with the silly woman and got a Superviser to ring me back. He was at least some help and will look into it. It's not as if there is another person with the same last name as DH in the area and the lady who has the same last name as me has moved two years ago....

I am especially annoyed as I am being treated by 3 different hospitals in the region at present and all my appointments come by mail - if I miss one thru not getting my mail I will have a long wait to get another appointment. One of the hospitals rings the night before to remind about appointments but the others dont.

Then of course there was the letter dated 3 November last year that was posted in Masteron and I didnt recieve it till 9 December.....ok if it was mis delivered someone may have been slow to re post it BUT it shouldnt be mis delivered in the first place.

And its not as if Im the only one as other neighbours are having problems but they wont complain. I can understand delivery problems with transient farm staff but not permanent residents.

Rant over - bring back our old driver - he was great.

We've had a similar problem now for about six or seven years, since our extremely pleasant former RD people retired. Brian was delivering the mail when I was still at school and it was delightful to find him still doing the same RD run when I came back and settled in his delivery area again. He liked his job and liked people.

New Guy (NG), in his first week or so, drove his van into the stream, losing a number of postal items. He regularly mis-delivers postal items from letters, bills, IRD demands right through to expensive packages, sometimes leaving the latter in unsuitable boxes during rain storms. He obviously dislikes his job and does it badly. He has cost some of us in the neighbourhood significant amounts of cash in lost items which the NZPO wouldn't compensate for, and in one case I learned of recently, an IRD fine when a letter went astray and wasn't delivered.

When I take on a role in the later part of each year which requires a significant level of security with documents, the proverbial can really start flying, and I've had to do some tricky rearrangement with the courier company to ensure we can circumvent NG's incompetence. When something doesn't arrive, it's just not his fault.

Everybody on this RD or with any connection to or dealings with people on it know about NG. I mention his name and there's usually an audible groan, because we all know we might not complete a successful postal or delivery transaction when he's in the middle of it.

The courier company's regional coordinator told me late last year that it is Coural I should contact, at 0800 731 299 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I and at least one other neighbour have made complaints to NZPost, but unless this guy has a very long contract, it has made no difference to his ongoing employment.

I can't see why we should put up with anybody holding a responsible job they can't be bothered doing, or haven't the personal pride to do well. We can't possibly know what contacts we may have missed out on because of the mail addressed to us not getting to us.

If mail delivery is regularly a problem, you won't be the only one suffering it and you won't be the only one making a noise about it, but your complaint might just add sufficient weight to the others to make somebody do something useful about the situation! Good luck.

I also have issues but only since this new mailman mid last year. I also complained to NZ post who sent me a form to fill out, which they gave to the contractor to deal with! As I had already spoken to him face to face I couldn't see the point. He has become even more difficult since then, I have had a wedding invitation, my licence renewal advice. and some vouchers all returned to sender and all perfectly addressed. Some times we don't get any mail for 3/4 days then a great heap.

It isn't only the mailman that is in error. Last year we had a power bill go astray, and because it hadn't arrived, it was sort of out of sight, out of mind, so when we got threatened with our power being cut off, we made some enquiries and discovered that the power company had changed our address without checking with us, and the mail was going to another road of the same name in a different area. Our powerbill eventually arrived back here from Australia, but only because it had been onsent by the person caretaking the property in the absence of the owner.
Yesterday another letter arrived almost a month late. Sent once again to that same confusing address. I do not blame the RD man here. The letters are being changed by the sender, without any reference to us, and I am sure it's to do with the new postal numbering system. We've had bank statements, power, telephone company doctors, insurance and ACC all go to the alternative address, with our name, but their postal code. There must be an on line site where companies get postal codes from, and in their wisdom change the address, and still no reference to us, even though we have been here a long time now. Makes my blood boil.
Usually ringing up to complain only gets a frontline answer from someone who knows very little.

LOL thought you were all talking about our RD man, we've had all of the above happen, but I think he holds the record for accidents with his truck & almost running someone over & taking out a gate when he "forgot" to put vehicle in park mode !

Could have been our RD man too, and so could Kalmara's. Must be something about RD deliverers. We regularly get other people mail, but ours go to a PO Box because we get business mail and didnt want everyone else to get it. When we moved, since it was a new house there was no letter box and we made up our own number because NZ Post couldnt decide what our number would be. They told us to use the same number as our neighbour on the shared drive way - that was another factor that helped us decide to get a PO Box. Now if the Post Shop people could only learn what 'do not bend' means we would be happy.

I had a major problem with NZ Post in December in that 3 cheques that I know of, did not arrive here at all. They were all sent at different times of the month from different places in NZ. And our postie delivers quite early in the morning and as I was expecting them, I was keeping an eagle eye out for them. So I am confident they did not go missing from our mail box.
NZ Post were of no help whatsoever, as usual. They took a note of it to pass onto their security section but could offer no explanation.

Then, this week, I sent some stuff up to my sister. Bought one of their A4 Fastpost bags to send it in and it never arrived at her place. Again, because of the contents of the bag (birthday cards and cash) they don't want to know. Surely, it should not matter what the contents are - they should investigate as to where it may have gone missing.
But no, so I am out of pocket and my sister did not receive her planned birthday present [!]

My immediate Boss is a RD man, my mailman is another RD man. My Parents have a 3rd RD man....

So I ask my Boss, why is it, M & D out of anyone don't get their paper on ph's but I do? Boss answers that public holiday deliveries are up to the individual RD person, and they are asked that question at the beginning.

both my boss and our mailman do PH deliveries of newspapers etc, however M & d's doesn't, but hasn't told his customers of it.

Seems to me that NZ Mail need to tighten up on what ''some'' of their RD's are doing, and congratulate the rest on going the extra mile....

We have really great RD deliverers - I wonder if it is because they are both women - [] They do a great job and often go extra- toot the horn at the gate if they have a big parcel as they deliver about 7am and know I am up and home then rather than leaving the card and then me having to drive over to town for it, just give them a ring if you are going away and they hold onto the mail. So RD 6 is great

I gave a couple of parcels containing rather nice wood turned bowls to a guy with a sack standing on the pavement in Kaitaia the other day and both of them arrived safely at their destinations! If I'd put them in the mailbox with the flag raised, it might have been quite a different story. ... I wonder if that cheque I sent wukk arrive?

I think this has become a rural issues thread.

It wouldn't be too hard or expensive for us to set up a quick test:
a group of us could send envelopes to someone at their troublesome RD address on a set day and record the location and time they are sent, and then the recipient could note the date they are all received or not. This could then be reported back to NZ Post rather high up the chain, and I think this hard data would be hard for them to ignore.

Ravenseyes that's ours too. She brings parcels to the door, delivers papers etc and if I say I'm away for a day or so she will even bring mail in to an agreed place. We know we are lucky with her.

Hawkspur;304036 wrote: I think this has become a rural issues thread.

It wouldn't be too hard or expensive for us to set up a quick test:
a group of us could send envelopes to someone at their troublesome RD address on a set day and record the location and time they are sent, and then the recipient could note the date they are all received or not. This could then be reported back to NZ Post rather high up the chain, and I think this hard data would be hard for them to ignore.

Unfortunately it is not as easy as that. If the letter goes missing it could have happened anywhere on the way, not just after the dodgy mailperson got it.

It needs to be Track'n Trace for them to do something and even THAT isn't fool proof. We recently had such a parcel go missing. However, luck was on our side. The recipient didn't sign with their names but with their Street Address so we went there and got it. Had we not picked it up (they don't speak English) they probably would have pocketed it. The best thing about it was that these people didn't sign anything at all (interpreter was used). The delivery guy signed it himself. Great - not[}]

Simkin;304120 wrote: Unfortunately it is not as easy as that. If the letter goes missing it could have happened anywhere on the way, not just after the dodgy mailperson got it.

It needs to be Track'n Trace for them to do something and even THAT isn't fool proof. We recently had such a parcel go missing. However, luck was on our side. The recipient didn't sign with their names but with their Street Address so we went there and got it. Had we not picked it up (they don't speak English) they probably would have pocketed it. The best thing about it was that these people didn't sign anything at all (interpreter was used). The delivery guy signed it himself. Great - not[}]

I didn't mean that I thought it would show all faults between sender and recipient, - just that you could then show some hard data as to how many of a known number had gone missing, and presumably anthing other that a tiny percentage is unacceptable, so they would then be put in a position of having a known problem presented to them, rather than "some appear to be missing occasionally" which seemed to be the NZ post take on it.

I did ask NZ Post to do a test mailing over a few days but they "dont do that". Trouble is the problem is so intermittant. Our last RD guy had been on the run 18 years - maybe by the time this one has been here 18 years he might get it right!!

Another problem is as NZ Post dont frank all envelopes with the date they were posted its hard to complain when mail si "slow' reaching here. In thory it should arrive within 3 days of being posted according to their guidlines.