Customer’s fury as Australia Post ships parcel from Qld to Vic – via WA

We’ve all experienced the frustration of finding out we’ve missed a delivery or that an eagerly-awaited parcel has been held up at a sorting centre, but that was taken to a new extreme for one woman when her parcel was sent more than 3000km in the wrong direction by Australia Post.

Pauline Hicks bought two toy dinosaurs for her young grandson on buying and selling website Gumtree and had them posted to her home in Victoria from Queensland, however the patient grandmother is still waiting to receive her goods as the parcel made an unexplained detour to a sorting centre in Western Australia.

The parcel was shipped from Queensland to Ms. Hicks’ home in Teesdale, Victoria, almost two weeks ago on June 8 and took just two days to make it to Sunshine West, Victoria. However, it is what happened next that left her feeling frustrated.

After being registered at Sunshine West, the parcel was then sent more than 3,000km across the country to Welshpool, in Western Australia. To make matters worse, Ms. Hicks could not get any help from Australia Post’s online ‘chatbot’ customer service system.

Read more: Australia Post set to introduce live tracking for letters and parcels.

Ms Hicks called into 3AW‘s morning show and discussed the nightmare with radio host Neil Mitchell. She told him: “They left Queensland on Friday the 8th of June and they arrived in Victoria on Sunday the 10th of June. I thought oh well, that’s good they’re in the state.

“How does it happen? Why has it gone to Western Australia, especially seeing as it actually did come to Victoria.”

After noticing that her parcel had been shipped west, Ms. Hicks sought help from Australia Post’s automated virtual customer service bot, but the resulting conversation was even more frustrating. She began by asking: “Why did my parcel go to another state for processing?”

Read more: Australia Post in hot water as complaints exceed 1 million.

The chatbot responded: “There are a couple of steps involved in getting your parcel to you and the quickest route may not always be the shortest or most obvious. Once posted it’ll usually, 1. Go to a hub for sorting. 2. Travel to one of our six major parcel centres for processing. 3. Be prepared at a delivery centre. 4. Be delivered to the recipient.”

However when Ms. Hicks the asked, “So the quickest way from Queensland to Victoria 3328 is via Sunshine West, Victoria, then over to Welshpool WA?” she was told, “I’m about to show you an answer you’ve already seen. Would you like to see it again?”

An Australia Post spokesperson told Starts at 60 that they have apologised to Pauline for the error, admitting that something “went wrong” with her delivery.

They said: “Clearly something went wrong with his parcel, and we’ve since spoken to the customer to apologise and arrange delivery.”

Have you had any similar experiences with Australia Post? Do you find online ‘chatbot’ systems frustrating?