Australia Post set to charge customers fee for holding parcels

Australia Post has announced major changes to its delivery service, saying it will start charging customers who fail to collect their parcels on time.

Currently, the post office will hold your parcel for 10 days before returning it to the sender.

Now though, the parcels will be held for longer, but at a cost.

Customers will have to cough up up to $9 to pick up their parcel if it has already been held for longer than five days.

From August 1, if a package isn’t collected within five days, its recipient would have to hand over $3 to pick it up.

An additional $3 will be charged for each week the package is held.

Parcels will now be held for up to 30 days with customers paying up to $9 to retrieve them.

The formally government-run organisation says it has made the change based on customer feedback.

They say they believe customers are more than happy to pay a fee if it means they get to pick up their parcel in their own time and not worry about it being returned to the sender.

“Most customers want to pick up their parcel quickly, with 92 per cent of parcels collected within five days,” an Australia Post spokesperson said in a statement to News Corp.

“We believe this service will help the small amount of customers who can’t collect their parcel straight away.

“They have told us they want to avoid parcels being returned to sender and they would go out of their way to pick it up sooner to avoid the fee.”

The change has outraged many though who say it is unfair for anyone who is away at the time the parcel is delivered, or just can’t make it to the post office within five days.

They say the jump from 10 days down to five plus the new fees is just an attempt by the struggling entity to make money and is failing to deliver the public service Australians are entitled to.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman says Australia Post is the second most complained about organisation in its jurisdiction.

It caused outrage earlier in the year when it increased the price of regular stamps from 70 cents to one dollar, and pushed delivery times for regular parcels out by two days.

Australia Post says it will drop the new ‘pay for parcel’ scheme if it receives negative customer feedback.

What do you think about this new system?

Are you happy to pay for your parcel if it means it is held for longer at the post office? Or, is this a blatant rip off?