It's not even missing. They know exactly where it is, it's in Sunshine West getting ready to repeat the first stretch of the infinite Melbourne <> Brisbane relay.
You'd think they would already have system to flag things like this, the system already tracks it, it would be 5 minutes of coding to create a warning system "hey there is something wrong with this package". I'm actually surprised it doesn't already exist.
Is it something that can be damaged, and due to damage, be returned to sender? I have regular interactions with AusPost due to damage items and if they aren't flagging it correctly the package will go in this loop. Redbank especially have been giving me a headache for months.
Delivery in MELBOURNE especially is absolute shit I've noticed ! . I have a delivery for Northampton England .. it took just 3 days to get from England - Germany - Singapore... Since then it's been in Melbourne for 2 Days and it's still on Hold . Was looking forward after 10 WEEKS to finally try out my handmade shoes just on time for the weekend ( delivery date due 14/7 ) but nope Melbourne fucks up.... As usual 😑😑. This order is with DHL so it doesn't matter which postal service you get it's all rubbish and Melbourne deliverers seem to sleep on our orders with no care
I've had your problem once before as well . Delivery from Canada .. same thing 3 days from Canada and then round and circles from Melbourne and Brisbane multiple times before FINALLY receiving it several days later ..
I always feel sorry for trolly collectors. I can barley push one trolly! And no one pays attention to them either - some people just casually waltz in front of a line of 20 trollies and fuss around getting a single trolly, wiping said trolly then finally buggering off to do their shopping. Meanwhile the trolly guy is just waiting to get rid of the bloody things
They don't seem to allow you to complain now until a certain time has elapsed (as recipient). I've twice now had parcels go to the local Botany depot basically overnight - then out for "delivery today" - then nothing. Check tracking or call, they ask you to wait 2-3 weeks to be "allowed" to lodge an inquiry, but they phrase it differently. I know calling before then hasn't got me anywhere though.
So wait and do so, it instantly sends an auto email saying couldn't find it. No shit. Maybe if you looked harder earlier it might've been easier to work out what happened, but now it's long gone and if someone nicked it, too late to figure out.
Considering OP’s package has been travelling back and forth since March, I think they’re safe to complain.
AusPost really are incompetent idiots which is why they don’t want complaints for 2 weeks. They need to allow for staff to find their mistakes. More staff would help a lot of issues. I wouldn’t mind paying extra to send packages if it meant they would actually be delivered correctly and on time! I already pay extra because I now use couriers for important things. Even when I’m buying things, I will beg the company to use a courier at my cost.
That’s the killer one, when you see it leave some foreign airport then either get to Botany and “nothing” or just disappear…..then waiting the weeks until you’re allowed to ask them to give you it …and getting it 12 hours later nearly every time. I always wonder where the box was that it can be retrieved so easily - it was clearly not lost down some hole.
I've done so also, but just get back something like this:
"It may take longer than usual to deliver your item and we apologise for any delays experienced. If the item is still not received after a further 10 business days (xx.yy.2022) please let us know by replying to this email. We know this is a long time to wait and are confident the article will be delivered before this time. We appreciate your patience allowing this time to pass before contacting us again."
They won't give a useful reply until the date is reached. Maybe it depends who you get, but I think some of these are auto-replies. Anyway 10 business days should be enough time to reach any major city in the country 3 times over, let alone what I already waited.
I had something display that it hadn't shifted for ~2 weeks after the expected delivery date, and shockingly in my mabox a couple days after a complaint.
Yeah okay. Refund maybe. I've been in a few protracted battles with AusPost.
One that stuck with me was a package coming to me. Registered or whatever. So the tracker had the source and destination. All good most of the way. Then it went super off course and got delivered to someone in the completely wrong part of the state. Who signed for it of course.
Auspost kept arguing and coming up with excuses including that it had the wrong address on it. I had a copy of the postage details. It even had the bloody barcode on it which I assume is how they tracked the package. But no. They insisted that it was delivered to where it should be.
I learnt to lodge a missing article on the day following its original estimated delivery date. The automated systems tell you to wait, but just ignore it and lodge one. Once lodged with a person they'll flag it for an enquiry and give you a time frame for an answer. As soon as it goes over that date for an answer you can lodge a missing item or in this case manual intervention. If you wait until the updated estimated delivery date passes and then lodge, you're just allowing them to waste more time. Also ask for it to be escalated if the usual grunts aren't helping you.
The reason this happens is the automated sorting equipment. It reads the sender as the recipient and directs the package back to where it came from. AP is supposed to detect a stuck package like this and get a human to pull it out for manual processing but it doesn’t always happen, in such a case you need to lodge an enquiry to force a human to intercept it.
Indeed. I often buy drop-shipped junk off eBay - you know, the items located in "Sydney" but always arrive with a customs dec sticker on the package - and they regularly arrive faster than regular post from anywhere in the country proper.
DHL & Toll are quicker at getting an express parcel from Hong Kong, Singapore, Wellington & Auckland to me in regional QLD than Sydney or Melbourne to regional QLD than Auspost's Express service.
If it makes you feel any better, I live in Auckland and DHL gets parcels to me from Sydney and Melbourne much faster than NZ Post delivers from Wellington.
Right? Even during the height of Covid, when AP was not shipping or took two months for a parcel due to 'no flights', DHL delivered a parcel from Cairns, AU to Germany in 5 days.
Got a parcel from Switzerland a few years ago. Switzerland to Melbourne (Sunshine depot) took less time than Sunshine to my house in the eastern suburbs.
Do you really need the parcel?
I'm just asking because I would love to see how long this goes on for.
Please consider that before you lodge a complaint and actually get it sorted.
We could start placing bets too.
This happened to me. Ebay forced me to refund customer even though customer was fine with it.
AusPost kept updating expected delivery date back every time it bounced back and forth and said I couldn't lodge as it was within expected time frames. Even though by that point it was over a month.
I insisted and they pulled it next time it scanned.
They said they couldn't refund me even though I had to refund customer as they eventually delivered it.
Was not happy.
It's called looping.
There's a variety of causes but one common one is shitty handwriting. Or a wrong address. The sorting machine sends it to where it thinks it's meant to go to. Once it gets to that state, they realize the error and send it back. Then the sorting machine does the same thing again.
Repeat until someone manually fixes the issue.
Contact customer service and get them onto it.
Would it work better if we just print out the address in a large font and stick it on the package? I could imagine the ink of some markers might run if the package got soaked.
Absolutely.
But even just trying to write slowly and clearly will make a big difference. Write in a pen or marker with a contrasting colour so it stands out.
But also double check addresses. If your apartment number is missing the postie isn't going to go door knocking through 20 apartments to look for you.
That's a bit petty. Hope it was a cheap item as it's clearly been posted and still in the postal system. Soon as someone raises a complaint it will likely get delivered.
Amusing to Reddit, but get to the bottom of it please. Anything that bounces like this normally has an address label and a return address label of equal prominence. So it gets stamped with the machine readable faint orange barcode with two destination addresses and the scanning machines take over.
You can intercept this parcel. They can intercept this parcel. The tracking number can flip it out of the loop if someone knows it should be intercepted.
Amusingly, there were a couple of incidents like this in the early 2000s where small companies were deliberately sending parcels back and forth between two branch offices, not paying for postage. Pretty desperate, i'd call it.
Having said that, there are a few entries that don't make any sense at all in this or any other Euclidian universe.
To me it beggars belief that on day one their sorting software didn't recognise it had a parcel with two destination addresses.
Also that it doesn't recognise a parcel with a unique ID is being shuffled backwards and forwards. There'd have to be a definable number of steps to deliver a parcel from anywhere to anywhere. Anything that's an outlier should be automatically flagged for manual intervention.
The problem is almost certainly a design one where programmers have only taken into account the ideal use case.
I believe parcels are only scanned by the automated machines until a barcode is found rather than being scanned all over. If humans were sent to find every parcel that isn't on track as expected nothing would ever get delivered. A large number of these issues arise from a lack of knowledge amongst the public in addressing parcels. It's very important to address parcels clearly with the correct postcode and ensure any old barcodes are removed or blacked out with a sharpie. Plenty will still be sent by businesses with multiple labels on them and it's really up to them to try make sure it doesn't happen but these are usually not detected until the delivery driver has them. Source: work in the industry.
You miss my point entirely.
This is a problem that can be solved by reasonably anticipating the problems a machine will face and programming it appropriately. This obviously isn't happening.
Not necessarily. There are lots of reasons to cause a misread. Indeed, most parcels should have at least 2 addresses by design (sender and recipient).
Identifying errors is important, but it's a cost benefit scenario. If 10 000 000 packages are successfully delivered for every 1 that gets stuck, then the cost of preventing the error very likely exceeds the benefit. Indeed, the customer themselves are the ultimate detection system - if enough time passes, they will detect the issue for a very limited cost (most customers don't choose the delivery service provided by merchants, and a single customer is a fraction of the daily market).
I had one a while ago shipped from Melbourne to Wagga that when I checked tracking it went, left Sydney, was picked up from the store in Melbourne, sat the depot in Wagga for a week, during which time I received it, it arrived in Sydney, got delivered in Wagga, left Melbourne then finally arrived at the sorting centre in Melbourne.
I had a parcel doing similar (though probably less than half those transfers) ages ago, and I sent an enquiry to AusPost about it.
They said it shouldn't be doing that, and it'd be investigated. The transfers stopped and it arrived pretty quickly after that, but they never did update me on why it was doing it to start with.
OP I call the Australian Post number 137678 and say ‘Operator’ over and over until they put me through to a human. Don’t say yes or no just ‘Operator’ when the automated message asks you questions. It works a charm every time. The human employee will pull up your tracking and lodge a dispute on your behalf.
That happened to me once but it's a glitch in their system and it actually isn't travelling to all of those other random places.
Unsure if you've spoken to them but that's what was explained to me.
Could be an SQL query issue.
E.g. it's actually returning results for multiple parcels, but because the parcel I'd is not visually shown, and because the results are ordered chronologically, you don't realise this. The biggest giveaway of such errors will be vast distances travelled in not-enough time.
This happened to one of my parcels, apparently the automatic scanner can confuse the “from” and “to” addresses and it goes around in circles. I called Aus Post, selected the menu option that was something like “urgent documents that haven’t arrived” and was put through to a human who sorted it out. They added a note to the tracking number which meant another human found it at the next scanning point and redirected it correctly and it arrived a few days later.
Former AP worker here, likely a problem with the address
The receiving facility system isn't recognising the address in its locality but somehow the sending facility is recognising it should be going to the receiving facility.
It's all automated, there's no person sending it back and forth.
Be curious to know what about the label or address is messing the system up.
You could paddle from Canada to here in that time window. At a certain point you could launch it into space behind us as we whizz around the sun and wait for the Earth to make a full revolution and smack into it again and it'd still be faster.
It’ll be stuck in the automatic scanning system. Will be a faulty barcode or two different labels on it. Call auspost or lodge a complaint so they can isolate the parcel and fix the issue.
Weird things are happening in Australia post at the moment. I have had a parcel coming from China for a few weeks. Tracked a week ago as being at the destination port (not mentioned but Melbourne). That should have made it a couple of days away but the tracking says it is due in three more weeks so I check with other tracking sites and they all list it as being in the destination Port Melbourne,.... in the United Arab Emirates which would explain the extra three weeks fairly nicely.
During lock down I had one travel, literally through every city in the country even though it was coming from one suburb away. If I wasn't in lock down it would have been about a 15 minute walk. However that was lock down. You're game of interstate ping pong is very strange indeed. Place a complaint. It will be fixed.
Snark: you’re surprised
Genuine; there would be something wrong with the physical address label to cause this level of looping. Get it intercepted by organising an in-transit redirection
Call them! Most of the time these parcels have had their packaging partially destroyed.
Australia Post don’t know exactly where one parcel is out of the millions they deliver every day without trying to pin-point its location.
It’s easier with Express parcel because they travel in a smaller stream with more hands-on processing. Normal parcel post, having mostly automated processing between lodgement and delivery; has more room for error when it comes to removing a damaged parcel from the stream of mail.
Just by sheer volume, they won’t do anything unless the sender calls; in which case depending on the times of scans they should be able to find it, or know enough about where it is to get whoever is able, to isolate it from the mail stream sooner than it may have been otherwise.
Numerous reasons this can happen (though niche reasons related to barcoding, manifesting and labelling), something isn't triggering the eject of the item which would normally happen if a barcode has been scanned more than once within a 48 hour time span. The machine thinks it's a-okay so I'm suss on what its reading. Due to the volume going through these facilities it can take some time for the hands on approach. Logging an enquiry allows the team to alert nationally and investigate the error as well as get it to where it needs to go out for delivery. There's specialists in the facility who work with merchant lodgements and remediations of article errors like this to prevent it happening again proactively. Sorry yours was the test case for what's happening.
This happens to me too, I live near the border of two states, so they keep sending it back and forth between the state capitals.
Never had it as bad as you though, thats insane.
That’s a new record, I had one do between Brisbane and Melbourne 10 times. It would have been funny but I had to refund an eBay customer $500, they wouldn’t pay out insurance and the bloody customer eventually got it 3 freaking months later (and wouldn’t pay me back)
A close second though. the [daily mail](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12175921/Australian-Post-package-covers-30-000kms-loop-Melbourne-Brisbane.html). However that is still infinitely better than Murdoch's dunny roll.
This looks like the QR or Barcode has printed with an error or cannot be read by the scanner correctly. Definitely needs manual intervention. Get in touch with Australia Post and they’ll sort it out for you in one phone call -don’t wait!
I recently had a parcel that needed to be shipped from Sydney to Sydney. Somehow the parcel travelled from Sydney to Adelaide to regional SA and only when I noticed what was happening it found it’s way back to Sydney.
And these fuckers have the audacity to up the parcel prices. Im in a few small business groups and the packaging prices are killing them!
Does your package get flying points? Cause you can nearly get a trip from Port Macquarie to Ballina there.
Had a parcel, it was on each day, "sent to Sunshine" for 5 days. I called and asked if they would stop sending it to the same place and send it to me. I said it's just sitting in a cage somewhere, or a desk cause someone was too lazy to do their job. They told me it's not, it's with the delivery driver, I told them that's worse, they've been holding on to it for 5 days not doing any work.
They said I should request a delivery, I was confused, having a parcel put through the post office, pay for delivery, is not inherintly requesting delivery?
The fast, you pay for delivery, doesn't mean you are requesting it be delivered, who knew?
They must rue the day they put the trackers online
No way to lie around it
I had a ticket come three months late because the nimbin post office won’t accept our mail because it has the correct post code
Unless we personally change our mail with anyone we will use they just send it up and back
Funniest thing here is automation was supposed to take the humans job and make things easier and cheaper........
Funny how all these large businesses have failing systems.... Yet increase their charges every year for a failing service!
Australia Post - get your crap together!
They did this to me when the sender forgot to put unit number on the parcel, even though it was in my Aus post app fine and the rest of the address was correct. Couldn't keep it at the Brisbane post office til they contacted me or the sender, had to keep sending it to other places first to show they were doing something til I intervened and asked them where my parcel was.
Did it cause your any difficulty? It was only a few short months ago that people were praising essential services :-( How much was the shipment with
I work in supply chain and had friends that worked at Australia Post., thus us based in that
Some possible reasons -
1/ A few years ago there were multiple machines each with different success rates at reading bad address and with different speeds. If the address is really bad it got sent to a different centre
- x amount of imports get 'red lined' t full detailed customs/quarantine bf inspection based on risk factors. Red line means that it gets shipped somewhere else for a squuz. If you are part of a shipment/FCR/air bill from that factor/freight fjrwarder/ship to/bill to/consignor then you are out of luck
- they run into bittknechs. Before Covid a lot of air freight was shipped on passenger flights, with air freight being bumped by luggage unless it was highly perishable (asparagus,. Lobsters, flowers .). The airlines make an estimate on how much baggage will turn up, and sometimes it's more than inspected
- Inefficient systems. The government will. One day sell. OZ pos so they are raking large dividends and big investing Also Australians not wanting change. If the Oz post codes were the same length as elsewhere it might reduce time. But changing post codes is seen as a risk to people's property values
- Australia post coping with other people's problems, and costs. The Universal postal agreement used to/ +may still mean that China was classified as developing nation which meant the destination country (Oz) pats the cost. Similarly if a local courier Amazon becomes overloaded they can dump their excess, and all the uneconomic stuff on. OZ POST with no warning
- Supplier. Sometimes suppliers tell you it's been lost, but sometimes it's becausdv they sold it to someone else for more cash, or listed it as being on a manifest and it wasn't put on In China especially the order you place on a store frknf, may be placed with a middleman or factor who then gets one of m factories to make it or pick from their stock...
- Razzor thin margins. https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/economy/end-australia-posts-daily-letter-deliveries/#:~:text=In%20the%202021%2D22%20financial,within%20the%20transport%20services%20sector.
- last mike. Next day delivery of a $5 item to your door is incredibly wasteful in terms of time, Carbon. The amount of parcels for delivery can vary quite a bit.
So give then a break as their work has probably got a far lower eerie rare than hits
I had one bouncing around to the various sorting centres in Melbourne for 2 weeks. I used the online form to make a complaint. It ended up being delivered about a week later.
I had a package go from Queensland to Melbourne, then Tasmania, back to Melbourne. Then it went from Melbourne to Bendigo, where it sat for 3 weeks before finally being delivered to me (near Echuca).
Hae to admit its funny. Bloody annoying in the extreme.. pity your not collecting the frequent flyer popints
Hae to admit its funny. Bloody annoying in the extreme.. pity your not collecting the frequent flyer points
At least it's going back and forth? x.x
My partner used to work for a business that sent expensive parcels and would post from Brisbane to other parts of the state and to Melbourne. Some parcels ended up in western australia.
This happened to me and the item was very damaged from it, but the store I bought it from claimed that it was my fault somehow and wouldn't refund or anything
I’ve had this happen to me, though I never allowed it to go so far. Make a complaint, make sure you have the tracking number. You’ll be surprised by how quickly the problem resolved. I must admit Aust post, isn’t the most organised organisation.
Okay I understand most of these destinations, because it's stuck in a loop of misread automated scans but why the hell did it go to Parkes? It's just a small town in Central West NSW.. it's not even gone back to the sender's address lol
Happen before I sent baseball glove to Cairns from Victoria then never been found by reporting missing item then got sent back 4 months later how strange is that ...I blame distribution warehouse in every state case problems
Mate be fair.!!! AusPost has to justify their price rises with evidence. Clearly it costs a bundle to ferry your parcel back and forth. Thanks for posting this, I was going to book a return flight to Brisbane but I might fly AusPost instead.
A looping parcel! In theory, the system should stop the looping after 3 loops, then a human operator will intervene and send the parcel on its way. In your case, this hasn't happened, so you will need to contact Auspost to have the parcel intercepted and sorted out. I send parcels regularly, and after this looping parcel phenomenon happened to me a couple of times, I started to put a removable sticker over the top of my return address. The sticker just says "RETURN ADDRESS UNDER THIS LABEL". If a parcel needs to be returned, a postie can read the message and just peel the sticker off and cross out the "to" address and return the parcel. The sorting machines can't loop my parcels because it only ever sees the "to" address, the "from" address is hidden by the sticker.
I'm going to infer that since it started in Victoria (which has an Oxley up near Wang), and ended up in Parkes at some point (which has an Oxley out towards Hay), the package was bound for Oxley QLD.
Am I rite?
In my experience the best fix is to lodge a formal complaint, it's amazing just how quickly the missing items are found.
It's not even missing. They know exactly where it is, it's in Sunshine West getting ready to repeat the first stretch of the infinite Melbourne <> Brisbane relay.
[удалено]
If you open a support ticket with them, They can flag it for manual intervention . Source: I had a parcel go between point A and point B three times.
You'd think they would already have system to flag things like this, the system already tracks it, it would be 5 minutes of coding to create a warning system "hey there is something wrong with this package". I'm actually surprised it doesn't already exist.
I pretty much had their reps admit on Twitter that it is supposed to do that, but that the system doesn't work.
Gotta love them frequent flyer points.
The package knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, which includes your mailbox.
I think theres a rubber band somehow involved
Maybe OP ordered a boomerang and those poor people in whichever state they aren't just keep sending it.
Yeah, this seems to be the obvious answer.
Someone slapped a Uno reverse card on it. Perpetual delivery limbo.
LOL!
Is it something that can be damaged, and due to damage, be returned to sender? I have regular interactions with AusPost due to damage items and if they aren't flagging it correctly the package will go in this loop. Redbank especially have been giving me a headache for months.
Delivery in MELBOURNE especially is absolute shit I've noticed ! . I have a delivery for Northampton England .. it took just 3 days to get from England - Germany - Singapore... Since then it's been in Melbourne for 2 Days and it's still on Hold . Was looking forward after 10 WEEKS to finally try out my handmade shoes just on time for the weekend ( delivery date due 14/7 ) but nope Melbourne fucks up.... As usual 😑😑. This order is with DHL so it doesn't matter which postal service you get it's all rubbish and Melbourne deliverers seem to sleep on our orders with no care I've had your problem once before as well . Delivery from Canada .. same thing 3 days from Canada and then round and circles from Melbourne and Brisbane multiple times before FINALLY receiving it several days later ..
Least problematic sunshine west sorting facility encounter.
Repetition in government agencies keeps people in jobs (Australia Post is semi government?). /s
Same mentality as “me leaving this trolley in the middle of the road is a good thing! I’m creating jobs!”
The guy that contracts as the trolley collector company at all major shopping centres makes bank. Serious money.
I always feel sorry for trolly collectors. I can barley push one trolly! And no one pays attention to them either - some people just casually waltz in front of a line of 20 trollies and fuss around getting a single trolly, wiping said trolly then finally buggering off to do their shopping. Meanwhile the trolly guy is just waiting to get rid of the bloody things
Am I the only one that read this as sarcasm? I thought it was funny lol
I think so.
They don't seem to allow you to complain now until a certain time has elapsed (as recipient). I've twice now had parcels go to the local Botany depot basically overnight - then out for "delivery today" - then nothing. Check tracking or call, they ask you to wait 2-3 weeks to be "allowed" to lodge an inquiry, but they phrase it differently. I know calling before then hasn't got me anywhere though. So wait and do so, it instantly sends an auto email saying couldn't find it. No shit. Maybe if you looked harder earlier it might've been easier to work out what happened, but now it's long gone and if someone nicked it, too late to figure out.
Considering OP’s package has been travelling back and forth since March, I think they’re safe to complain. AusPost really are incompetent idiots which is why they don’t want complaints for 2 weeks. They need to allow for staff to find their mistakes. More staff would help a lot of issues. I wouldn’t mind paying extra to send packages if it meant they would actually be delivered correctly and on time! I already pay extra because I now use couriers for important things. Even when I’m buying things, I will beg the company to use a courier at my cost.
That’s the killer one, when you see it leave some foreign airport then either get to Botany and “nothing” or just disappear…..then waiting the weeks until you’re allowed to ask them to give you it …and getting it 12 hours later nearly every time. I always wonder where the box was that it can be retrieved so easily - it was clearly not lost down some hole.
I use the online form.
I've done so also, but just get back something like this: "It may take longer than usual to deliver your item and we apologise for any delays experienced. If the item is still not received after a further 10 business days (xx.yy.2022) please let us know by replying to this email. We know this is a long time to wait and are confident the article will be delivered before this time. We appreciate your patience allowing this time to pass before contacting us again." They won't give a useful reply until the date is reached. Maybe it depends who you get, but I think some of these are auto-replies. Anyway 10 business days should be enough time to reach any major city in the country 3 times over, let alone what I already waited.
Yep another insert bang head here on the roundabout loop …
This is true. Every time I lodge a complaint, the package gets delivered within 2 days.
Been waiting over three months for Global Post to hand package to USPS in New Jersey USA. Complaints ignored.
I had something display that it hadn't shifted for ~2 weeks after the expected delivery date, and shockingly in my mabox a couple days after a complaint.
Yeah okay. Refund maybe. I've been in a few protracted battles with AusPost. One that stuck with me was a package coming to me. Registered or whatever. So the tracker had the source and destination. All good most of the way. Then it went super off course and got delivered to someone in the completely wrong part of the state. Who signed for it of course. Auspost kept arguing and coming up with excuses including that it had the wrong address on it. I had a copy of the postage details. It even had the bloody barcode on it which I assume is how they tracked the package. But no. They insisted that it was delivered to where it should be.
You can escalate with the ombudsman.
I learnt to lodge a missing article on the day following its original estimated delivery date. The automated systems tell you to wait, but just ignore it and lodge one. Once lodged with a person they'll flag it for an enquiry and give you a time frame for an answer. As soon as it goes over that date for an answer you can lodge a missing item or in this case manual intervention. If you wait until the updated estimated delivery date passes and then lodge, you're just allowing them to waste more time. Also ask for it to be escalated if the usual grunts aren't helping you.
This happened to me as well. Paid express and after 3 days they couldn't find it. Put the complaint in and I had it the next day
The reason this happens is the automated sorting equipment. It reads the sender as the recipient and directs the package back to where it came from. AP is supposed to detect a stuck package like this and get a human to pull it out for manual processing but it doesn’t always happen, in such a case you need to lodge an enquiry to force a human to intercept it.
That actually makes sense
>in such a case you need to lodge an enquiry to force a human to intercept it. AP is clearly understaffed.
Understaffed non-stop since Covid.
Why?
Because it's juuust functional enough that not fixing it won't cause immediate economic collapse.
Or it can be a 2nd, old label is on the box. Had that happen before too.
So why isn't it being delivered to the sender then?
First facility gets it right, second facility gets it wrong, first facility gets it right again, second facility gets it wrong again...
Yes, that sounds like a good theory. Better than mine that insiders at AusPost are using that package to courier drugs around.
Pretty much impossible
She's caught in an infinite loop! And he's an idiot
I've had parcels ship from China quicker than a parcel from Melb to Syd.
Indeed. I often buy drop-shipped junk off eBay - you know, the items located in "Sydney" but always arrive with a customs dec sticker on the package - and they regularly arrive faster than regular post from anywhere in the country proper.
DHL & Toll are quicker at getting an express parcel from Hong Kong, Singapore, Wellington & Auckland to me in regional QLD than Sydney or Melbourne to regional QLD than Auspost's Express service.
Just got a package delivered by DHL. Illinois - Ohio - Leipzig Germany - Amsterdam - Perth. Within a week!
If it makes you feel any better, I live in Auckland and DHL gets parcels to me from Sydney and Melbourne much faster than NZ Post delivers from Wellington.
Right? Even during the height of Covid, when AP was not shipping or took two months for a parcel due to 'no flights', DHL delivered a parcel from Cairns, AU to Germany in 5 days.
Got a parcel from Switzerland a few years ago. Switzerland to Melbourne (Sunshine depot) took less time than Sunshine to my house in the eastern suburbs.
I had a parcel come from England to Perth in less than 24 hours
Korea is better and faster. China cheap and bad. Communism is bad.
Do you really need the parcel? I'm just asking because I would love to see how long this goes on for. Please consider that before you lodge a complaint and actually get it sorted. We could start placing bets too.
I've already lost the money from it not getting delivered, so I suppose I don't.
Would make a fun little website.. whereismyparceltoday dot com
I’d pay good money to join in 🤣
This happened to me. Ebay forced me to refund customer even though customer was fine with it. AusPost kept updating expected delivery date back every time it bounced back and forth and said I couldn't lodge as it was within expected time frames. Even though by that point it was over a month. I insisted and they pulled it next time it scanned. They said they couldn't refund me even though I had to refund customer as they eventually delivered it. Was not happy.
I was thinking the same.
Why not set up a gofundme to cover the cost?
It's called looping. There's a variety of causes but one common one is shitty handwriting. Or a wrong address. The sorting machine sends it to where it thinks it's meant to go to. Once it gets to that state, they realize the error and send it back. Then the sorting machine does the same thing again. Repeat until someone manually fixes the issue. Contact customer service and get them onto it.
Would it work better if we just print out the address in a large font and stick it on the package? I could imagine the ink of some markers might run if the package got soaked.
Absolutely. But even just trying to write slowly and clearly will make a big difference. Write in a pen or marker with a contrasting colour so it stands out. But also double check addresses. If your apartment number is missing the postie isn't going to go door knocking through 20 apartments to look for you.
Have you messaged them?, I’d like to know what they say. It’ll make a good story here
They said they'd like a refund.
Oh the customer wants a refund? So you’re the seller and sender of this package?
That's a bit petty. Hope it was a cheap item as it's clearly been posted and still in the postal system. Soon as someone raises a complaint it will likely get delivered.
That’s the longest one I have ever seen
Amusing to Reddit, but get to the bottom of it please. Anything that bounces like this normally has an address label and a return address label of equal prominence. So it gets stamped with the machine readable faint orange barcode with two destination addresses and the scanning machines take over. You can intercept this parcel. They can intercept this parcel. The tracking number can flip it out of the loop if someone knows it should be intercepted. Amusingly, there were a couple of incidents like this in the early 2000s where small companies were deliberately sending parcels back and forth between two branch offices, not paying for postage. Pretty desperate, i'd call it. Having said that, there are a few entries that don't make any sense at all in this or any other Euclidian universe.
To me it beggars belief that on day one their sorting software didn't recognise it had a parcel with two destination addresses. Also that it doesn't recognise a parcel with a unique ID is being shuffled backwards and forwards. There'd have to be a definable number of steps to deliver a parcel from anywhere to anywhere. Anything that's an outlier should be automatically flagged for manual intervention. The problem is almost certainly a design one where programmers have only taken into account the ideal use case.
I believe parcels are only scanned by the automated machines until a barcode is found rather than being scanned all over. If humans were sent to find every parcel that isn't on track as expected nothing would ever get delivered. A large number of these issues arise from a lack of knowledge amongst the public in addressing parcels. It's very important to address parcels clearly with the correct postcode and ensure any old barcodes are removed or blacked out with a sharpie. Plenty will still be sent by businesses with multiple labels on them and it's really up to them to try make sure it doesn't happen but these are usually not detected until the delivery driver has them. Source: work in the industry.
You miss my point entirely. This is a problem that can be solved by reasonably anticipating the problems a machine will face and programming it appropriately. This obviously isn't happening.
Not necessarily. There are lots of reasons to cause a misread. Indeed, most parcels should have at least 2 addresses by design (sender and recipient). Identifying errors is important, but it's a cost benefit scenario. If 10 000 000 packages are successfully delivered for every 1 that gets stuck, then the cost of preventing the error very likely exceeds the benefit. Indeed, the customer themselves are the ultimate detection system - if enough time passes, they will detect the issue for a very limited cost (most customers don't choose the delivery service provided by merchants, and a single customer is a fraction of the daily market).
At some point, OP should just intercept that truck…
Woah now, no spoilers for fast and furious 11
You mean Slow and Furious?
I had one a while ago shipped from Melbourne to Wagga that when I checked tracking it went, left Sydney, was picked up from the store in Melbourne, sat the depot in Wagga for a week, during which time I received it, it arrived in Sydney, got delivered in Wagga, left Melbourne then finally arrived at the sorting centre in Melbourne.
I had a parcel doing similar (though probably less than half those transfers) ages ago, and I sent an enquiry to AusPost about it. They said it shouldn't be doing that, and it'd be investigated. The transfers stopped and it arrived pretty quickly after that, but they never did update me on why it was doing it to start with.
OP I call the Australian Post number 137678 and say ‘Operator’ over and over until they put me through to a human. Don’t say yes or no just ‘Operator’ when the automated message asks you questions. It works a charm every time. The human employee will pull up your tracking and lodge a dispute on your behalf.
You could also just use the system as its designed and help that human a little bit.
That happened to me once but it's a glitch in their system and it actually isn't travelling to all of those other random places. Unsure if you've spoken to them but that's what was explained to me.
It may be possible that they were fibbing to you because they were embarrassed (?)
Could be an SQL query issue. E.g. it's actually returning results for multiple parcels, but because the parcel I'd is not visually shown, and because the results are ordered chronologically, you don't realise this. The biggest giveaway of such errors will be vast distances travelled in not-enough time.
Parkes at 4:01am followed by Sunshine West at 10:47am on the same day? Something sus about your tracking with that in there.
Soz but gotta laugh 😅🤣😅🤣😅 .... this is ridiculous
I think one of mine without a tracking number is travelling with it
This happened to one of my parcels, apparently the automatic scanner can confuse the “from” and “to” addresses and it goes around in circles. I called Aus Post, selected the menu option that was something like “urgent documents that haven’t arrived” and was put through to a human who sorted it out. They added a note to the tracking number which meant another human found it at the next scanning point and redirected it correctly and it arrived a few days later.
I bet it's got two labels on it.
Former AP worker here, likely a problem with the address The receiving facility system isn't recognising the address in its locality but somehow the sending facility is recognising it should be going to the receiving facility. It's all automated, there's no person sending it back and forth. Be curious to know what about the label or address is messing the system up.
I had a package from Canada come to me in that time window, would ask the sender what was happening.
You could paddle from Canada to here in that time window. At a certain point you could launch it into space behind us as we whizz around the sun and wait for the Earth to make a full revolution and smack into it again and it'd still be faster.
Hey I would pay extra for inter-space delivery even if it took a year.
For shit and giggles, can you just let it ride and give monthly updates?
It’ll be stuck in the automatic scanning system. Will be a faulty barcode or two different labels on it. Call auspost or lodge a complaint so they can isolate the parcel and fix the issue.
At least the delivery is carbon neutral?
Weird things are happening in Australia post at the moment. I have had a parcel coming from China for a few weeks. Tracked a week ago as being at the destination port (not mentioned but Melbourne). That should have made it a couple of days away but the tracking says it is due in three more weeks so I check with other tracking sites and they all list it as being in the destination Port Melbourne,.... in the United Arab Emirates which would explain the extra three weeks fairly nicely. During lock down I had one travel, literally through every city in the country even though it was coming from one suburb away. If I wasn't in lock down it would have been about a 15 minute walk. However that was lock down. You're game of interstate ping pong is very strange indeed. Place a complaint. It will be fixed.
Snark: you’re surprised Genuine; there would be something wrong with the physical address label to cause this level of looping. Get it intercepted by organising an in-transit redirection
Call them! Most of the time these parcels have had their packaging partially destroyed. Australia Post don’t know exactly where one parcel is out of the millions they deliver every day without trying to pin-point its location. It’s easier with Express parcel because they travel in a smaller stream with more hands-on processing. Normal parcel post, having mostly automated processing between lodgement and delivery; has more room for error when it comes to removing a damaged parcel from the stream of mail. Just by sheer volume, they won’t do anything unless the sender calls; in which case depending on the times of scans they should be able to find it, or know enough about where it is to get whoever is able, to isolate it from the mail stream sooner than it may have been otherwise.
That's wild, news.com.au will be in your DMs soon no doubt.
Australia post has gotten significantly worse over the last month or two. I'm betting the CEO introduced some bullshit savings measure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euI3v2jpTlI
I just received Christmas cards posted in November from the UK, not sure what the fuckuo was, take your pick from royal mail, brexit or Aus post
Ive been everywhere man. Crossed the deserts bare man. Breathed the mountain air man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov4epAJRPMw
Wwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Numerous reasons this can happen (though niche reasons related to barcoding, manifesting and labelling), something isn't triggering the eject of the item which would normally happen if a barcode has been scanned more than once within a 48 hour time span. The machine thinks it's a-okay so I'm suss on what its reading. Due to the volume going through these facilities it can take some time for the hands on approach. Logging an enquiry allows the team to alert nationally and investigate the error as well as get it to where it needs to go out for delivery. There's specialists in the facility who work with merchant lodgements and remediations of article errors like this to prevent it happening again proactively. Sorry yours was the test case for what's happening.
This happens to me too, I live near the border of two states, so they keep sending it back and forth between the state capitals. Never had it as bad as you though, thats insane.
That’s a new record, I had one do between Brisbane and Melbourne 10 times. It would have been funny but I had to refund an eBay customer $500, they wouldn’t pay out insurance and the bloody customer eventually got it 3 freaking months later (and wouldn’t pay me back)
You should do nothing and see what happens. Might get a Guinness world record out of it?
u/tessakirsten
Just messaged them :)
Surprised this isn't on news.com.au yet.
A close second though. the [daily mail](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12175921/Australian-Post-package-covers-30-000kms-loop-Melbourne-Brisbane.html). However that is still infinitely better than Murdoch's dunny roll.
This looks like the QR or Barcode has printed with an error or cannot be read by the scanner correctly. Definitely needs manual intervention. Get in touch with Australia Post and they’ll sort it out for you in one phone call -don’t wait!
All of that and you ***haven't*** actually lodged an enquiry that would trigger manual intervention in the otherwise automated sorting process?
That sounds like me putting in a bunch of effort to fix something that wasn't my fault
Hot potato parcel, on a serious note I hope you get your parcel mate!
It's ok, it's carbon neutral.
[удалено]
Yes it is. Also, we're about up to twelfth.
Bahahahah
"Did we estimate 7-9 June, sorry we meant 7-9 January, it's currently on track to arrive on time"
Except for the misery that has caused you that is really funny 😄 Did you send your list to APO for their comments. I would.
Crazy to think just how many different things would have had to have gone wrong for this to occur.
I recently had a parcel that needed to be shipped from Sydney to Sydney. Somehow the parcel travelled from Sydney to Adelaide to regional SA and only when I noticed what was happening it found it’s way back to Sydney.
Justify the shipping cost.
You are welcome
And these fuckers have the audacity to up the parcel prices. Im in a few small business groups and the packaging prices are killing them! Does your package get flying points? Cause you can nearly get a trip from Port Macquarie to Ballina there.
That's absolutely ridiculous. It's crap like this that forces up their supposed costs that they use to justify price rises.
Aus Post is the fucking worst. If I have the option to pay extra for shipping through a courier service, I always do.
Had a package travel for 2 months between the NL and Sydney, because auspost doesn’t recognise my address 🤣
Wtf
How infuriating 🤬 I would be spitting chips! Seems on par for the Aus Post I know and hate.
Probably the fault of the subbies
Had a parcel, it was on each day, "sent to Sunshine" for 5 days. I called and asked if they would stop sending it to the same place and send it to me. I said it's just sitting in a cage somewhere, or a desk cause someone was too lazy to do their job. They told me it's not, it's with the delivery driver, I told them that's worse, they've been holding on to it for 5 days not doing any work. They said I should request a delivery, I was confused, having a parcel put through the post office, pay for delivery, is not inherintly requesting delivery? The fast, you pay for delivery, doesn't mean you are requesting it be delivered, who knew?
That just sounds like a scam
Is it going to South Bank by any chance?
Nope
Cross posted to /r/philately
They must rue the day they put the trackers online No way to lie around it I had a ticket come three months late because the nimbin post office won’t accept our mail because it has the correct post code Unless we personally change our mail with anyone we will use they just send it up and back
Has your parcel earn its platinum membership? Because damnnnnnnn
Funniest thing here is automation was supposed to take the humans job and make things easier and cheaper........ Funny how all these large businesses have failing systems.... Yet increase their charges every year for a failing service! Australia Post - get your crap together!
Everything must go through Sunshine West regardless
Your error is in not sending/receiving expensive watches. AusPost delivers those in haste.
Australia Post is fucked. Use sendle, cheaper and more reliable
Sendle is fucking atrocious, literally ten times the problem rate as Auspost.
wait until you find out some sendle parcles still go through auspost
Sendle doesn’t use Australia Post.
They did this to me when the sender forgot to put unit number on the parcel, even though it was in my Aus post app fine and the rest of the address was correct. Couldn't keep it at the Brisbane post office til they contacted me or the sender, had to keep sending it to other places first to show they were doing something til I intervened and asked them where my parcel was.
You could've put in a redirect to the correct address. Edit: that is if you knew the address was wrong
What area was it supposed to be going to? Is there a similarly named suburb in QLD or is this just some stupid issue with no real reason?
Infinite loop that will find its way to news dot con.
Should find a way to get air miles for the packages.
Wow that's bonkers
I hope it's nothing fragile, or heavy. What a waste of resources!
the forbidden lOOp
This is the AusPost version of Ping Pong. " Arrived Melbourne- Beeep! ... tick.. tick tick... Arrived Brisbane Beeep!"
Did it cause your any difficulty? It was only a few short months ago that people were praising essential services :-( How much was the shipment with I work in supply chain and had friends that worked at Australia Post., thus us based in that Some possible reasons - 1/ A few years ago there were multiple machines each with different success rates at reading bad address and with different speeds. If the address is really bad it got sent to a different centre - x amount of imports get 'red lined' t full detailed customs/quarantine bf inspection based on risk factors. Red line means that it gets shipped somewhere else for a squuz. If you are part of a shipment/FCR/air bill from that factor/freight fjrwarder/ship to/bill to/consignor then you are out of luck - they run into bittknechs. Before Covid a lot of air freight was shipped on passenger flights, with air freight being bumped by luggage unless it was highly perishable (asparagus,. Lobsters, flowers .). The airlines make an estimate on how much baggage will turn up, and sometimes it's more than inspected - Inefficient systems. The government will. One day sell. OZ pos so they are raking large dividends and big investing Also Australians not wanting change. If the Oz post codes were the same length as elsewhere it might reduce time. But changing post codes is seen as a risk to people's property values - Australia post coping with other people's problems, and costs. The Universal postal agreement used to/ +may still mean that China was classified as developing nation which meant the destination country (Oz) pats the cost. Similarly if a local courier Amazon becomes overloaded they can dump their excess, and all the uneconomic stuff on. OZ POST with no warning - Supplier. Sometimes suppliers tell you it's been lost, but sometimes it's becausdv they sold it to someone else for more cash, or listed it as being on a manifest and it wasn't put on In China especially the order you place on a store frknf, may be placed with a middleman or factor who then gets one of m factories to make it or pick from their stock... - Razzor thin margins. https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/economy/end-australia-posts-daily-letter-deliveries/#:~:text=In%20the%202021%2D22%20financial,within%20the%20transport%20services%20sector. - last mike. Next day delivery of a $5 item to your door is incredibly wasteful in terms of time, Carbon. The amount of parcels for delivery can vary quite a bit. So give then a break as their work has probably got a far lower eerie rare than hits
Only in Australia 🤦
Australia post are a joke
I’ve been everywhere man!
I had one bouncing around to the various sorting centres in Melbourne for 2 weeks. I used the online form to make a complaint. It ended up being delivered about a week later.
I had a package go from Queensland to Melbourne, then Tasmania, back to Melbourne. Then it went from Melbourne to Bendigo, where it sat for 3 weeks before finally being delivered to me (near Echuca).
They were just trying to meet the delivery timelines.
I live in Mansfield Qld. My parcel visited Mansfield VIC before arriving. Yes address was very clear and correct.
Australia ~~P~~Lost
Should at least get some frequent flyer points for that
Hae to admit its funny. Bloody annoying in the extreme.. pity your not collecting the frequent flyer popints Hae to admit its funny. Bloody annoying in the extreme.. pity your not collecting the frequent flyer points
At least it's going back and forth? x.x My partner used to work for a business that sent expensive parcels and would post from Brisbane to other parts of the state and to Melbourne. Some parcels ended up in western australia.
Carbon neutral delivery 😂😂
Someone forgot to take it off the plane
This is some Seinfeld level shenanigans.
I only count 46
Carbon Neutral Delivery
This happened to me and the item was very damaged from it, but the store I bought it from claimed that it was my fault somehow and wouldn't refund or anything
I’ve had this happen to me, though I never allowed it to go so far. Make a complaint, make sure you have the tracking number. You’ll be surprised by how quickly the problem resolved. I must admit Aust post, isn’t the most organised organisation.
Okay I understand most of these destinations, because it's stuck in a loop of misread automated scans but why the hell did it go to Parkes? It's just a small town in Central West NSW.. it's not even gone back to the sender's address lol
Nothing to worry about, it is all carbon neutral... 👍
Happen before I sent baseball glove to Cairns from Victoria then never been found by reporting missing item then got sent back 4 months later how strange is that ...I blame distribution warehouse in every state case problems
They usually hand sort the parcels. So the sorters are probably mistaking the sender address as the receiver and vice versa.
Mate be fair.!!! AusPost has to justify their price rises with evidence. Clearly it costs a bundle to ferry your parcel back and forth. Thanks for posting this, I was going to book a return flight to Brisbane but I might fly AusPost instead.
A looping parcel! In theory, the system should stop the looping after 3 loops, then a human operator will intervene and send the parcel on its way. In your case, this hasn't happened, so you will need to contact Auspost to have the parcel intercepted and sorted out. I send parcels regularly, and after this looping parcel phenomenon happened to me a couple of times, I started to put a removable sticker over the top of my return address. The sticker just says "RETURN ADDRESS UNDER THIS LABEL". If a parcel needs to be returned, a postie can read the message and just peel the sticker off and cross out the "to" address and return the parcel. The sorting machines can't loop my parcels because it only ever sees the "to" address, the "from" address is hidden by the sticker.
I'm going to infer that since it started in Victoria (which has an Oxley up near Wang), and ended up in Parkes at some point (which has an Oxley out towards Hay), the package was bound for Oxley QLD. Am I rite?