Ombudsman’s report on carded postal items

The Commonwealth and Postal Industry Ombudsman, Prof. John McMillan, today released a report on Australia Post’s use of cards to alert an addressee that a postal item is awaiting collection.

‘There has been an increase in complaints to my office about mail carding practices,’ said Prof. McMillan. ‘The issue is significant as carded items such as parcels and registered mail tend to be the more valuable mail.

‘Given the increase both in parcel services, and complaints about carding, we decided to conduct an investigation to ascertain whether improvements can be introduced in carding and delivery practices.’

Notification cards are left by Australia Post for bulky items that cannot be delivered, items that require a signature, where no-one is present to take delivery of an item, and for mail that cannot be delivered for some other reason (such as no letterbox).

The complaints to the Ombudsman have mainly been about the following issues:

  • a postal item that should have been carded was left at the addressee’s premises and was damaged, broken open or stolen
  • no card was left for an item, and the addressee was unaware the item was awaiting collection; in some complaints, the mail item was returned to the sender
  • a card was left in a mailbox with no attempt made to deliver the item, even though the addressee was home at the time
  • a carded item could not be found at the post office on presentation of a card, and was deemed ‘lost’
  • a carded item was given to someone unknown to the addressee.

The Ombudsman’s report recommended that Australia Post review its carding and delivery practices to see if improvements that were operationally and commercially viable could be made. Australia Post responded positively to the report, and advised that a national communications program would be undertaken to provide better guidance to parcel delivery officers on some of the issues identified in the report.

Australia Post would also consider, in the longer term, the viability of introducing notification cards with peel-off barcodes to improve the identification of carded parcels.

Prof. McMillan noted that the aim of the report was to highlight areas of concern and to promote discussion on possible solutions. The Ombudsman’s office will continue to monitor complaints about carding and delivery of postal items.

Download the report: Australia Post—Use of notification cards.

Date of release: 23 December 2008