24th October – An email from the online store said that my item had been posted.
4th November – The item hadn’t arrived, so I rang the Orders department (several times) but no one answered. I thought that was strange.
5th November – A few more phone calls but still no one answered so I rang the Sales department. I spoke to someone who blamed staff changeover and said the item would arrive ‘some time’. I told him that no one in ‘Orders’ was picking up the phone and he said there was nothing he could do about that. I thought that was even stranger.
6th November – I finally got through to someone in Orders, who said they’d look into it and ring me back
That afternoon, Warren from M3 Logistics rang and said that the parcel was supposed to be couriered on the 24th October but the label had fallen off and it had sat on “somebody’s desk for a week” waiting for someone to ring and report it missing. Hmmmmmmmmm……
Warren said that it should arrive that afternoon. It didn’t.
7th November (Friday) – I rang Warren back. He said that it “should arrive today” and that he would get someone to ring me regarding delivery. It didn’t. They didn’t.
I rang back in the afternoon but Warren had already left for the weekend.
10th November (Monday) I rang Warren, who thought that I should have received the item. Strangely (again) he seemed to think that I would find that reassuring. He’d ring Australian Air Express (who apparently took over from M3 Logistics) and then ring me back.
Warren did ring back to apologise because the item had been dropped at the Hay Post Office last week. I was apparently supposed to go and pick it up. I told him that the Hay Post Office was 210 km away but he said that there was ‘nothing more he could do’……… except to give me the consignment number.
I rang the Hay Post Office and they searched the Ivanhoe bags but no parcel. The consignment number was no good to them. They said that Hay Taxi Trucks would have delivered it to the Post Office. They apparently took over from AAE. The Post Office suggested I ring them, to find out what day last week the item was dropped off. They also said that Hay Taxi Trucks have a palm reader and one of the Post Office staff would have signed at the time of delivery.
I rang Hay Taxi Trucks but no one could remember the parcel and there was no way that they could ascertain whether it had been delivered because they ‘wiped’ all information once the parcel was processed. The consignment number was no good to them either. They suggested that I try the Store, or Presso’s or the Post Office in Ivanhoe……….
And on and on it went until eventually the parcel did arrive and all was well.
This was not a one-off experience as a previous saga had seen the courier companies take my parcel from Sydney to Adelaide (you have to ask why) to Broken Hill and then to Wilcannia (just 187 km up the road) where it was left at the Shire Depot (rather than the post office) where it sat for days while I tried to track it down.
The lesson to be learned is to never use a courier to send a parcel to Ivanhoe. Most couriers have no idea where Ivanhoe is and once they realise, they pass it on to another courier and then another and another until it gets to within a couple of hundred kilometres, at which stage it is decided that ‘near enough is good enough’ and there it stays until someone with lots of patience and way too much time on her hands, asks “Where’s my parcel?”
So let there never be another harsh word against Australia Post, who always manage to get my parcels to me on time.
And while everyone is now counting their postal blessings, spare a thought for the good folks of Ivanhoe who, like Nigel and I in 2 days’ time, travel 350 kms to get to the nearest dentist. We’ll be staying the night (at a Caravan Park – not at the dentist’s) and then making the return trip the next day…………….. only to do it all again in a few weeks when my new crown is ready.
Married to a Country Cop 