moneypenny20

Yeah, no nothing. They've been as clean as they were when they left the sender's hand. One from Northants, one from Herts. We even all looked at them closely because it just seemed odd.

ozzieeagle

Maybe there were a lot of those letters for different addresses in Australia and it's come in a barcoded tub, initiated at the sending point to one particular address and once there it's been realised as a missort or multi addresses. Must have been hand sorted once it hit Australia, which would go some way to explaining the delay and the lack of bar codes.

Beoz

Evolution .... consider those a promotion.

Be thankful you weren't a fax machine. You would have evolved into something weird like email or a scanner.

ozzieeagle

Bugger that, I started at Post as a driver, with the end result of an aversion to city driving. Hence my love affair with public transport.

A walking round would be good though.

Pollyana

Another tale from my sorting days...... some Eastern European countries, I forget which ones, have 4 digit postcodes.
We came across several letters where people had written the four digits in the boxes on the envelope, thus the machine had sorted them to go to Sydney. When we pointed this out one of the full-time guys said, yeah happens all the time, we just go by the postcode. You must ignore the address.
Sydney of course did the same and the letters just went back and forth Apparently even if the staff see the word ROMANIA or whatever in large print they are allowed to ignore it!

Beoz

You could become one of those contractors. You know, the ones I catch filling out the "you weren't at home" form before they reach the front door.

Rhubarb65

There is mate. Presumably, someone posting a domestic letter in the UK wouldn't put country on the item, but it should have a UK postcode.

Pollyana

Hey Ozzie, can you tell me if there is any truth in this one -one of the Northgate sorters told me the best way to ensure manual sorting, and thus increase the chances of an item going to the right place, fast, is to use a red, orange or gold/silver shiny, envelope.
He reckoned the machines can't read them properly and so spit them out for manual sort.

ozzieeagle

Yes that is the bain of my life, still happens now and that 'tude is nationwide.



The thing is occasionally you will see another country written on a letter that has the correct Australian postcode, that is rare of course but it does happen. The only way to stop this happening is to cross out the post code and altering letters is a bigger crime than misrouting them. I break the fundamental rule and cross out the post code. No one has ever been "Coded" for crossing out a post code, but neither has anyone been coded for following whats written on the letter and they are the official rules.



Bottom line first is the sorters mantra.

ozzieeagle

True Although this new machine has the capacity to read lots of colours. Black envelope with white writing is the way to go.

Pollyana

Perfect

scrubbedexpat020

I emailed Border and they have informed me that a letter may take 5-10 working days to reach us once it has arrived in Australia.

Royal Mail informed my wife that they continue to show 5-7 working days as they have not been informed by Auspost of any issues to provide a different guideline. Recently, Canada, Spain and Italy have informed them of issues that required a change in the target.

Anyway, it looks like the advice to rellies is to allow 4 weeks for delivery to be certain of an on-time birthday card.

quiltman

Pollyana, sign up to the Government Gateway https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/infor....faq.faqcom034 This is for registering if non resident. Once registered , and opting for online communication, you'll get an email from HMRC whenever they want to contact you telling you to log into your account. It works very well, I get all my tax codes, letters etc this way and avoids the you have 14 days to reply but the letter has arrived long after the 14 days has expired!

Pollyana

It wasn't for me, it was for a friend who is travelling and has been using my address. I don't have any dealings for which HMRC need to contact me. This was a one-off, I hope.
Personally, I can't create an account even to check my old NI/pension any longer as I have no UK address therefore it refuses to identify me!

However I don't accept that because that person could have created an account online that Aus Post has any excuse for taking so long to get the letter to us here.

ozzieeagle

I've ordered a package on Ebay which was posted yesterday in Darwin, we at work are expecting it should be delivered by Thursday or Friday of next week at the latest, even Wednesday, just a regular untracked surface brown packaged Item I'd say. If this happens then I'm going to try and do some personal tracking of items to Brisbane.

Btw I know you guys aren't going to believe this, but according to the propaganda electronic wall at work, Aus Post is now running at 91pct first time on time delivery on parcels. Got to say I don't believe it myself either, but that's what the figures are saying. Has anyone noticed the follow up Email tracking, they really are hell bent on maintaining this Amazon contract. They are spending millions of dollars on these trikes that take 3 times the amount of parcels they currently carry as well.

I'll try and get a photo of these figures next week. It flashes by in about 6 secs along with all the other propoganda.... Did you know that the two machines that put into Melbourne and Sydney cost 1 billion dollars.