Us sunburnt types do not have the luxury of multiple carriers when we want to send items to far flung corners of our upside down country. We have one option to send things to some places, and that option is only Australia Post.
I sent a parcel, to some far flung corner of the Australian map on the 12th of May. This parcel contained some items that were placed lovingly into a used Amazon shipping box, had a computer generated label, and much tape to secure the contents.
On the Fourth of June, the parcel had its last update. It went from Adelaide, to Melbourne. To Somewhere in Queensland. Then it back tracked to Sydney. From there, it went to Brisbane. What a journey.
The person I sent it to, family, asked where the thing they were expecting was. They contacted Australia Post at some point in late June to ask a few questions. Those questions went unanswered.
I called them to do the same. There were a few emails. They looked. They told me to contact the delivery contractor. The person expecting the parcel did. They told them they couldn't track individual items as they were palletised for delivery to the final destination.
So, its lost? "Oh, but you can have some compensation!"
Yes, I'd like that. How?
"Through our compensation team?"
"That's great. How?"
"Just send them the receipts of what was in the parcel!"
How helpful.
I suggested that they compensate me beyond the standard $100 on offer. I suggested that it would not be worth their time investigating further, going through the procedural checks, because I was prepared (and believe me, I was prepared to provide all the evidence - and .... repeat it, as I had provided all the evidence to Australia Post approximately fourteen times at this point)
Silence. For a week. Then for another. I raised a complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the place you go to complain about when government services don't work out the way you expect.
I haven't gotten a reply at this point. Until miraculously, the day after, I get a phone call from a helpful bloke who informed me of the process. He wouldn't take my repeated word for it. He would want a statutory declaration.
In it, I'd need to include:
The value of the items, The purchase price, How I determined the purchase price, how much I paid for postage, the contents of the parcel. My identity. The tracking number. An explanation of the life story of an inanimate parcel
Stat Decs are a government document that you can have witnessed, and then they are really, really true - as opposed to you honestly saying something in a letter. Because they're really true (and there's some sort of a crime for lying on them.)
Anyway, I wrote one up, but I really wanted to figure out the sum total contents of the box. Would I need to declare how many nitrogen and oxygen atoms were lost by Australia post, and assign to them, too, a value?
Would I be able to find one of the government approved officials with the sufficient scientific rigour to validate my claims? Probably not. So I filled it and sent it off. And I'm still fucking waiting.
