Christmas may be long gone, but some people are still waiting for their presents to be delivered.
New Zealand Post said it delivered nearly 15 million parcels - a record number - this holiday season, with a 97 percent on-time hit rate.
But not everyone is celebrating. RNZ has been contacted by about 20 people who are still waiting for their Christmas deliveries.
Mel Williams said her mother-in-law sent her three parcels from Australia in early December.
Only one showed up on 18 December.
She said she then spent the next few weeks contacting the company, each time receiving a different answer. One NZ Post staffer told her that the parcels had been delivered and must have been stolen.
"I'm just really disappointed that there are obvious inconsistencies in what they've been saying and there is nothing they are willing to do about that," Williams said.
Williams said it is upsetting to have to tell her children she has no idea where their presents from their grandmother are.
She said the care put in to Christmas parcels by loved ones isn't replaceable.
Business customer also affected
Donna Walker runs a clothing and jewellery business in Auckland and has relied on shipments from China for stock.
"I had no stock for Christmas. I bought six new styles and none of them arrived until after Christmas. I am still waiting on one of the orders because it had to get sent back to China and get resent. I've lost money, you know, and it cost me," Walker said.
She said she contacted NZ Post to sort out the problem, but felt like they didn't care.
NZ Post apology
NZ Post chief operating officer Mark Stewart said last Christmas was their most successful yet, with nearly 15m packages delivered on time.
However, he said with the number of deliveries made during the season, some would slip through.
"We pride ourselves on our service, so when we don't deliver to that expectation we're disappointed to hear that. On behalf of NZ Post I would like to personally apologise to those customers," Stewart said
NZ Post couldn't say how many parcels haven't been delivered yet, because as far as it's aware, all Christmas parcels have been received.
The company has asked anyone missing parcels to contact them.
Stewart said NZ Post hired an extra 558 staff prior to the season, and the plan is to increase that this year.
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Comments
Tips (i know a postie):
1. Find out & use your CORRECT post code, suburb and FULL street address. MANY people use the wrong post code, suburb and/or wrong/insufficient street address (missing flat/apartment number, or PO Box number). Dunedin, Otago Peninsula, and Mosgiel/Taieri have a number of similarly named streets (Gladstone Road, Severn St, Clyde St, Mcglashan St, District Road, Main South Road etc)
https://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/address-postcode-finder
2. ALWAYS put a phone number/email on any mail you SEND, so you can be contacted if something goes wrong.
3. If you get your mail sent to your workplace and you have a PO Box, DON'T put your street address in, just your PO Box number, suburb, and postcode. Otherwise, it'll likely be delayed as it gets sent to the postie to sort instead of straight to your PO Box.
4. Posties DON'T have a magic database to find you if you don't address your mail properly (or the sender doesn't). All they have access to is the White Pages or rates database, just like everyone else. If you're not in them, then it's a waiting game until they get letters etc addressed to the same person.
5. KEEP making complaints until they're sorted!
It gets better, 7 days for a parcel from china to Auckland, it took it 30 days from Auckland to Dunedin! The nzpost snails must be flat out.
If you realise how many parcels posties get every day from China, in every town/city in NZ, on every mail run, some worth only a few cents, then it's amazing they get so many delivered in a decent time frame as it it. It'll easily be in the tens or hundreds of thousands, every day... (countrywide).
Staff in sorting centres apparently get too many to sort so they end up getting backlogged, especially when containers full of them arrive in bulk.