NZ Post reviews missing mail rule
NEW ZEALAND Post is reviewing its ‘missing mail’ rule to help customers who do not receive their post and parcels.
The company currently operates a 14 day cut-off policy for an investigation to take place if mail does not arrive
But Wellington lawyer Michael Wigley said the fine print in the company’s terms and conditions could come in for scrutiny following amendments to the Fair Trading Act.
‘‘It is the kind of thing that is potentially at risk of being an unfair contract term, especially if it is is buried deep in ‘terms and conditions’ and can’t easily be seen,’’ he said.
Wigley said the rule was the kind of clause the Commerce Commission could now be expected to have a close look at.
The act was changed in March to give the Commerce Commission the power to take court action over ‘‘unfair’’ clauses in standard contracts.
Trade Me spokesman Paul Ford said NZ Post’s missing mail clause had sometimes caused issues for its members as ‘‘often buyers don’t realise an item is missing until around the 14-day mark’’.
A NZ Post spokeswoman said it was confident the 14 day cutoff was legally sound, but said it was being reviewed as part of a ‘‘reissue’’ of its terms and conditions in July.
‘‘We ask customers to lodge claims for items when delivery has been disputed within 14 days to maximise the chances of locating those items,’’ she said.
‘‘When delivery has been disputed, we require our staff in stores, processing centres, delivery branches, and on the road, to recall specific details.’’
NZ Post is under the gun for deciding to halve urban deliveries to three days a week from July and has revealed that it might cut more middle-management jobs and branches.
There may be no easy way to tell how many letters and parcels go missing in the mail each year, as NZ Post has only scant information on the complaints it receives.
The state-owned enterprise revealed that it received one complaint on average for every 17,500 to 18,500 letters and parcels that passed through its network each year between 2012 and 2014. That would mean it was either doing a little better than Britain’s Royal Mail or Kiwis are less complaining than the Brits. The Royal Mail told the BBC in 2012 that it received one complaint for every 13,000 items it delivered in 2010-11.
Almost 90 per cent of the complaints NZ Post received related to missing mail. But it admitted its systems didn’t record whether complaints were resolved to customers’ satisfaction.
Nor was it possible to tell whether its performance was getting better or worse.
The complaint-rate didn’t change significantly during the three-year period and NZ Post said a switch to a new ‘‘customer management database’’ meant it would be too expensive and time consuming to source information about complaints dating further back than March 2012.
NZ Post will accept claims only from the sender of an item, from whom it will require proof of posting.
Paul Ford said Trade Me regarded it as the seller’s responsibility to ensure items were safely delivered, and that was legally the case if they were professional traders. ‘‘Our advice is that buyers give a seller a maximum of seven days for an item to arrive and then act quickly, he said. ‘‘It’s important to get the issue on the seller’s radar so they can chase up with their carrier.
‘‘If you’re buying from a New Zealand seller who is ‘in trade’, the Consumer Guarantees Act also applied,’’ he said.