Letters and packages
Number of postal complaints is increasing
There is an illegible collection slip in the mailbox and the corresponding package is nowhere to be found: Consumers also write a complaint to the post office because of such situations – and the number is increasing.
Be it late, incorrectly delivered or completely lost letters and packages: the Federal Network Agency has received significantly more complaints about the post office and other logistics companies than before. In the first three quarters of this year, around 31,700 entries were recorded from consumers, a quarter more than in the same period last year, as the supervisory authority announced in response to a dpa request in Bonn. In the first nine months of 2023 there were 26,000 postal complaints.
Although it concerns the entire German postal and parcel industry, around 90 percent of the complaints are directed against the market leader DHL, whose mail business is called Deutsche Post. Recently, the increase in complaints had leveled off somewhat: in September there were 3,400 critical requests to speak, around 100 more than in the same month last year. The proportion of complaints out of the billions of shipments sent in Germany every year is very small.
In response to the number of complaints, a Post spokesman points out that other companies may also be responsible for the defects complained about. As part of so-called partial services, the post office receives mail from other, smaller and only regionally active letter companies, which the post office then delivers nationwide – it is obliged to do so. According to the Bonn company, delays are often not its fault, but rather the fault of the companies that previously handed over the letters to them very late for further transport.
The Post spokesman also complained that the Federal Network Agency only made a fraction of the complaints available. This is incomprehensible for the postal service because it would then not be able to get a comprehensive picture of the complaints. The number of complaints handed over to the post office by the Federal Network Agency is declining, according to the spokesman for the Bonn logistics company. “Nevertheless, every complaint is one too many and we regret if customers are not satisfied with our service.”
dpa
Source: Stern
