Letters and packages: More complaints about the mail than previously known

Significantly more Germans complained about Deutsche Post and its competitors last year than previously known. As can be seen from the information from the logistics DHL with his letter division Deutsche Post, he received around 420,000 complaints about letters and packages last year. It was about “essential performance disorders in the provision of postal services”, such as loss, expiry, damage and delays.

So far, it was only known that the Federal Network Agency had received around 39,500 symptoms in 2024 who referred to Deutsche Post. Including the competitors, the complaints with the supervisory authority add up to 44,406 – it had never been so many.

Now the Bonn group had to provide information about the symptoms that it had received directly. With around 14 billion letter and package shipments in 2024, the appeal was 0.003 percent. With 420,000 complaints, there were a good ten times more than the Bonn Supervisory Authority.

Postal law reform brings more transparency

In 2024 the amended postal law came into force, which provides for publication. Information from the postal competitors allows you to conclude that you have also received significantly more critical speeches than received by the network agency.

The difference to the figures of the authority should also be due to the fact that not every consumer turns directly to the authority, but first expresses his displeasure with the post or its competitors.

Statistical blurring possible

The Hermes package company states that 0.04 percent of its shipments are lost or damaged. However, this is not the value that refers to the statutory publication obligation – Hermes has not yet published it, although the deadline has expired at the end of January. The relevant complaint value is likely to be higher than 0.04 percent.

UPS has also not yet published a final value, but the company mentions the percentage of 0.0001 percent as an indication – that was the proportion of complaints in relation to the rate of shipment in Germany in Germany. It was about questions about payment processing, about claims from loss, expulsion, damage and service aspects.

DPD names a complaint rate of 0.11 percent. With GLS, the complaint rate is 0.1 percent – on average, every 1000 package leads to a complaint. According to GLS, the shipment is damaged and 0.027 percent of the delivery packages are lost or stolen.

Fedex does not publish a number, “since the wording in the postal law allows a certain scope, which numbers are based on individual service providers, and therefore cannot be given direct comparability”.

A DPD spokesman points out that the collection of the complaint data is associated with a certain methodological uncertainty, since the postal law only makes a rough requirement for recording.

In practice, a delimitation between complaints and general customer inquiries is challenging. The question often arises in day -to -day business whether it is a demand for parcel status or an actual complaint, according to DPD.

Comparability restricted

The values ​​of most package competitors are higher than the mail quota of the post office, but they are not comparable. Because while Hermes & Co. is all about packages, the post group DHL is also concerned with letters – and they traditionally draw much less complaints because people usually wait more urgently than for a letter.

This can also be recognized by the information from the small regional letter competitors of Deutsche Post, which were also obliged to publish. According to its own statements, the Citipost from Hanover has 0.001 percent, PIN Mail GmbH, which is active in Brandenburg, and 0.0008 percent and Xendis from NRW to 0.0025 percent. Upon request, the post does not differentiate how high its complaint rate is only for packages and only for letters.

Post industry praises improvement

Deutsche Post gives its appeals of 0.003 percent very low. “However, it is never completely excluded that in a company with 187,000 employees and around 50 million edited programs a day,” says a company spokesman. “It is our concern to learn from every complaint and to constantly improve us as a quality leader.” The post-competitors also emphasize that they want to improve the quality of service.

The SPD member of the Bundestag Sebastian Roloff evaluates it positively that the changed rules of the postal law lead to more transparency about symptoms. “Where people work, mistakes happen,” says the Social Democrat, adding with a view to the project of the post office to reduce 8,000 jobs by the end of the year: “But the expectation is and remains that with a view to personnel planning it is also ensured that there is no structural mistakes.”