I can report that the South African Post Office website, www.postoffice.co.za, has been suffering from an intermittent hosting and connection issues since January 2010.
Many customers who use the website to track parcels and letters have been left stranded since mid January, with no other option other than to call the call centre or visit a branch in person.
The popular consumer complaint website, HelloPeter.com, has received more than 600 complaints about the Post Office in the last 12 months. Many complaints relate to the failure of the Post Office website.
Closer investigation reveals that the website has an expired security certificate. The website issues are especially unfortunate for the Post Office, since it has been attempting to rid itself of the common perception amongst South Africans that it is inept, inefficient and corrupt.
Numerous attempts to establish the exact reason for the failure have been met with the “we are investigating” response.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has been contacted for comment but no response has been received to-date.
Sirs. We are not satisfied with the bad service that we are currently recieving at one of your branch here in pretoria, church square. I spoke to the manager and he told me that i must contact the head office and really it frustrate us to be attended by two or three people and the cue is long. It is hard just to buy a mere envelop. It really taking us 20 to 30 minutes to waiting on the line. We are not just a bunch of people and time its important for us. Should you not remedy the situation within a month i will personally report your bad service to the appropriate authority. We are tired of your bad service. Trust you will find the above in order and propley do the necessary. Youss faithfully CUSTOMER
For the third time this year (2010) after April, I tried to download the SA post office’s rates booklet in PDF form. The link for it is even titled: Post Office new Rates booklet. Well, today is the 19th of October 2010 and the only booklet that I downloaded now for the third time is the one that covers March 2009 till March 2010!
The only reason that I can think of, is that since the post office apply affirmative action fanatically since 1994, they employ pathetic, incompetent, lazy and I-feel-a-f**k type of black people.
They deserves every inch of their pathetic reputation. Anybody noticed what salary and bonus their boss got last year? In my opinion, that ‘performance’ bonus as the government calls it, can also be called theft of taxpayers’ money.
I am attempting to find a South African Postal Code Database I feel a bit skeptical about finding one that is up to date and accurate if at all after reading comments from my fellow tax paying South Africans. This culture of non-service delivery must stop an empowerment must start to move away from making managers to making educated South Africans with work ethics.
Post Office website: totally unpredictable – sometimes it downloads, other times not. Domestic Tracking website not working for months; phone your local Post Office to locate parcel – cannot assist. How is it that ANYTHING posted, gets delivered these days ? Post in Howick KZN, is delivered once a week, if you’re lucky! Hopefully there will be zero performance bonuses for Post Office officials and workers in 2011.
I can only aplaud these two guys for telling it like it is. This country is going down the toilet faster than you can say “flush”. The post office employees here at the Wonderpark Shopping Centre in Pretoria, Karenpark, are some of the laziest and rudest f%^&*ng staff ever. Even after I’ve seen that the parcel has been scanned at the branch, when you go just with your tracking number, the response first is, ” When should it be here ? ” Followed by, it has not arived yet” Then, I go back home, print the fucking thing, and go and show them, here, proof !!!! Then, Ok, here is your parcel !!!!! See my f#$king frustration with this F%^@ing lot !!!!!! I feel like I could actualy throw one of them with their own computer screen !!!! Just so they can wake the hell up !!! First they cry we dont have work, thats why we steel, then they get work, then they don’t just give a shit !!!!!
I order a lot of things nowadays from a online store based in durban. In the past 4 months, i ordered 7 parcels of which all of them took 2 days to be scanned in at pretoria hub, and after that, the one that reached my post office first took 3 weeks from pretoria hub to my closest post office (which is also in pretoria) and the longest was 5 weeks. Everytime i went to the post office, their excuse was, “the strike of 2 months ago backlogged posts”
Their all just plain pathetic. After i received the last parcel, i decided to use a different delivery company, and on average it is delivered the next afternoon after i ordered it.
I will never again use the post office, even if it costs me more than double.