Collecting mail - problem

A bit of a worry.

I have used c/o Post Office Bunbury, or whatever a few times and have not had a problem.

I use the State and post code, but have never used a streeet address.

I would say that you have run into the big city way of thinking, "not inside the box" give it the flick or I can't think laterally !
We recently moved form the big smoke to a small country town and the attitude to customers is totally diffferent especially the Post Office. You have probably had your mail sent to country places up till now where they still provide a service unlike the city and burbs.
Letters addressed to the right name but wrong street or even no street address just the town arrive ok. Mum is getting very forgetful these days ;-))

Hi David

I can see that as it did not say Post Office, mail sorters (who may even be sub contractors) didn't recognise the world wide accepted terminology, and are probably still looking for the "Post Restaurant" which was not in their suburb.

I am somewhat astonished at the advice re no collection services; something people on the move have always used. Even in the town where i live, some people not in a delivery area do not rent a post office box like we do, and collect their mail regularly over the counter. As i understood it, mail address to a person at a town must be held for a specified number of days before return to sender. If i did need to receive mail, i would choose a small town rather than a large centre as it is easier to find the post office, easier to park, and much nicer to stay if there are delays.

How much of a need do you have to receive physical mail? There are many mail agencies that in additional to a mail forwarding service to the places you specify as you travel, offer an alternative service to open, scan and email the mail. I am fortunate that i have family to collect, open and screen mail when we are travelling. 99% of it is junk that we do not want to see. Our daughter deals with any immediate issues, scans important mail and emails them to me, and lists the bills for us to pay electronically. This includes all business as well as personal mail (very little of the latter as i write emails not letters). I deal on line with banks, share companies and any other businesses where this is possible. If a form needs signing we can print it off from a USB drive at a public internet centre, sign and post. In around 12 months of longer trips split over three years we have never needed physical mail.

Motherhen

When we travelled we had our mail sent to a friend. She sorted out the junk/crap mail first then put the rest in a bundle and taped it together with sticky tape. She then wrote "please forward to" ...What ever post office we told her. She wrote down the bottom "please hold". The post office would hold it for about 3 weeks before returning it as it had please hold on it. We forgot to collect one lot and rang the post offic 3 weeks later and they still had it. We asked if they could forward it to us and 3 days later we had it. Never had a problem with them not holding it.

Josh

Our housesitters are going to forward our mail to us while we are away this year, We bought a heap of Express Post envelopes to put our forwarded mail in, and when I asked the post office on Monday how the envelopes should be addressed, the response was "our name, Poste Restante, c/- Post Office Name. She said post offices will only hold mail for four weeks.

Hi David,

We have been travelling for around 3 months and have had our mail sent to us every 4 weeks so far.

I had arranged a friend to Express post our mail using bags I had already prepurchased before we left home.

However.....we have very quickly learnt that the more towns you visit away from a capital city, you're wasting your money buying Express post bags. For example, our mail was sent from Adelaide to Broome (Express post bag) and it took a week.

Regarding addressing our mail, all of our mail iis always addressed in the same manner using Broome as an example:

TO BE COLLECTED
Our Name
C/- Post Office
BROOME WA 6725

If the town has multiple post offices, then the street address would also be included to assist it being delivered to the one you want.

All mail is held for 4 weeks at the post office before being returned to sender if not collected.

Where you can't hang around for the mail and need to move on, you can call Australia Post and arrange to have it forwarded on somewhere else. If the item weighs less than 500 grams they will forward it for free, otherwise they charge you $5.50 per item which you'll pay for when you collect the item at the other end.

Hope this helps.

David,

I had a look around and I suspect I can see what has happened, the "big city' comment may be correct in a way.

In a single PO town a c/o is ok as per the website (below)

Dural has more than one PO and most locations you visited possibly ony had one main PO.

That said I have found...

Important Information about the Mail Redirection service

Period of service
Australia Post needs three full working days (Monday to Friday) from the date your application is lodged to start your Mail Redirection service. For a permanent move, you must select from either the one, three, six or twelve month service. For a temporary move, you must select a date for the service to finish.
Private AND business applications
Blah Blah Blah

Then

Redirecting mail to "care of post office"
Applications to redirect mail to "care of post office" are only accepted where there is no street delivery available, or the applicant does not have a fixed address. The post office must be in Australia.


More Blah.....

So accordint to this the lady is not correct and is reading this wrong.

Post office click here

To locate a PO address if needed try Post Office Addresses click here

Gooday,
We have a PO Box at a small Franchised PO and we had the agreement of the owner that we bought a few 3KG Express Post Satchels, FILLED THEM IN ALL EXCEPT THE PO WHERE THEY WERE TO GO TO and left the approximate number with them. When we need mail forwarded, usually once a week, we would fax them ( Not Phone), when we needed it sent with address to be sent to. They would stick all the mail in the Satchel and it arrived a couple or so days later depending on locality no charge made.
Our PO has changed hands recently and have not had occasion to ask new Proprietor whether he will keep the same deal but past 2 owners have been only too happy to oblige, will be disappointed if they do not.
Cheers,
Boroma604.

Thank you all very much for your comments. Much appreciated.
I think Ozhumvee hit the nail on the head with his comment re big city way of thinking. I'm sure it would have been OK if we'd addressed it to Sydney 2000, the problem here being that it was a suburban PO and a number of small towns shared the same postcode... albeit only one Dural to which it was addressed.
The lady on 131318 was really quite offhand and rude, and had never heard of Poste Restante. Not good enough for someone on the front line in postal services.
In fairness to Australia Post I have had superb service from them up to now and we have had mail held for us everywhere until this episode in Sydney. But I agree with I'machocoholic that no use in express bags outside of the capital cities, and mail can take up to 5 days from Melbourne to outback WA. On the one occasion it took a week (Hyden WA - 7 days) we had left and the Hyden people happily sent on to Norseman but warned us it could take another 5 days; in fact it was there the next day.
Australia Post have now replied nicely to my message on their website... as follows...
"Dear Mr Hogg,
Thank you for your enquiry on our website.
Customers can have their mail addressed to them 'care of' a post office and can then collect their mail over the counter on presentation of ID. This is ideal for customers who travel around the country or have no fixed address. Mail is held for one month before being returned to sender.
Mail should be addressed:
[customer name]
C/O [post office, state and postcode]
For example:
John Smith
C/O Brisbane GPO QLD 4000.
The C/O service is definitely available for people travelling as you area and is recognised by Australia Post.
One reason that we require you send items C/O a specific Post Office as opposed to simply Post Restante a specific suburb/town is that some areas may have more than one collection point in the same suburb/town. While many Delivery Centres and Post Offices will recognise mail sent "Post Restante", it is preferred that items be sent "C/O [post office, state and postcode]" as this is the correct format.
On behalf of Australia Post, I apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment this matter has caused you.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Morris | Digital & Contact Centres - eServices | Australia Post
Online Services Consultant"
A big thank you to all correspondents at Exploreoz. Cheers. David Hogg