Sydney residents claim suburb name change has caused delivery chaos
For as long as most of us can remember, the mail has always been delivered to our front door.
So, you can imagine the shock when next to nothing arrived for hundreds of residents in Sydney’s north-west.
One mother, in the newly named Nirimba Fields, even had a spreadsheet to keep track of her lost parcel items, with some others waiting more than two months for their mail and parcels to arrive.
“It goes everywhere, just not my house,” one resident, Suresh, told A Current Affair.
Nirimba Fields was born in November last year – it was formerly Schofields.
Another resident, Emma, said the drama with the mail only started after the suburb name changed.
“It’s pretty extreme, but it doesn’t shock me anymore,” she said.
While most of the residents have moved their bills to online payments, the surge in parcel deliveries during COVID-19 lockdowns has increased the problem.
Mother-of-two Divya said she even created a spreadsheet to keep track of her lost items.
Fifteen are currently missing.
“I can’t explain the trauma I’ve been through,” she said.
“The person who is sorting that might not be recognising Nirimba Fields as a suburb, I don’t know.”
Another mother, Bunty, said she’d been waiting two months for a package of new dresses for her daughter.
Australia Post’s tracking system clearly showed the item reached the nearest distribution centre multiple times before it was sent away.
“‘Is it really moving?’ that’s my first question, and second is, ‘will it ever get here’?”
Many of the residents said in most cases they’d get a notification from the seller that it was “the wrong address” and then they’d have to chase refunds.
Australia Post Statement:
Our team is working hard to deliver record volumes of parcels as we manage border closures, reduced flights and COVID-safe restrictions across our network and these do create challenges and some delays, however our posties and delivery drivers are delivering as quickly and safely as they can.
We are also aware that since the change some items bound for Nirimba Fields have been incorrectly addressed by a sender including the previous postcode or suburb, which can also cause some delays.
Where possible we intervene and redirect mail that has been incorrectly addressed, however sometimes these items are sent to the delivery facility as addressed which extends delivery times.
We understand this is frustrating for residents and we’re working to keep delivering their parcels and mail quickly, and we ask residents to help us by checking that their address details with service providers are correct so we can process their mail efficiently.
