Failed to deliver: Lazy Australia Post driver caught on camera

WE’VE all suspected this — waiting at home for a package only to find a “failed to deliver” note. Here’s proof the postie doesn’t always ring once.

WE’VE all been there — waiting at home for the postie to deliver an urgent package.

You cancel your plans, peer hopefully out of the window, take the phone off the hook and turn down the TV to make sure you don’t miss sound of the doorbell or a knock.

And then, on the 47th desperate poke of your head outside the door, you look down and there it is: the slip.

“We tried to deliver your package, but you weren’t home,” the mocking card reads.

You’re furious at this point, as Sydney mum Julie Salama was yesterday.

The difference is, she has the video proof.

Ms Salama was fuming when she discovered a note slipped under her door as she waited quietly at home for an urgent business delivery via Australia Post.

She knew she couldn’t have missed a genuine attempt to deliver her parcel, so went to review the footage captured by her home CCTV security system.

Approach empty-handed, deposit slip, and run. This is how an attempt to deliver a parcel in western Sydney on Monday went down.

When Ms Salama saw the courier’s attempt to deliver the package to her Merrylands home in Sydney’s west, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“I was just so frustrated, he didn’t even have a parcel under his arm,” she tells news.com.au.

Footage from Ms Salama’s security camera shows a delivery driver park his van on the street and approach her home. The driver appears to be holding only a slip of paper, which he places under the door and quickly returns to the car.

“No knock, no doorbell, nothing,” Ms Salama said.

“I don’t even understand why he put it under the door if he was never going to deliver the parcel — the letterbox is closer.”

Ms Salama says she was annoyed at the lazy postie, but the real ordeal began at 4.30pm, the time the slip advised her delivery would be available to collect. After waiting at home, she had to bundle up her three children — all under the age of eight — for a trip to Merrylands post office where she was forced to wait for 40 minutes to claim her delivery.

They look sweet now, but you try herding three kids under eight in a busy post office on a Monday afternoon. Julie Salama pictured with her children.

The Merrylands business owner, who runs specialty cake business Razzle Dazzle Cakes, says the bungled delivery cost her almost a full day of work and caused her a massive headache, but she didn’t receive much sympathy from the postal service.

“I rang Star Track (Australia Post’s courier company) and complained a bit but they said put a complaint through to Australia Post, who said ‘they’re not from us, they’re just contractors’, so they’re palming off the blame to each other,” she said.

“When I put it on Facebook a lot of people said the same thing happened to them. It’s not just about me, it’s a real problem especially leading up to Christmas and especially when we’re doing so much of our shopping online.”

In a statement to news.com.au, a spokeswoman for Australia Post said the situation would be taken up with the driver directly.

“We apologise to our customer and we are extremely disappointed in the actions of this driver and will be following up with him directly,” the statement said.

“As an organisation we take great pride in the safe and timely delivery of parcels. In this case the driver has not followed policy, which is to knock and call out to see if anyone is home before leaving a card.”

A quick scan of Australia Post’s social media profiles affirms Ms Salama’s feeling she’s not the only one apparently missing phantom parcel delivery attempts.

So NOT impressed to be home all day only to find a "FAILURE TO DELIVER" notice on my front doorstep and THEN have no-one...

Posted by Debbie Pamment on Sunday, November 22, 2015

The once government-run business’s Facebook page is regularly bombarded with posts about lazy couriers.

“Just looove your delivery people ... not!!!” dissatisfied customer Dianne Elizabeth wrote yesterday.

“Just had one leave here after they slipped a card under my ajar front door, TV on, family home. No knock or ring of the doorbell. Just caught them leaving ... too late though. Fabulous!!!! Now I have to trek to the post office to collect 2 heavy boxes. Great effort!!!!”

Other accounts from customers detail receiving multiple “failure to deliver” notices while being home, and even claiming couriers “lying about delivering parcels”.

“Just wanted to confirm that you guys are called Australia Post, and not Australia Never Post?” another customer said.

Australia Post told news.com.au “the vast majority” of its drivers did the right thing, and where customers had concerns, they would “look into it”.