Triple = a box three times the size of the smallest size

In that case it's the same size as mine, so you're paying a premium for having it at the GPO. I reckon you'd find it cheaper at your local post office.

Just renewed my PO box for another year. Clerk insisted I gave her my email address. I told her AusPost already has it as I have a digital mailbox. She insisted nonetheless. She entered it into their system in upper case.

So, I get home to find two emails from AusPost, with my email address in upper case, each telling me that I have 'a new letter' in my digital mailbox. First 'new letter' tells me about digital mailbox (which I already have) and second 'new letter' comprises 3 blank pages.

For this the CEO of AusPost is paid $4.8 million per annum.

It is a case of 'Big Data' where outlets just collect as much information about their customers as possible so they have something to flog off to a spammer down the track. I remember back to when Harris Technology opened for business back around 2000 and I went in there to buy something (I don't remember what it was now) and when I went to pay for it I was asked for name, address, phone number, e-mail, work phone number, the lot. When I asked what all that information was to be used for the counter staff said it was for warranty purposes.

Errrr pardon? Warranty on purchased goods is valid no matter what and I had a ten minute argument with them before just dropping the item on the counter and leaving. I should also say that under Common Law there is a seven year guarantee on the merchantable quality of any item sold in NSW whether it is a box of matches or a plasma television - although it would take some money to enforce that so most people either don't know they have that right or cannot afford to be bothered with it.

These days, Harris Technology is a shadow of its former self - conducting online sales only as far as I can fathom.

As for e-mail addresses, I have four that I host myself, each one used for different things. I have a Hotmail one which I use to link all the Windows gadgets I have, laptop, phone, tablet, etc; and last but most importantly, when I need a product or service and people demand e-mail contact I just give them my Bigpond webmail one, which I only use to let all those bloody fools market their crap to /dev/null. As Bigpond allows copious amounts of spam to flood their free accounts anyway it does no harm to permit a bit more.

went to pay for it I was asked for name, address, phone number, e-mail, work phone number, the lot.

One thing I dreaded about buying stuff at Tandy in its early days was they pumped you for name and address every time, using the 'it's for the warranty' line. They used to hand write sales dockets via Kalamazoo machines. Inevitably you'd then receive a barrage of junk mail in the post.

It got to the point where I'd make up name and address or for small purchases just put the correct money on the counter and leave saying "keep the docket".

The Good Guys wants all your details too, last time I bought something I simply refused to give the info, I paid, got my receipt and left with my TV - and never went back. It was a CRT TV, which shows how long ago it was.

Any place that tries that stunt, I never go back.

Tandy was different, I didn't mind getting the catalogs in the mail back then, I'd always find something on special that I wanted. The dockets were all hand-written with carbon paper sheets (remember them?). Once Tandy turned into an expensive Dick Smith, I stopped going there.

Yeah, I remember those old receipt books. A few places had them before the computer days and I remember Tandy at Burwood Plaza not even having a cash register. They always took the money into the back office and came back with the change.

Thought you'd get a laugh from the following. My recent experience with AP.


In transit
Processed through Australia Post facility 5:31pm Fri 19 Feb Chullora, NSW

In transit
Processed through Australia Post facility 3:37pm Thu 18 Feb Underwood, QLD

In transit
Processed through Australia Post facility 5:20pm Wed 17 Feb Chullora, NSW

In transit
Processed through Australia Post facility 8:42pm Tue 16 Feb Wendouree, VIC

In transit
Received by Australia Post 12:53pm Tue 16 Feb Ballan, VIC


That was before it was delivered to Frenchs Forest.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

Lucky they don't charge by the kilometre.

My main gripe with Australia Post is delays. When we were notified by post of a rental property inspection, a legal requirement, the letter took 7 working days to arrive within the same town (Daylesford, Victoria), two days after we'd been inspected. The previous mailout had been partly lost by the post office, so this was the second attempt to notify us. Fortunately the estate agent rang us to check we'd got the second letter, which we hadn't, but because of that, at least we knew when the agent was coming over.

Tandy's demand for name and address for the most trivial purchase was unusual and annoying at the time, but it didn't result in a pile of junk mail. It just wasted time. If I remember correctly, you had to write the details in block capitals in rows of data-entry "boxes".

it didn't result in a pile of junk mail

Dunno about you but I was put on their mailing list for regular sales catalogues. Interestingly, I also found myself on Readers Digest mailing list at around the same time as Tandy started mailing me stuff.

So far so good, I have had good experiences with Australia post, however NEVER take it for granted that a seller knows how to properly pack an Item. I have been collecting 78 records for some time now, Rock and roll, Blues and Jazz and some classical as I am a guitarist and love music... All types, recently I was overjoyed to win an auction on Ebay for a Dame Nellie Melba record from 1905 for $11 and was over the moon, only to be shattered when it was packed like a vinyl record, just between two pieces of cardboard and arrived in two pieces... Almost vandalism! So I always message sellers to sound them out about packaging, as no refund makes good the senseless destruction of a piece of treasure!

NEVER take it for granted that a seller knows how to properly pack an Item

That's for sure. I always make clear exactly how I want the item packed and I emphasize that it will be tossed around by cargo handlers en route and that is why I want it packed as directed. My money; my packing rules.

I have stood and watched, out of their view, AusPost van drivers at the rear of a post office literally throwing parcels out of and into their vans. Oh for a video camera at the time.

I recently had a rare transistor radio sent from the USA. The seller not only did what I asked, he went overboard. I thanked him for it and gave him glowing feedback.

Ok how is it that I can order a book from England and pay by cheque in the mail and I get the book with in one week. As opposed to a similar book store in Sydney taking two weeks to deliver to Tamworth NSW. This was in the early nineties when we had no internet and actually had to phone the book shop in England.

Yeah we used to send VCR upper head drums to Manchester Colour Electronic Services (MCES) from here in Tennant Creek, NT by normal snail-mail, about 5 days later the phone used to ring at 11pm and a chap with a British accent said to post a cheque for XX amount in GBP, which we duly did the next day by going to the local bank and getting an overseas draft and posting it in a standard envelope.

Approx 10 days later the refurbished head drum turned up and was fitted and it had way more RF output than the original and no tracking noise whatsoever.

That was back when we had 2 daily flights per day 7 days a week 365. Fokker F28's and a twice daily air freight plane either a Learjet or a Westwing, operated by TNT air couriers.
Then came the union boss prime minister of the day and said Australia had to have fringe benefits tax and that killed all of our mining, meatworks and other industries, so that spelled the end of our air-mail, air freight and passenger services by making them economically unviable. not to mention our clients disappeared too...

Hence that created the start of FIFO... but that is another story, not for this forum...

No more overnight parts from WES etc, now it takes nearly a week..!!

I once received an income tax assessment notice in the mail that was dog-eared, scorched and been wet, telling me how much income and provisional tax to pay, I enquired as to why and it transpired (I found out from the truckies) that the trailer containing the mail bags towed behind a interstate bus company had burnt out a wheel bearing and the trailer caught on fire.

The Stuart highway from Glendambo, SA to the NT border was still a corrugated dirt road... but we lost several letters from interstate clients that had operations up this way we had done work for and their cheque payments were totally destroyed.. missing...not turned up..
Rotten luck I say....

I ordered 2 class D audio amp ICs from Melbourne recently, they were in one of AP's prepaid satchell with a tracking # but they vanished off the face of the earth for 6 weeks, all the while we had a commercial customer leaping up and down at me for the delays.....
The articles to this day were never scanned at either end, they just turned up after 6 weeks......

Then I needed 12 valve springs for a 225 Valiant engine which was powering my trusty steed for repairing HF radios all over the NT and out bush on the cattle stations...there was not 12 in Australia (then) with the result that 5 had to come from Adelaide and 7 came from the USA.... guess what the 7 turned up to Tennant Creek before the 5 from SA ......!!!

The delivery service from RS in Melbourne is really fast, considering I'm 100km from the city centre. I needed a couple of PP9 batteries for my Ultra radio; I ordered them on Sunday, and they arrived on Tuesday morning, no extra charge for the distance!