Deutsche Post Growing number of complaints about postal service in the Rhineland
Bonn/Düsseldorf · The Federal Network Agency is handling a growing number of complaints about postal service in the Rhineland. A logistics expert advises using a courier for time-sensitive items.
Deutsche Post has major problems delivering letters in the Rhineland. This can be seen in an evaluation from the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) for our editorial staff. In the seven delivery districts of the Rhineland, the agency has already received 1,790 complaints in the first nine months of the year; in the whole of 2021, the number was 1,681. Calculated for the year, an increase of at least 25 percent is to be expected.
Most of the cases relate to the Deutsche Post's letter delivery services, but competitors which deliver parcels and letters are also included. "Complaints about the Deutsche Post should be going down, in fact they are going up," criticized Reinhard Houben, economic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group: "The company has to do better.”
The complaints are "just the tip of the iceberg," said Detlef Symanski, a logistics expert from Essen: "When letters arrive significantly late or get lost, people usually put up with it." Complaints to the Federal Network Agency are only filed when there is real damage, such as the loss of tickets, and even then not always. Symanski advised that it's better to send time-critical items using a courier service instead of sending them out as a letter or via registered mail: "That's the only way to ensure on-time delivery." Parcels are also relatively safe, he said, because the shipment is closely monitored. Customers can often track digitally where the delivery is at any given time.
Nationwide, the Federal Network Agency received 20,421 complaints from January to September - already about a third more than in the entire previous year (15,118). "We are receiving an unusually large number of complaints," said Klaus Müller, head of the Federal Network Agency. He urged a "speedy improvement of the situation." Müller has already advocated allowing his agency to impose penalties.
In NRW, the figures vary widely: in Bonn and the surrounding area, there were 234 complaints in the first nine months of the year, compared with 257 in the previous year. In zip code district 50 (Cologne) there were 327 complaints, compared with 317 in the previous year, and in zip code district 52 (Cologne-Leverkusen, Bergisches) there were 177 complaints, down from 227 in 2021 as a whole.
A spokesman for the Deutsche Post pointed to the mostly punctual delivery of letters and explained that delivery problems were caused by high coronavirus numbers and the "strapped labor market situation". He also said that some employees who started working for the Post during the lockdowns had in some cases returned to previous jobs. And finally, business customers and competitors had handed over more shipments because they themselves had staffing problems.
Orig. text: Reinhard Kowalewsky
Translation: ck
