"I don’t have to respond at your leisure time" after 6 weeks of no answers. Would be laughable if it weren't so depressing.

This experience can't help anyone make an informed decision, as we have no alternative to using the SA Post office, but the level of service is absolutely shocking.

I have been querying the status of an international parcel, expected to arrive late July-early August. My first e-mail query about the status was 05 September. The FIRST REPLY was received 26 September! "your parcel is awaiting to go through customs. They are currently experiencing a backlog at the moment hence the delay"

I rep**** to this exactly 2 minutes after receiving it, stating that the tracking number provided does not work, and asking for an estimated ETA of the backlog to be cleared. Silence again.

I then followed up on October 1st, October 4th, October 9th, 10 times on October 10th, CC'ing every customer service e-mail address for the post office, and received auto-responses promising a response in 48 hours. Silence again.

I sent another 9 e-mails in a row on the morning of 16 October, and finally received a response from the original agent from late September, stating the exact same thing. Backlog at customs. No answer to my tracking number query, no attempt at an ETA. No apology for the delay. Instead, attitude and annoyance at my "SPAMMING" the post office!

Actual first response: "Hi

Your parcel is still awaiting custom clearance at Capemail centre and its affected by the backlog. I have 625 emails in my inbox and I can’t be replying every 2 minutes as I need to attend to the customer as well. But if you feel you need to spam the post office you are not but mine."

No joke.

After responding immediately and pointing out the incomplete and useless nature of his response, and the fact that that is an incredibly rude response to boot, and then sending another 7 follow-up e-mails to force response(CC'ing all customer service e-mails as usual), his second reply beggars belief:

"Its only 09:50am and my inbox has that much of email, so imagine by lunch time? Yeah you have guessed it will be to 1000 plus so they don’t stop hence I don’t have to respond at your leisure time. To answer your question I have check this tracking number on our website it seems to be working just fine, see the print screen below. I have tried my level best to assist you and I don’t give attitude but maybe if you could stop writing in CAPS then we might have something to work with."

"At my leisure time"??? After already waiting upwards of 6 weeks for a simple ETA and tracking status of my package? If this is his level best effort, it may as well have been left altogether. Customer service with a smile? Not even once.

His attitude and frustration at the understaffing and poor service delivery OF HIS EMPLOYER has been misdirected towards a customer asking for help.

Unacceptable. Yet another awful service experience that is sadly becoming the rule rather than the exception in South Africa in general, and Cape Town in particular.