SAPO OUT OF MONEY, INTERNATIONAL MAIL GROUNDED?

International mail is not being sent.

I have a small business (making hand made wooden fishing lures) and 90% of my clients order form overseas. Using the post office for shipping was always slow (by international standards) but cost affective.

My last two shipments have been a total ****ing disaster. I am now having serious doubts as to weather or not it is worth while keeping my business open.

The first (about a month ago) was going to the UAE but it left cape town after a day and then sat at JIMC (Johannesburg International Mail Centre) for weeks. After sitting at Cape Mail Centre (actually very helpful people there) for a while I was finally put on the phone with Israel ****yane ********** On the phone he confirmed with me that SAPO hadn't paid the airline and that is why my parcel hadn't been sent to its destination. He assured me, and even went to the trouble of pretending that he was busy digging through JIMC's mountain of unsent mail to the UAE, that my package would be forwarded on a flight the next day, on an airline that had been paid, via Hamburg.

The next day came and went and I did not have any response from anyone. So I began emailing Israel as well as a few of the customer services personal and the CEO Mark Barnes ********** This did very little.

Another few days later of me emailing twice or three times a day pleading for someone to help and the only response was that the CEO Mark Barnes blocked my email address. I guess it shows how much he cares about the SAPO. Perhaps this is the reason it is in the state that it is.

Later on the same day after I had 'called Mr Barnes out' for blocking my emails and he removed me from his blocked list. (this is apparently how progress is measured at SAPO). To my surprise for the first time I had a response from Mr ****yane! (he has removed his signature form his emails so that no one outside of SAPO can know his position but i believe that he is head of logistics at JIMC) He tried to feed me some bull**** about my package being 'suspected of containing prohibited items' (I suspect this is SAPO lingo for 'we have ****** all the money from SAPO and can't afford to keep it running anymore') and that as soon as they had worked through the backlog of 'Prohibited items' it would be on its way again.

I sent him a very strongly worded response to which he never rep****. But to my astonishment my client contacted me the next morning and may package had arrived.

So it took three weeks for my package to move from its flight from Cape Town onto its flight to the UAE. Three weeks and a hell of a lot of my time sitting in customer services and emailing and calling........ As a comparison and demonstration of how bad the SAPO is at being a Post Office my package arrived in the UAE at 1710 yes ten past five PM that night and by 0730 the next morning it was waiting in my customers PO BOX. He collected it at 0830!

This all brings me to today. I was assured by all involved that my next shipment would be smooth sailing. The customer services manager in Cape Town has even offered to check for me each time I post to ensure that I am not sending my Items into another back hole at JIMC.

Unfortunately I was told this morning by that same manager that my current shipment that is headed for Australia has been sitting in the depths of JIMC for the last 20 days! it arrived in JIMC nearly three weeks ago. Its is a small parcel airmail, the highest priority mail in SAPO. Even though the Cape Town Customer-services manager gave me the all clear to send, even he could not have foreseen this latest steaming pile of horse **** that Mr Barnes and Mr ****yane are trying to feed me.

Apparently there is some ongoing customs negotiation between SA and Australia. And as a result no mail destined for Australia, New Zealand and I assume any of the smaller countries and islands in the area that use Australia Post to receive mail. Apparently this has been going on since about the first of March 2019. This information was contained in an email that was read to me over the phone. However the person reading it was not allowed to forward it on to me.

Because no one in Cape Mail knew about this until today and because SAPO staff are not allowed to forward that email to anyone, I don't believe it. I have an order of materials coming to me from Australia that has not moved from from the Australia Post Office where it was posted. Too much of a coincidence for me.

In my opinion SAPO probably owes AusPost a great deal of money (that SAPO has already ****** like at Eskom) and AusPost has probably just cut them off. I am now trying desperately to get my item retuned to me so that I can DHL it to a very ****ed off customer.

As a result of this I will probably have to refund all my current orders and close the business. The cost of DHL is just to high and there is no reasonably priced alternative. No customer is going to order if the shipping time is twelve days to infinity.

Please us the email addresses above if you are having similar problems. Maybe it will help.

I fear that SAPO has finally kicked the bucket. Unlike the other SOE's it doesn't have the cash or demand of services to stay open.....