larry borsato

I sent a Christmas gift to my new nephew recently. Since I was at the post office, I inquired about the Canada Post Priority Post service. For $40 (including a $5 fuel surcharge – wish I could get away with charging that) they told me they could deliver that package from Waterloo to Calgary by the next day. I even asked them to check again to confirm. So I shipped that package via Priority Post.

When I spoke to my brother on Christmas Day, he told me that no packages had arrived from me.

Not really that surprised, I checked the package online, only to find out that it hadn’t even left town yet. And it was scheduled for delivery not on Monday, the next business day, but on Tuesday Dec 29, the day after.

When I went to the post office for a refund, they told me that I had to go online or call. First fail.

When I went online to request a refund, the link brought me to this:

Second fail.

Finally I decided to call. After about 10 minutes on hold, while the virtues of Canada Post were being extolled to this unhappy customer, I was connected to a customer service representative. She first explained that she would need to know the source and destination postal codes, because regardless of what I was promised, they don’t always guarantee one day service between two cities. Fortunately the guarantee was actually good in this case.

She explained that I would be getting a refund by mail, in 7-10 days. No rush on their post to either provide the service in the first place, or to return my money to me having failed that task. Needless to say, I won’t be using Canada Post for shipping again.

And by the way folks, if startups on a shoestring budget can get their websites to work flawlessly, why can’t the well-paid people at Canada Post? Do they even know or care that it’s broken?