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Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

In May this year I ordered some small parts from West Sussex, via email so no mix ups with address etc. After 8 weeks and much to and fro it finally turned up. The sender had added (for no reason he could explain) the word Australia to the address!!! It arrived with all the customs stamps/ labels. Round the world!

Cheers Pat

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Oh dear Ian,
I feel for you mate as i deal with several carriers every day !
If it comes back to the north west, just let me know where and i will get it for you.
Hope it turns up soon

Darren

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Our Postal service here in Australia prides itself on its 6 million dollar conveyer belt. In the old days your parcel went to the local depot and got distrubuted by hand to bags for different areas. Now every parcel goes to the other side of town to the conveyer belt which means something that took 2 days now takes 5 days. BUT no one realised that when you put a parcel upside down on the conveyer belt it reads the senders address which is on the back of our postal articles and therefore automatically drops into the bag to go back to the sender. As we have tracking on our parcels I often see it is back to my local area before it goes back over the conveyer belt for second time.

email (option): ukcarbsathotmail.com

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Interestingly, if I post to most countries I can opt for 'tracked and signed for' service...But not to Australia...There it is either tracked or signed for...So, either but not both...I have no idea why...Ian:koala:

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Ian, sorry to hear about your troubles, I hate using couriers and will often drive hundreds of miles to collect/deliver irreplacable parts or get local contacts to collect them for me. Even though I live in a big house right on the main street delivery companies constantly fail to locate it and will often phone to say they can't find the place. I look out of the window and see them parked right outside.
A few years ago I had a Vincent 5" speedo sent to me, it didn't arrive but was marked off as delivered, I ended up claiming for it and eventually got compensated. Months later I found the speedo in a pile of dead leaves behind a gate which at that time was always left open, it could not be seen until the gate was closed and by then was well knackered.
Plating, another stress raiser, and I think it can be the most difficult part of restoration and not a job I would want to do, there is so much that can go wrong stripping, polishing, and the actual plating itself, all processes demanding knowledge and skill.Unskilled labour here is asking for trouble. I think part of the problem is that the plater will strive to get every last mark out of the surface while not realising there is hardly any thickness left. I tell the plater I would rather have some imperfections in the finish than have the item ruined, it is not always possible to have decades old components made to look like new, and I feel for Ian having done all that work only to have it all buggered up.
Best wishes Tony.

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Ian that is strange as I can send items to Uk tracked and for a little bit more money signature on delivery as well.

email (option): ukcarbsathotmail.com

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

That is rather an odd story there and has the smell of urban myth about it
We invented and held the patient for sorting equipment that senses the stamp then flips the package around so the stamps are all in the top right corner before it attempts to read the address .
WE sold this technology world wide when we had a real postal service.
The last technology I was aware of was the system photographs the side of the package that has the stamp on it then applies OCR to the image to work out the address.
The system tries 3 times to read it and if it fails on the 3rd attempt the package drops off the belt for manual sorting.
It is the same technology that is used in number plate reading cameras that are now fitted to every police vehicle on the East coast.
From memory it can do about 20,000 images a minute.
We have the patients for that as well.

However you are correct in that the presorting and direct delivery to distribution depots has stopped.
Every package now goes to a single sorting depot then is sorted to be sent directly to the relevent distribution depot.
While it sounds counter intuitive that a package fro Albury to Wagga Wagga would go Albury-Sydney then Sydney Wagga Wagga thus traveling over 1200 km to effect a 75km journey. it is actually more efficient , uses far less people & trucks and in theory standardizes delivery times .
People also forget that the packages have to be scanned for drugs & explosives before being delivered and the cost of having this technology available at 40,000 pre-sorting centeres is prohibitive.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Trevor I am talking about Auspost prepaid red and white satchel that has the intended recipients address on the front and senders address on the back. That is the cheapest way to send items especially that you can now fit up to 5kg in to the original 500 gram packet for $8 postage that includes tracking.It even states upto 5kg on the top right corner of the 500 g packet which they now denote as small packet. Very few post offices use stamps these days. If you take a box in they will print out a label and stick on it. You must live in a small country hamlet for them to still use stamps. I would have had parcels return to my local distribution centre at least five times in 2 years. I have also had parcels sent local go far away as the system read it wrong. It keeps me entertained checking on there whereabouts and I hear similar stories from others who post on a regular basis.

email (option): ukcarbsathotmail.comat

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

John Parker
Trevor I am talking about Auspost prepaid red and white satchel that has the intended recipients address on the front and senders address on the back. That is the cheapest way to send items especially that you can now fit up to 5kg in to the original 500 gram packet for $8 postage that includes tracking.It even states upto 5kg on the top right corner of the 500 g packet which they now denote as small packet. Very few post offices use stamps these days. If you take a box in they will print out a label and stick on it. You must live in a small country hamlet for them to still use stamps. I would have had parcels return to my local distribution centre at least five times in 2 years. I have also had parcels sent local go far away as the system read it wrong. It keeps me entertained checking on there whereabouts and I hear similar stories from others who post on a regular basis.
The printed sticker is a stamp or to be totally accurate , a postal frank.
And yes the sorter identifies it by it's aspect ratio which is exactly how the original number plate readers found & read you number plate.
The packet should have a barcode for the purpose of tracking and the reader will look for the bar code.
They also weigh them and in some cases will send an overweigh satchel back to the sender for more postage or charge the receiver for the excess post.
We did bulk remailing so I am very familiar with the system & how it works.
However some of the gear needs the scanners to be manually downloaded into the system, particularly the hand held ones.
It is not unheard of for scanners being used by casual staff to go weeks before being downloaded which makes it look like the package has gone backwards & forwards.
I can assure you they do not read the senders address as the receivers address.
This is a myth to cover up stuff ups like bags not being properly emptied or left behind or in my case deliberately not uploaded till the bag is full

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Deep joy...My piston arrived here finally on Friday....

Incredibly, I think, the courier left the parcel with its £364 piston on the doorstep as I wasn't in...I live in a cottage that fronts directly onto the road in my village so any passer by could have helped themselves...Now that's what I call a secure delivery service...:laughing: ....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Seems like no matter where in the world we are the postal services have problems. Here in the United States, our postal workers don't work cheap but they more than make up for it by being slow!

Glad you finally got the piston Ian.

Regards,
James

email (option): jamescusteau@yahoo.com

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Ian glad your story ended well. I feel your pain as our Australian delivery guys are no better.

email (option): ukcarbsathotmail.com

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Tempting fate (?) but I have to say in defence of our posties here in Kent that the mail always gets through and they are mostly a cheerful and helpful bunch despite the aggro' they often get from all the unreasonable folk they have to deal with. Couriers.....not a problem so far and my word, we have been leaning on them of late. Its not all doom and gloom, but of course, when things go wrong in this electronic world, boy do they go wrong. Just had my NC1 mag safely delivered back from APL Magnetos (COD service - now THAT is a blast from the past!) via Post Office, there and back........thank goodness, it has to be said!

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Our local Post persons are also helpful pleasant and know the job which is just as well because the village where I live has lots of properties with names rather than numbers, Rose Cottage, Willow cottage, Church House etc., some of which are duplicated, and two areas called Beckside at different locations in the village, one not near the beck! This makes life difficult for new or "locum" posties and even worse for non local couriers who it seems often have only a matter of thirty seconds or so allocated for each delivery. Life was much simpler when we just went to the shop, bought something for pound notes, and took it home. Nostalgia, it's not what it used to be in my day.

Tony

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Auspost is by far the best delivery system in Australia , probably world wide .
Back in the 70's & 80's delegates came from all over the world to see what they could learn from our super efficient mailing system.
However it has been underfunded and milked for secret tax raising , in the form of corporatization so it now pays the government an annual dividend .
It also means that party hacks can be pensioned off to there for a few years before retirement to suck up millions in public money as a reward for towing the party line loyally.

Having said that I had been in transport for 30 years and have probably consigned over a million items through Auspost without a single problem. The mob I started with used to get about 5 tons of air freight a week for remailing in Australia and again never a problem that was aware of except when we could not get more credit on the franking machine.

The pistons I bough from Ian, consigned through Royal Mail / Auspost arrived without a hitch , in quite good time.
I just bought a gearbox from a member on this forum and it turned up in perfect condition in 4 days from Victoria.
The mower parts I buy from victoria are sent via Toll / Allied / Border Express all priority overnight but take 3 to 4 days to arrive here and the odd one will have passed through 6 different subcontractors before it gets to me .

On the subject of private couriers, I did a brief stint with a major company ( no I will not name them ) .
As a casual driver I was supposed to be back in the depot by 4 pm so my PDA could be downloaded into the system.
Now as I had no outward freight, I did what any responsible driver would, stayed out till the last job was delivered.
I copped a bollocking for "buggering the system " because the computer needed my PDA details before 4 pm so it could tag them as being delivered that day.

One of the items I made sure got delivered was a box of insulin which had been tossed around from run to run for over 10 days because being drugs it was not allowed to be left out , being a private address no one was home till after 5 pm , the delivery address was over an hours drive from the depot and of course it was always left for a casual who had to be back at the depot before 4pm .

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Re: 'Old bikes can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder....'

Ian Wright
Deep joy...My piston arrived here finally on Friday....

Incredibly, I think, the courier left the parcel with its £364 piston on the doorstep as I wasn't in...I live in a cottage that fronts directly onto the road in my village so any passer by could have helped themselves...Now that's what I call a secure delivery service...:laughing: ....Ian
We scored a contract with a very expensive bespoke jewelry shop after a courier tied a bag, clearly printed with the shop name to a door handle of a Paddington terrace house, within arms reach of the footpath
There was $ 300,000 (Aus) of jewelry in the bag .
To the driver it was of course just a $ 2.75 delivery and what do you expect for $ 2.75

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

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