Correos service

[Enrique]

I would normally sing the praises of the above.......they find my "Post Box" where Courier Services can't even find the village.......
Today a new guy turns up........dumps the village mail in the Bar and says "sort it out ...it's raining and I'm going home."
Loosly translated (Frank to correct ).........."tipo que fuera está lloviendo ... y me voy a casa. "

Still the Parcel I've been awaiting from England's Green and pleasant land finally arrived after three weeks.

[olive]

That used to happen a lot here. If the postman saw us he would give us the village post (now 50 plus mail boxes worth) and I would tip it out on a table in the bar. There used to be a table for newish post and another for unclaimed items older than a week. Doesn't happen now we all have deidcated postboxes ina building.

Went on spec to his surgery today for "delivered but no one in to sign for". One parcel there sent from England on Monday! Still waiting for two parcels from China 11 weeks and 5 weeks respectively. Got three more older than six days coming from the UK. They will arrive but not so sure about the China ones

[Nimrod]

Jeez,
How difficult can it be to deliver a few letters.Our postie in Spain would go awol for days and eventually dump a sack for the 30 houses on our complex over the wall
All the posties we've had in the uk have been excellent,beyond the call of duty and it really frustrates me in Spain when such a basic task is turned into a drama.
Rocket science it aint.

[Julie]

Our postie in Spain is great, but UK postie is bone idol doesn't even walk up the drive to deliver parcels, just puts a card in the box at the end of the lane, think its time we took it off and they would have to come to the door everyday. I imagine its all about the person and how vaga/lazy they are

[peteroldracer]

It does seem to be the opposite here of the effects of high unemployment and recession. Normal theory is that it makes staff (I use that term because there seem to be so few workers) get their act together to avoid losing their job. Perhaps the management of Correos have a 'couldn't care less' attitude, or there is a union with a stranglehold on them - or both!
We have a very good postie girl now, but even she doesn't do a drop in our village buzones in bad weather, and although I understand that the law says that local mail must be delivered within 3 days, we never ever get more than one delivery per week.

[mhic]

I can't complain about about our bloke at all though days for delivery vary it always arrives, he even brings parcels round in his car sometimes.

Mhic.

[anis]

I am not complaining. I pleaded with a company in Holland last week not to send my gaskets by UPS as normal - 61 euros postal cost for items costing a euro each . I told him they would never reach me and we would have to do a 1 hour round trip to Malaga to fetch them, at our expense in fuel and no postage refund. I t wasn't even the money - it was the inconvenience of tracking the pack down.
He kindly conceded and we received them in 5 days directly into the post box at the house - cost in total inc. postage 5 euros. They fitted in an envelope and weigh very little.

At the same time, we awaited a SEUR package - 2 weeks - no contact from them, no delivery and we finally reclaimed the package at cost to ourselves and yet another drive to Malaga. The dog pills cost 10 euros but the postage was 22 euros for a tiny little package.

All these parcel services will be losing my business, they are useless for many of us campo dwellers - I am sticking to British Royal Mail and Spain correos.

[gus-lopez]

It does seem to be the opposite here of the effects of high unemployment and recession. Normal theory is that it makes staff (I use that term because there seem to be so few workers) get their act together to avoid losing their job. Perhaps the management of Correos have a 'couldn't care less' attitude, or there is a union with a stranglehold on them - or both!

No they are 'funcionarios' , they have to do oposiciones to get in & once in it's a job for life ! & that is the problem with a large majority in all jobs. The ambition & drive is to 'get in '. Once attained that is it ! It has nothing to do with being a postman, grave digger, teacher, council official; just the getting in.

[Footprint]

Although no problems with SEUR I must admit I try to use Royal Mail(Parcelforce)/Correos where I can because the parcels do arrive at my 'apartado' and generally in good time. They are also a friendly cheery lot in my local Correos.

My postie in the UK is excellent but the courier services there are pathetic. They never make any attempt to find the house and then blatantly lie on the tracking information.

[peteroldracer]

The ambition & drive is to 'get in '. Once attained that is it !.

I have long held the opinion that to run an efficient operation it is essential to fire someone now and again - "pour encourage les otros"! Every organisation has a 'worst employee', even if they are not really bad, and getting rid of them gives the rest a spur. The syndrome gus mentions is normally only found in government or monopoly organisations rather than ones that must give good service to survive and prosper.

[Lavanda]

All post for 'foreigners' gets plonked in our village house postbox as we are the only foreigners with a house in the village and the postie can't get his head around 'boxes' in his office. As we know the other ten foreigners in our village it's not too difficult to sort out. What I don't like — yes, there is something — is my parcels from the U.K. going astray (stolen), not turning up for weeks and even months (stolen but then returned once looked over), and letters opened by accident (with a clean slit along the top to check if there is money inside).

[barry]

Guess we all live in a different Spain. We have a realy good postie who even takes stuff from us to post in town, even though technically he shouldn't. Leaves our parcels in a safe place, agreed on.
Even takes posts to one of our expat community even though it has his old address on it.
We had one small parcel go missing which had some costume jewellery in it sent from Huddersfield to my wife by her mother, it went to Grenada (Caribbean), then Canada before 5 months later turning up in Granada (Spain) all intact!

[oliveview01]

We have only had 1 parcel go astray- it has never turned up 2 months later, but who is to say the wrong address wasn´t put on the envelope. We have a PO box though, no post to the campo here.

[Nimrod]

Hello Olive.
is that 1 parcel in 10.,1 in 100,1 in 200 ?

[telboy]

We live in the campo, we have a PO Box in one of those purpose built bus shelters on the end of our lane on the main road. There are approx 17 boxes there in total, serving our area. Despite having my name plus my wifes on the box we still find our post in other neighbours boxes and visa versa. Just recently the PO allocated each PO box a number which has been spray painted onto each box. Also each box owner received a letter stating that they should contact our banks/utility billers and get them to include the PO Box number on their mail. We tried to do this address change online for some of our utility bills but found it would have been easier getting an audience with the Pope.

Our PO is 16km away, and is only open 5 days a week from 8.30am to 9pm. The PO never deliver parcels, they only leave a note stating that there is a parcel to pick up, a 32km round trip. If its not picked up within a week they send it back to the Head PO in Granada 70km away.

If we order anything to be delivered by courier, they too say they cant find our house and drop off the parcel at the petrol station (16km away) they dont tell us this, neither do the petrol station call us to pick it up.

[olive]

Aghh. Been expecting five packets.

Went up to the Correos postbox in village. Standard slip saying there is a packet. Collect at local village town hall. Got there and handed him the slip. No sorry nothing for you. But you put this slip in the postbox. Ah, must have been someone else (no name at the top of the slip). He took it off me , screwed it up and threw it in the bin!! Someone else not going to get their packet?

Got home and the phone rings. UPS. Got a packet for you. Car part, despite me asking the vendor NOT to send by courier. Had to meet him at the same village hall at 4 p.m. Haven't been able to get anything done today due to post and of course the incessant rain.

[peteroldracer]

is only open 5 days a week from 8.30am to 9pm. .

You are lucky! We only get 5 days a week 11.30am to 12.00pm - and not then if it is too wet for them to bother coming to the office.

[Marina]

Similar Peter. We an get ours between !.30 and 2.00, 5 days a week. Fine if you are home all day, impossible if you are working.

My neighbour who collects mine, told me last week that there was something to sign for. Tried to get it on Friday, but no one turned up to open the office.Went again on Monday, only to be told it wasn't there. Oh joy!

[Lavanda]

Ours is open Monday - Friday 8.00 - 945. They are friendly enough but it's all a bit vague and extremely hit-and-miss.