Post Office Rip off

During the recent postal strike, I popped in the check my box at Cresta & found that it had been locked! I assumed that it was part of the 'strike action' since another guy near me was having the same problem.

Once everyone was back to their usual slow pace(it's no wonder they chose to strike instead of go-slow - no-one would have noticed....) I dropped by to check my mail again, assuming that the boxes would now be unlocked - but they were not.
I stood in line for over an hour just to find out what was going on. During this time I saw several people being sent to the back of the branch where they hung around waiting to be served.

Finally I reached the front of the line and I was told that the reason my box was locked was that I had not paid for it! I told the lady at the counter that I had paid at the beginning of the year and I asked her to check on their system.
She replied that they could not check payments on their system and the only way my box would be reopened, is if I paid in R290.
Shocked, I said 'Why has the box been locked now if I did not pay at the beginning of the year??' and the reply was that I was given a 'grace period' , 'Of 5 months?!?' I exclaimed in disbelief and, being a postal worker she continued as if she couldn't see or hear me.

I do believe that the new one inch thick glass at the Post Office is meant to protect ridiculous Postal Workers from irate member of the public!

I eventually ended up paying in R290 to open the box up and was sent to the back of the branch to wait for ....something - I couldn't hear what the foolish woman was saying through that ridiculous glass....

At the back of the branch an old lady was trying to get the attention of the branch manager. He looked at her through his glass window & promptly ignored her every effort to coax him out of his office. Then more people were sent to the back of the branch and we were all trying to get this man out of his office. When he finally deigned to emerge he told us to all stand in the queue - that we had just gotten out of after 1 hour, and ask the tellers.

I was furious!
He then dispatched us all of the back counter again and ducked into his office & ignored us all again!!

Upon chatting to the people standing at the back I found that we had all had our boxes locked although we had paid! This brought to mind the question - If they could not check my payments, how did they decide that I had not paid?

I went home & logged onto the sapo website to check my payment status as it usually reflected payments for every box that was ever on my name - and lo & behold, the records were no longer available! All records of payments were gone!

So I finally checked my online banking & sure as the sky is blue, I found a payment reference for payment made at the beginning of the year. I have a sneaky suspicion that someone messed up a aatabase somewhere and we are literally paying the price. Add to that the fact that the cost of a box was around R270 and is now R290 without any warning of increase - and I have to ask - why are we paying more? Service has not improved...No new features are being provided, people are paying postage on items as usual so it is not like delivery is free.

This is ridiculous. This Post Office is wasting my time and stealing my money and I think it is about time that someone investigated this. I have a proof of payment to prove that i did already pay so I can claim my money back. What about the 100s of people who did not keep theirs and are now being ripped off at a whopping R290 each....

Something needs to be done about this - I think it would be great if the Randburg Sun ran a poll to see how many people were affected.