Mixed response to service offered at the Wendywood Post Office

Readers have responded positively and negatively to the article, Poor service at Post Office, Week ending 17 November.

The story outlined a number of complaints shared by Sandton resident Antonio Dello Iacono, who said he had experienced bad service at the Wendywood Post Office on the three occasions when he attempted to pay his car licence.

Dello Iacono said, “Every time you go there, they will find an excuse not to help you. The first time they said they were offline, the second time they sent me away saying there was no paper and the third time there was no toner [for the printer].”

He added that there was often no one at the counter to serve customers and complained that the post office was also dirty.

Wendywood resident Luïse van den Heever disagreed with the complaints and said she had been pleased with the outstanding service at the post office. “I have been living in Wendywood for nearly 20 years and have never had any bad service from our post office… I think our post office is one of the few that gives really good service,” she said.

“I go there on a regular basis and there is always somebody on duty and all the personnel working there are competent and friendly. I have never seen the store abandoned or dirty.” She also highlighted the fact that the Wendywood Post Office was one of the few that remained open when there was a national strike a few years ago.

Natalija Mason responded to the article in agreement with Dello Iacono, and said, “Take heart readers – that is not the only post office with problems.” She complained that Greenside Post Office no longer sold stamps and forced customers to queue each time they wished to post a letter, sometimes turning customers away because their system was down.

She also mentioned that she had posted letters in Parkview and they had never arrived at their destination. She added that the Pinegowrie system was also down on the occasion she visited.

Mason said three items sent to her from New Zealand and Australia had never arrived, one of which contained biscuits that can only be bought in Australia. “Someone has enjoyed my biscuits along the way,” said Mason.

“Trying to find out from the post office where these missing missives are can give you grey hairs.”

South African Post Office regional manager Paul Fouché responded to Dello Iacono’s queries and said that the printers in question were the property of the Department of Transport and therefore system faults were not under the control of the South African Post Office.

“The SA Post Office is generally happy with the response times of the Department of Transport and in all likelihood, the customer was unlucky to find the system out of order repeatedly,” he said.

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