Waar is mijn pakket? Complaints skyrocket as more and more packages go missing after PostNL gets rid of its not-home notes.
The disappearance of the not-home notes has mysteriously coincided with the disappearance of packages too, reports RTL Nieuws.
“Klachtenkompas, […] received 5,049 complaints about PostNL in recent months,” the Consumers’ Association calculates.
Where do they end up?
The non-home note has been replaced by PostNL with a digital message as of 1 July. However, things now regularly go wrong with consumers who send each other a package or packages from abroad.
PostNL made this change because, in 9% of all cases, the delivery driver is confronted by a closed door in their face.
READ MORE | Onlookers shocked as PostNL delivery man throws parcel onto the street
Usually, the packages can be found at a PostNL parcel point or returned to the sender. Heel irritant!
In cases of official documents or medical mail, PostNL deliverers will throw notes in the mailbox, so don’t worry about losing them.
A win for the climate
The good news is that by switching from non-home paper notes to digital messages, over 70,000 kilos of paper will be saved annually, says PostNL.
READ MORE | A PostNL employee retired after 17 years — and only gets a box of chocolate and a €10 voucher
The bad news is that you might need to get friendly with your neighbours to accept a package for you because digital messages aren’t always entirely reliable.
Your best bet is probably to choose to have your package delivered to a parcel point to avoid the risk of a missing package.
Have you had packages go missing with PostNL? Tell us in the comments below!
I have had a very bad experience with PostNL with the delivery of an official document. I was being sent an official document from abroad through the special express service that requires the delivery person to only deliver a package after receiving a signature.
Not only did I not even get a note telling me that my package was delivered somewhere else, the postNL tracking did not even work.
I tried to contact 5 different customer service employees, all of them telling me the package was delivered in a different city/the package was delivered at a different address, and none of them would even tell me what the wrong address was. Also, why is it only possible to talk to customer service through facebook or twitter? what kind of a sick joke is that…
In the end, one god-sent employee finally told me that maybe the delivery person read my post code wrong, and that I should try checking at the same house number on a different post-code, and I finally found my package there…
What is worse is that my address was written both on the back and on the front of the package with official papers, but postnl stuck a paper on top of my address that said “afleveren op huisadres. uitreiken aan:” followed by a completely different street name than mine, with a different post code too, only the house number remained the same.
Why I was not notified through the postnl tracking at least? No idea. I guess I will never find out either. But PostNL has caused me more headaches than anything else the entire month of November last year because of this event.
I sent a package from Amsterdam to Geneva via postNL since September 2023, and it has not been delivered yet as of Jan 2023. Reason? They told me its LOST! That’s the only answer I got.
They are awful. On top of returning my delivery to the sender, I have paid for inklaringskosten and they disowned responsibility and told me to contact the sender/sender’s service who also disowned responsibility. Flipping joke.
At least now I know the reason, so thanks for sharing this!