Taiwan Up Loose Ends
I work for Canada Post (the Canadian postal service). A woman comes to the customer service desk demanding to know how we’re going to “set things right” after a parcel fails to arrive.
Customer: “I moved recently, and you sent my parcel to my old address.”
Me: “The parcel was sent to the address provided by the sender. Unfortunately, parcels aren’t forwarded when someone changes address.”
Customer: “So where is it now?”
I check the tracking information.
Me: “The people living at your old address refused the delivery, so it was returned to the sender.”
Customer: “Then bring it back.”
Me: “The sender is in Taiwan, and the tracking confirms that they’ve already received it.”
Customer: “Then you need to send someone to Taiwan to get it.”
Me: “I’m… sorry?!”
Customer: “Send someone to get it!”
Me: “We can’t do that.”
Customer: “Why not?!”
Me: “Because we’re in Canada, and your parcel is in Taiwan.”
Customer: “And it’s your fault it didn’t get to where it was going!”
Me: “Actually, it’s the fault of either the sender not using an up-to-date address, or the receiver not setting up a forwarding service.”
Customer: “I’ve already received mail at my new place! You should have seen that the parcel had the old address on it and automatically forwarded it to my new address.”
Me: “We couldn’t possibly have known to do that unless you set up a forwarding service.”
Customer: “Why should I have to do that?!”
Me: “There are millions of addresses in Canada. We can’t keep track of who should be living in every single one.”
Customer: “This is what we pay you for! This is why we pay money for stamps so that you can keep track of all that!”
Me: “Yes, because the $1.24 per stamp is going to allow us the resources to maintain that. Look, miss, we’ve been at this for too long. There’s nothing we can do from here.”
Customer: “So then what the h*** am I supposed to do?!”
Apparently, telling her to contact the sender was the wrong thing to say, based on the screaming and the need to call security…
