It is common knowledge that normal mail sometimes never arrives. It is either “lost” by the postal authorities and never delivered, or simply delivered to the wrong address by incompetent post people. That is why everyone advises you to send important mail by registered mail. Yes, but what if one does not even get registered mail? That is exactly what happened to me on 24 March this year. I had a registered package that could not be delivered since I was not at home. So I was left form OSF/054 informing me that five more attempts would be made to deliver the package. I was not at home also when (I assume) a second attempt was made the next day. So my wife called Maltapost to ask from where she could pick up the package and was told to call for it at our local post office the following Saturday. When she did, she was told that the package had already been delivered and received! Delivered to whom? Received by whom? We never signed for the package so how could it have been delivered?

I phoned Maltapost was told to call for an enquiry, which I did on 1 April and which was eventually acknowledged by Kenneth Zammit from Maltapost “Customer Care” with reference OUT/09/D33.

After several phone calls to Mr Zammit and even going to Marsa personally, I was given a copy of the signature of the person who supposedly received the package. I could not identify the signature, so I provided the signatures of the adults living in my home so that Maltapost could investigate.

At the beginning of May, Maltapost “Security” phoned me to ask for more information, which I provided as best as I could via e-mail on the same day.

In mid July I phoned “customer care” to speak to Mr Zammit but he was not available and I was told that he would be informed of my call and would contact me. He never did.

It is now almost the end of August and I am still without the package that was sent to me by registered mail and still have no clue what Maltapost has done or is doing about the matter. More than four months have passed during which Maltapost had to determine what happened to my mail and come up with a solution. It has sometimes taken the police force much less than that to solve complicated crimes, yet in four months Maltapost has been unable to discover out what its postman/woman did with my registered mail.

Apart from the apology I expect from Maltapost, I demand immediate compensation for the items I never received and for the hassle and stress this matter has caused me or, if Maltapost is efficient, I demand my mail to be delivered to me immediately and action be taken against the post person who may have delivered a registered item to the wrong address.

The fact that it has had to come to this shows what a primitive postal service Maltapost is providing to its customers. Perhaps it needs to be reminded that it’s the year 2009 and not 1909.

Manwel Debattista

GZIRA