What’s Mail like in your area?

Postcards & Mail Mail, stamps & postal info
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I remember there was a topic in the old forum before this, about Useful Postal Informations and Stats but I can’t find if it’s already moved to this forum (correct me if I’m wrong).

In Indonesia, there are two types of post offices: normal post offices, and Agen Pos (‘postal agents’). Both are still under Pos Indonesia, but normal offices generally operate 6 days until 3pm. Meanwhile Agen Pos are managed by individuals so they are more flexible, but can differ from one another. Some open every day until evening, some have pick-up services, some sells postage stamps, some are not. Things may be different in other provinces too, so I can only share what I know around my area.

Apart from sending letters or packages, we can pay bills and transfer money at all post offices and Agen Pos (I’m not sure about collecting passports, and they are not combined with bank like in some countries). They also sells stamp duty, but not all sells postage stamps. Smaller offices and Agen Pos are usually only sell a small variety and boring postage stamps. Postcards or other mail items are only available at bigger post offices, philately shop, or online shop(s).

Pick-ups are only for packages. So you have to go to the post office directly to send postcards (unless you ask the delivery courier, and that if they are willing to help). No outgoing mail boxes in houses or on the streets :frowning: . It’s possible that very few mail boxes are still exists, and even fewer are actually operating, but they are usually close to the main post office anyway so it’s easier to just hand the mails over at the counter.

In general, mails are processed manually and stamps cancelled by hand (not by machines). International mails are all sent by air whenever possible, so there’s no need to attach “Air Mail” stickers.

We have 6 days delivery (Monday-Saturday). Not everyone have mail boxes so sometimes the mail couriers just slip the postcards under the door, or in my case, stash them in a hemlet rack (it became my un-official mail box :joy: ). For packages, usually mail couriers have to hand it over to the recipient directly (or family member in the same house). But sometimes if they are already familiar with the residents they just put it near the door if nobody is home. If it’s an important item or need payment, they will bring it back to the office to be delivered the next day.

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good evening everyone
the term i can best use to explain the mail in my area? “Sketchy”/ unreliable, they literally caught our mail man tossing mail off the bridge and into the river below, not kidding (seriously i couldn’t make this up) i spoke with the postmaster at our post office personally she witnessed it herself, needless to say he was arrested on the spot, and we now have a new carrier. ive wondered a few times how manty “lost” postcards & or bill i now have floating down the river.

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In my part of australia, mail is only sent mon-fri. The offices are open on saturdays but they specify when you post something that they won’t send it till monday which I think is fair enough.

Personally, I go in rather than posting things - I’m not actually sure where my closest letterbox is anyway, and we don’t have the system of flags. Kinda wish we did, but it would be complicated anyway because my mailbox has a key system! So, how would the posties get in to get the mail :laughing:

Packages are ok, they take a long time if they come from outside Australia but the actual delivery is fine for me. I think it’s bc I live in a metro area and our house is fairly safe. They often leave parcels out for us even if it says to sign, I actually recently got one which said the signature was ABSOLUTELY required… left in our box.
I think it’s bc as I said our box locks? So if it fits in the box the posties assume it’s safe and it is. It can be bad though like once I ordered a new phone and it sat on my front porch until I or my housemates got home that day… :frowning:

I kinda think the range of stamps is… awful, at least at my local post offices. I’m not sure if perhaps I’m doing something wrong, but they always appear very ‘standard’ and I haven’t seen any interesting ones in a while :frowning: I do collect the wombat ones for my mother but that’s about the most ‘fun’ stamp we seem to get.
I like the actual system, there are international and within-australia stamps and you can actually get ‘concession’ stamps if you have the right kind of card, like a health care card! (aka what I have) :smiley: Only within australia are concession but they’re still sooo cheap and it made me happy to buy some recently. I do wish the international ones were cheaper but to be fair ALL our international mail is airmail I think? So… it makes sense, even if $3.70 for a postcard makes me cringe and packages are even worse ;;

They also do a lot of the same things here, like P.O boxes are an option, and our passport applications also go through Auspost. You can get things professionally sighted here too, like a notary of sorts? Or applications for things like drivers licenses can be done there.

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Regarding the online shop - I feel like that’s because the shop itself is catered towards collection, not a replacement for buying the stamps you need (unless its local mail, of course!)

Love the GPO too - but sadly I don’t go into the area often, so my neighbourhood post office will have to do :frowning:

I think you can buy concert tickets at the post office too! Recently saw huge queues forming at a post office buying tickets for TWICE’s concert while I was buying stamps the other day :slight_smile:

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Oh that’s interesting, so they still sell tickets that way?? I’ve only ever bought them online! We recently had Blackpink visit Australia, I think physical ticket sales would have been a bit… much, if we had them :joy:

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Yep, we have general sales at the post office! Buying them online is an option too, but I think the virtual queuing can be a bit much.

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I don’t know which I prefer, I’ve never tried for something that had a big virtual queue - but as I think about it, I think I prefer virtual. As it is, we had people queuing at 6am to get barrier for blackpink! That, but for tickets, wouldn’t be physically doable for me :')

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Well, that’s certainly good. I know of a mailman who would just take mail home and burn it. When his brother-in-law found out, he reported it and the man was fired, but not arrested. This was in the 80s, but surely it was still a federal crime then.

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It’s so interesting to see what else can you do at the post office in different places. So far, we’ve seen passports, banking services, concert tickets, mobile phone plans, etc.

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This was all fascinating to me - thank you for sharing!

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Where I live (in a very rural U.S. town of 1200 people), we don’t have home delivery or pick-up. My family rents a box at the post office. Our post office is small and doesn’t have much of a variety of stamps to buy, so I either go to a city with a larger post office, or I buy stamps online.

Most post offices in the U.S. are open 9 to 5 during the week, but our small post office is only open Monday through Friday from 10am to 2pm, and then on Saturday from 9-11:30am. These are the only times that you can send or pick up parcels, too. Our postman knows everyone in town, and I’m pretty sure that if someone addressed a card or parcel just to my first name in my town, it would reach me.

Postcrossing has been the incentive I need to make the post office a regular errand, even if it’s complicated with my work schedule to make it there while they’re open.

Thank you for starting this thread - it’s so interesting!!
I’m glad we all bear with the quirks of our various postal systems to connect with each other. :slight_smile:

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Our PO here does passports.

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Yes, I know. Since I mentioned them in my initial post, I included them in the list.

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Fair enough but they have a very different definition of collecting from me

Why can’t I get a sheet of 10 stamps? :joy:
Can I not like to collect whole sheets? :joy::joy:

There is one option of whole sheet stamps, but that comes in a sheet of 50. And like I said, only one option (goldfish)

At least the delivery is free (normal delivery)
Tracked delivery has additional cost.

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35

Here in Finland there are now fewer post offices and postal services are mainly offered by stores. Sometimes the service is poor, meaning the official does not know what she is supposed to do. A few weeks ago I sent a small package to Canada, I had put some nice Moomin stamps on the cover and the official told me it would not do because she would have to charge me the whole postal fee again, there would be no way of paying just what was still needed. Well, I knew that wasn’t true as I had done that before but she had to find someone else to help her through the procedure. Bad service!
Post or mail is delivered on working days only, from Monday to Friday. Here where I live letters and cards are delivered on Tuesdays and Thursdays every other week and then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on every other week. VERY confusing! It’s also very slow: I have been making complaints as it sometimes takes a card 3 weeks to travel from another town to mine, even if there were just 100 kms between them. Sometimes a card from Germany reaches me faster than one sent by my friend in another Finnish town. MOST annoying!
As for spoiling stamps…well, I sometimes receive cards where there is a postal sticker put either on the stamps or on the message part of the card. That would be okay if the sticker was easy to remove but usually, it would’t go nicely. It either ruins the stamps and the written message or leaves such a sticky mark that the card practically sticks on anything. And it’s a sticker put there by our mail, “to help the delivery” as they put it. I cannot see how it helps if the address is clearly written and the postage properly paid. It certainly does not help me to read the card.
When I want to send a card or a letter I just put it in one of those orange coloured mail boxes we have. There are quite a lot of them here in big cities and towns but when I’m staying at my summer house in the country, it’s quite a walk to the nearest mail box. When I send a package I usually go to the post office or a service point as it hardly ever fits the mail box and I hardly ever know the real postal fee.
As for stamps, I wish they had more of those old series still for sale. I remember we had some real nice Finnish animal and flower stamps a few years ago, but nobody sells them anymore. I use both international and homeland stamps on my post-crossing cards as there is a wider selection of the homeland ones and some of them are really nice, like the friendship series and the national landscape series this year. .

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In Serbia, mail is delivered 5 days a week (Monday-Friday). Packages and other parcels sent through express delivery system can be delivered in Saturday too.
When about sending, you can drop mail in postboxes next to an enterance of every post office. If you don’t have stamps you have to send in post office, at desk, so you would pay postage to postal worker. Ufortunately, that almost always means that they will use postal labels and not stamps.

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Welcome @Janeere. Thanks for sharing!

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Typically I just go to the local post office in my neighbourhood as it is just across the road from my HDB. Although it might not have as much of a variety of stamps to choose from, I’ll head there to replenish my supply of new stamps in 1st local or low values for postage. I mean who doesn’t want more stamps on their postcard? :slight_smile:

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In Ukraine, you can buy products and essential items at the post office. For example, the post office sells pasta, oil, cereals, soap, washing powder, socks, sweets, notebooks, stationery, souvenirs and much more. It was always like that. Mail is delivered from Monday to Friday, you have to go to the post office to pick up parcels. In general, the post office works every day.
And in the small village where my dad lives, there is no post office. But every Thursday, a car arrives - in fact, a mobile mail, which brings mail, press, and also sells all the goods and products I wrote about above.

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The closest ‘Post Office’ for me would be a Contract Station (franchise), where one can do USPS transactions, although only cash - no cards. That business is also affiliated with UPS for parcels and documents. They also sell postcards (5/$1), greeting cards, and souvenir items (it’s a tourist town), such as plush toys, coloring books, puzzles, etc. Cards are accepted for non-USPS transactions. The owner tries to keep a decent supply of stamps, though still limited. She also has a small wall of PO boxes as well. The official main business is shipping, so that you can bring an object, say a fragile vase, by itself, and they will securely pack it in an appropriate box, address it, and send it based on your choice of cost (shipping speed).

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