Parcels from abroad and on-line delivery: Postal Dept clarifies reason for delay in delivery

The Department of Posts clarified the reason behind the Department’s delay in delivering parcels from abroad and those ordered on-line as being due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

In a statement issued on 18 June, the Department noted that false allegations were made via social media claiming that items that were purchased online and imported, have been stolen or lost, and further clarified that due to travel restrictions, many online purchases were delayed when reaching the country. 

The Department said even if the company through which the online purchase was made notified their customer that the package has reached the final destination after handing it over to airline services, most of the time, due to travel restrictions, these packages get held up at airline companies.

Meanwhile, the Department noted that a container, with a number of online ordered packages was handed over to them by the Malaysian Postal Administration during the second week of July and added that there were close to 45,000 packages in this container. 

The Department noted that these packages which were with the Malaysian postal services prior to the COVID-19 outbreak were to be sent to Sri Lanka in May, however, due to them being in containers for approximately three months, postal addresses on the packages were illegible. 

The Department added that they have taken steps to distribute about 5,000 of these packages while the barcode numbers of the rest have been sent to the Malaysian postal services to identify registered addresses. They said if this method fails, all packages will be returned to Malaysia and relabelled.