Free ride

As a user of APO for over 30 years, I was distressed at the short notice that was given to vacate this address. Since the letter informing us of the imminent closure, no help has been given to let us know what other postal outlets there are in that area that we could transfer to.

On talking to other Postal Outlets, and since then some of the other users, I found out that many of the customers were not paying anything for their boxes, as grandfather rights from the old AMF. No wonder the Post Office wants to close it down.

At the same time, I have heard rumblings for many years that the Vancouver Airport Authority was going to close the employee parking lot across the street from the kiosk, and then extend the West Jet finger of the airport (Gates A), making it necessary to close the kiosk.

So here I am, one of the few paying customers, with no help from the Postal corporation.

My contract was up for renewal mid June, so I guess I’ll get no redirection of mail, as they only offered it till your contract expires.

Ask me if I am happy!!

May 23, 2009 • Posted in: Uncategorized

One Response to “Free ride”

  1. 24108 - May 25, 2009

    Thanks for posting. I’ve also been told, by someone at Canada Post, that some box holders do not pay for their box. This is because their box is deemed — perhaps for historical reasons, as you suggest — their “primary mode” of delivery. On the other hand, I, as a “retail” customer who has a “primary mode” elsewhere, have to pay for my box.

    I have no problem paying for my box and would be quite happy to keep giving Canada Post my hard-earned money — if they’ll let me. However, I want to give them my money for a box at the airport and for a box with the same address. Is that too much to ask?

    And again, if the physical location of those boxes has to move for one reason or another, I’m fine with that too — as long as the new location is somewhere reasonable on Sea Island, of course.

    You bring up another good point though, that being that you are “one of the few paying customers, with no help from the Postal corporation.” I actually have no idea how many of the approximately 400 boxes at the APO are paid for by retail customers and how many are assigned to businesses at the airport as their “primary mode” of delivery. I also have a feeling that not all 400 boxes are used, as I got the impression last time I renewed my box that Canada Post was not taking new customers at the APO and was actively discouraging people from renewing their boxes.

    I put it to one Canada Post manager that, the way he was talking about retail customers who “didn’t belong” (that’s a direct quote) at the APO, I felt like a second-class citizen, even though it appeared it is only the second-class citizens that are coughing up money for their boxes. He was quick to assure me that I am not a second-class citizen. However, it appears that a mistake was made some years ago, when the boxes moved from a retail outlet on Miller Road that was closed down, because (if my inference is correct) the retail customers were supposed to be shut out of the then-new kiosk and told to go elsewhere, but for some reason that didn’t happen. That seems rather ironic to me, as if nothing else the paying retail customers would have served to subsidise the customers for whom the APO is/was their “primary mode” of delivery.

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