OF THE 143 courier services registered in Ghana, some are said to be in good standing while others are not, the Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission has revealed.
Also, some conducted themselves well in 2021, as far as their operations are concerned, per DAILY GUIDE’s investigations, while for others, the story was different.
Recently, some disgruntled customers of some courier service operators called the DAILY GUIDE’s office to share their experiences, in connection with missing items, arbitrary charges and stolen items, among others. Additionally, customers and potential customers are also not spared the activities of intermediaries, popularly called ‘Goro’ boys, who have established their presence at the entrance to the offices of these courier operators, in an attempt to ‘assist’ unsuspecting members of the public only to make money out of them.
Our investigations revealed that at the FedEx head office at Airport Residential Area in Accra, customers are greeted with a group of people who proffer assistance to them (including this reporter) before entering the premises of the company, even though they are not employees of the company.
A frustrated customer of FedEx swore to this newspaper in an interview, “I will never use their service anymore; nobody called me to come for my package. I had to go there myself. I had to pay more for the item, which I bought at a low price, it’s not worth it.”
Another customer (name withheld), also described the situation as worrying, as he lost some items which he purchased from the USA, and shipped through that company.
Documents sighted by DAILY GUIDE from another customer also revealed some arbitrary charges by the company.
According to him, some goods imported from the USA far exceeded the initial cost of the items he imported, but after several complaints to FedEx, the amount he was initially asked to pay reduced drastically.
He said, “Look at how much I eventually paid, I was first asked to pay an amount of GH¢33,000.00, I asked them to explain why I was expected to pay such an amount of money, they refused to explain but after several complaints, it was changed to GH¢11,000.00. This is what they have consistently been doing. They use their discretion to charge customers, so if I had paid, that would have been it.”
He mentioned that as a result of the arbitrary charges by the company, he was compelled to equally ‘fluctuate’ the prices of his products.
He added, “I might charge customers today at this price, and tomorrow charge a different price, because how much I am charging depends on how much I pay at FedEx. It either rises or falls, so as and when it falls, I also drop the price of my products.”
Acting Deputy Executive Secretary of the Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission, Lawuratu Musah-Saaka, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE said, though her outfit is mandated by law to promote an efficient system for the delivery of mail nationwide, set and monitor the quality of postal services, and promote generally the interest of consumers, among others, it could only help when the victims provide the details of their transactions with the courier operators.
She said, “Customers can use the contacts of the service providers to make complaints, especially those who are advanced have tracking systems that can track items in case there are problems facing customers, once you are having a problem, they are the first port of call, but if you are not getting the feedback that you want, you have every right to lodge a complaint to the commission, and we have the responsibility to follow it up and investigate, depending on the magnitude of the complaints.”
She further emphasised, “Once we get the complaint, we officially forward it to the operator if it is registered with us. If it’s not, the best we can do is to fish out for the person to do the right thing, but we can’t do much, because the person is not under our ambit.”
She indicated that the commission has over the years embarked on several forms of education on their role, and further advised customers of courier businesses to not relent in seeking assistance from both the operators and the commission.
BY Ebenezer K. Amponsah