Thai Postal Service

When I lived in Bangkok I had constant problems with the mail service. Almost every piece of mail, which I received, had a little piece of the envelope flap pealed back, just enough to have a peak inside. This was particularly true of mail, which appeared to be financial or business related. Stuff like bank statements, notices from my insurance company and correspondence from the issuer of my annuities. Personal mail from family and friends did not appear to be tampered with. Though many pieces of expected mail never arrived in my mailbox.

There were also continual problems with outgoing mail. Claims to my insurance company were never received; a car title I signed and mailed back to a former spouse never arrived. Again in general it was business related correspondence that went missing. For this reason I decided that I would use the Express Mail Service offered by the Thai Post Office because they had a tracking system. What could go wrong? Of course on my first attempt to use this service to mail two insurance checks to my bank the mail went missing. In fact it was never even entered into the tracking system at the Rat Burana Post Office where the transaction was initiated.

You want to talk about bureaucratic red tape, try getting the Thai Post Office to take a complaint and look into something. For days they would only tell me to contact the receiving post office, as it was their responsibility to find the missing letter. Apparently, they lost the letter, not us was their claim. They never heard the part of my complaint that stated they didn’t even log the tracking number into their system. I did get back my 600 baht postage fee after about six months and more phone calls that I care to remember. Not to mention all time spent to get the lost checks cancelled and new ones reissued.

So after this experience, I started using Federal Express for all my business correspondence. A little more expensive, but it worked. For several years all my mail was delivered as promised, though the stuff that I received via the Thai Post Office still appeared to have been tampered with as well as taking forever to reach my house when it finally did reach my house.

Fast forward to the present day: I now again regularly use the Thai Post Office as there is no Federal Express service offered in my little burg. Thai Express Mail is logged into their system before my wife even gets back from the Post Office. It leaves the same day to Khon Kaen and the next it is sitting in the Suvarnabhumi International Postal Facility. It usually reaches its destination two-three days later. Even the regular mail that I now send back to the States arrived in eight-nine days. Before this took weeks. I am also now getting my incoming mail in about the same amount of time.

My conclusion is that the Rat Burana Post Office on Pracha Utit Road is rotten to the core and the employees are raffling through the mail and that the Post Office in Ban Phai is run, as a post office should be providing good reliable service. Kudos to the Postal Workers in Ban Phai.