Annual
Report
2023

In disputes about parcels whose contents were damaged in transit, reaching an amicable solution is not straightforward. The Ombudsman first tries to bring the parties to an agreement using the results of the investigation. In cases about damaged parcels, however, this often results in an irreconcilable argument about whether or not the item was suitably packed.

If the parties cannot agree, the Ombudsman will issue an opinion based on the facts of the investigation. However, the following elements make this a difficult balancing act:

In 2021, the introduction of the new European VAT scheme (and the impact of Brexit) led to a high number of 1,558 mediation requests. This large number of complaints was due firstly to the new procedures that bpost introduced to apply the new scheme, and secondly to ignorance among both Belgian addressees and non-EU senders of the new scheme and the procedures to be followed for importing goods into Europe/Belgium.

528 complaints, mainly about delays in clearance processes but also communications about costs and billing

The number of complaints about the delivery of letters has dwindled substantially in recent years. This mirrors the declining trend in the letter market. Since 2022, the number of letters per inhabitant has fallen for the first time to fewer than 100 per year.

However, the fact that fewer people are using these services does not diminish the important social function they perform.

Letter post items about which people contact ombudsman poste are often items of personal significance, such as private letters, announcements of births or deaths, invoices, notifications of appointments from government bodies or educational campaigns. The quality of delivery of ordinary mail remains important. It forms part of the package of universal postal services defined in the legislation, for which a clear quality requirement is thus set.

The digital divide is worth mentioning. People who lack online skills depend on the orderly receipt of their correspondence and registered mail for the management of their personal affairs.

In short, the universal postal service includes services with legal or administrative evidential value, which are important for every citizen, and this is especially true for people in a vulnerable position, e.g. as a result of the digital divide. This, combined with the fact that bpost is the only major player on the market and users therefore do not have a free choice in most cases, means that the firm, the legislator and the regulator must remain alert to the quality and reliability of the service.

As with parcels, an ordinary letter that fails to reach its addressee and vanishes without trace is the main cause of complaints to the Ombudsman service. Complaints may be about an individual letter to which people attach great importance, such as an invoice, a notice of a person’s death or a birthday card. However, when people complain about lost letters, it is usually because they receive no correspondence at all or very little. Since ordinary letters are not scanned in the postal circuit, it is virtually impossible to detect one missing letter in the daily letter flow (an average of 5.57 million letters and newspapers per day in 2022). If there is a pattern, however, the reason for the problem can usually be found: confusion of street names, omitted PO box numbers, trainee postal workers failing to locate a particular address, a change of house numbers or street name, etc. Action taken by the postal firm usually resolves the problem. Where there are repeated reports of non-receipt of correspondence, the Ombudsman service keeps the case open until the situation is normalised.

Cases about the late delivery or disappearance of death notices are sensitive matters. ombudsman poste receives only a few such cases a year (12 in 2023), but it is clear that every family counts and has a right to the proper and timely delivery of death notices. The emotional loss in these cases weighs very heavily and must be given close consideration during mediation. The affected family also feels financially put out, but in such disputes a cool-headed discussion between the parties cannot be achieved merely by calculating the direct costs (postage) and indirect loss (printing costs, part of the funeral refreshments) and furnishing the necessary proof. Achieving a solution usually involves taking sufficient time to mediate between the family and bpost and requires an apology from the postal firm, an explanation of where things went wrong and financial compensation, too.

The management agreement between the State and bpost sets high quality standards for the timely delivery of death notices. bpost in fact meets these quality standards, but this is no consolation or solution for the families who experience a problem with delivery. The Ombudsman service urges the universal postal service provider to set up a separate process and close monitoring for such sensitive correspondence.

ombudsman poste received 333 complaints about registered mail in 2023. The trend is again downwards (368 complaints in 2022). bpost brought in process improvements in 2023 on the delivery of registered mail, such as taking a photo of the addressee’s identity card.

However, registered mail items continue to represent a large share of letter post complaints: one in every three complaints about letter post concerned registered mail.

The complaints come from both addressees and senders. They are varied in nature but are almost always linked to the last stage in the postal process, i.e. delivery to the addressee.

So that complaints can be handled promptly and fairly, every postal firm operating in Belgium is required by law to set up a customer service department that is readily accessible to users. The same law defines ‘user’ as both the sender and addressee of a postal item. Nevertheless, we note that almost all postal or courier firms will only initiate an investigation at the request of the sender, their contractual customer.

In 2023, 170 customers reported the customer service department of the firm in question was difficult to contact. Despite multiple attempts, they failed to reach anyone from customer service on the phone, or they received no response to a complaint submitted by email or online.

This unreachability irritated the customers to such a degree that they described it at length in their mediation request. Sometimes this aspect became their primary source of annoyance, such that the complaint about the actual postal item took a back seat.