Last year An Post launched their AddressPal service to compete with the likes of Parcel Motel who offer a virtual delivery address in the UK.
They recently upgraded the service to add a virtual delivery address in the USA, to allow people to shop for goods that are not generally available in Europe.
After signing up, the service works by giving you a virtual address, which you then use as the delivery address for anything you order online or by mail order. The idea is then that An Post will ship on your item from the UK or USA to Ireland and deliver it either to your home or your local post office for collection.
I signed up to the service last week in order to buy a new monitor from Amazon. I guessed that the box would be too big for any of the Parcel Motel lockers, so I thought I’d give AddressPal a try instead.
Progress and Notifications
The parcel got delivered to the English address at around lunchtime on the Friday. However if you use the service to deliver to a Post Office, then An Post offer no means of tracking the parcel’s progress. They don’t even acknowledge that they’ve received it. When I check the AddressPal site there’s no parcels listed against my account. This is something that An Post should look to introduce, to give customers some kind of reassurance that an item has been received.
The AddressPal site says that it take 4-5 working days to be delivered on to the Post Office of your choice. That’s quite a long time to relocate a package from England to Ireland. Especially as it look less than 24 hours for the courier to deliver my monitor into the hands of An Post, and now it’s going to take up to a week for the onward leg.
It’s now 3 working days on, and I’ve not heard anything. An Post only send an email and/or SMS out once the package is ready for collection at the Post Office – and that could be another couple of days from now.
Final Delivery
My email notification finally arrived after 4 working days saying that my parcel was ready for collection at my local Post Office. I had to leave work a little bit early to go there, as my Post Office closes at 5.30pm, which is a bit of an inconvenience.
To collect the parcel I had to show the AddressPal card that that An Post had delivered to my house, together with a form of photo ID. I had to sign a screen to accept delivery, pay the €3.75 fee (cash or card is accepted), and the parcel was mine. It took just over 5 minutes in all, because I had to wait in line to be served, and then the woman serving me had to process my collection which took a couple of minutes in itself.
The Verdict
Would I use AddressPal again? Maybe. I wasn’t overly impressed by the 4 working day wait to redirect from Britain to Ireland. And having to find a time to collect when the Post Office is open is not very convenient.
Parcel Motel is quicker at delivering to the designated lockers (1-2 days), and you can pick up at any time, 24 hours a day.
ive been using the service for year,have since stopped for a few reasons,i find the service is poor waited at one point over a week and a half,spoke to there customer service,found them rude and unhelpful,the price has gone up and once they have your parcel its pot look,because you can not track an item.very poor service all round
I have had a similar experience. Parcel delivered from within the UK to AddressPal In St. Albans on the 19th Dec. On the 27th December they have no idea where it is. They say that their was notes parcels after 16th cant be guaranteed for xmas delivery. Of course I didn’t check their ws before ordering.
My advice is to use another service like Parcel Motel who are much more efficient.
On top of that, prior to xmas, they were texting me everyday about a parcel that was ready for collection that wasn’t in the post office when I checked. The Post office was equally as frustrated as I was due to my repeated inquiries about a parcel that didnt exist!!
Ciaran Smyth
I was a regular user for about six months ,overall parcel motel is a far superior service.
A parcel worth over £200 recently went missing with address pal ,the customer service is the most frustrating thing i have ever experienced. They don’t give a c**p about you or your missing stuff and mostly will not even respond to emails ,you can phone an post’s customer service but they distance themselves from the whole thing, but will pass it on for you and you will hear no more. no matter the value all you will receive if you jump through hoop’s is £40
Addresspal has a policy of only accepting small parcels no taller than 25cm. The service is farmed out to an outfit called “Air Business” based in Hatfield. The size allowance is about half of the other operators (ParcelMotel or ParcelWizard) so any bulky items will be slapped with a €25 surcharge… Rang twice to try contact CS (12 min and 15 min Wait) and gave up. NEVER AGAIN
Thanks for sharing your experience Tim. It sounds like a nightmare!
Ive only recently started using this service,ordered a number of the same item over a 6 to 8 week period and it was pot luck to how much you would be charged.Emailed customer services about this situation and was told i was lucky i wasnt charged more!!
I recently signed up with AddressPal. After reading bad reviews I was a little dubious but there is so much offered Freepost in the UK for which postage to Ireland is astronomical. I ordered a book – less than a week later I got a notification that it was in my post office. I paid my €3.75 and received my package. Delighted! I ordered another. Same great result! This week I ordered three more packages, have received them all, timely, safely and with great postage rate!
AddressPal is brilliant! I am recommending it to all. I suppose if I were ordering something like large car parts I’d obviously expect to pay a lot more than €3.75 for delivery. My packages have varied from large and reasonably lightweight to a pretty solid heavyweight smaller cardboard box size weighing about 5 kgs. I got charged €3.75 for each and every one. That is a bargain and I have been amazed at the speed of delivery! AddressPal is brilliant!
Thanks for sharing your experience
Awful, don’t use. Find alternative but dont’ use them.
Good delivered to AddressPal UK on the 3rd of December. They arrived to Ireland on the 4th and were processed out. After that, the good got lost / Stolen. Rang them a few times they were telling me they were at my local hub. for a week and a half that was the story, delay in delivery. Called AddressPal few times no call were recorded. last call was on the 13.12.2019 at 13:14 for 11 minutes. Was told they would escalate. Nothing. Today went to the hub, they told me the goods were definately lost / Stolen since the 4th. Addresspal are delying all and have lots all comms prior to today. AnPost customer service have also stated that is addresspal that needs to deal with it. So frustrating. Terrible service and will never use them again.
addresspal warning to potential users i ordered a couple pieces of jewellery off ebay value £1300, it was sent by registered signed for delivery to my addresspal address in hatfield uk and was signed for there by them on the 13/3/2020 it never reached the post office in ireland, it has been almost a month now with no answer from addresspal or anpost as to who handled it, or who the parcel was passed to for its onward journey to in the uk or ireland this is absolutely criminal as each leg of a parcels journey they know who has handled it LOSE £1300 TO ME WITH NO EXPLINATION FROM EITHER SIDE WARNING DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE AS IT IS CORRUPTED
ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE. PLEASE AVOID. They lose parcels. Customer service tends to completely ignore you. I’m trying for compensation of missing parcel after contacting them several times within over a month…. I got totally ignored few times, which was very frustrating, also lost my credit on calling them… Might get compensation of max 40 euros, if they ever answer of course …………. It’s disgraceful service. Should be banned….
Avoid if you can. Addresspal said my parcel didn’t have a track and trace number. But after about 10 phone calls and as many emails to addresspal, I found out from Revenue that my parcel did have a track and trace number. I ordered my item on the 2nd Nov. in the US and it arrived at Addresspal HQ on the 6th Nov. An Post have had my small parcel since 18th of November, and today 2nd of December I still haven’t received my parcel. An Post say they’re snowed under with post, yet I get items from Amazon in 1-3 days after ordering.