NZ Post truck catches fire in Te Kūiti, with 2000 parcels destroyed

By Lauren Crimp of RNZ

About 2000 parcels have been destroyed after an NZ Post truck caught fire last week.

The truck caught fire in Te Kuiti in the early hours of July 31, with parcels on board bound for delivery in Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Taupō, NZ Post said.

But Beauty Bliss owner Toni Cox only found out a week later, after a series of customer complaints referring to a “weird status” of their orders on the NZ Post tracking system.

“So I called [NZ Post] yesterday and was on hold for half an hour, and then I come into an email this morning saying that there had been an incident and that the stock was gone and we needed to do a claim,” she said.

With more customer complaints coming through, Cox pressed her account manager for more information.

“He sent through a statement saying that a truck caught fire in Te Kūiti, and 1500 parcels on board were destroyed.”

A statement from NZ Post confirmed the information in that email, but it upped the number of parcels to 2000.

“Some of these parcels were sent from the South Island and some from Wellington. Approximately 2000 parcels on board were destroyed because of the fire,” it said.

“At this stage, we are unable to clearly identify impacted items due to the nature of this incident.”

About 2000 parcels have been destroyed after an NZ Post truck caught fire last week. Photo / NZ Post

NZ Post was investigating the cause of the fire but said all its trucks had up-to-date Certificates of Fitness and were regularly serviced.

“Vehicle fires of this nature are very rare in the NZ Post network - the last time something similar occurred was around 15 years ago.”

It apologised for “any disruption and disappointment caused”.

Cox was not happy.

About 15 of her orders seemed to be lost - NZ Post could not give her a list, so she had to work it out for herself - and a lengthy claims process with NZ Post would follow.

“I’m expecting it to take me a very, very long time to see any of that money, but I have no choice. I have to compensate the customers straight away if I want to keep my business.”

She could only claim for the cost of postage and the items inside each parcel, she said.

“Not for all the other costs associated with doing the business, all the packaging, supplies and the boxes, and gifts with purchase, and if the customer then demands a refund, it’s the Afterpay fee... I’ll be massively out of pocket,” she said.

“It’s been a challenging morning and I’m pretty exhausted.”