Resident says postman left letterbox open in Jurong East, SingPost claims lock was faulty

A letter box was apparently found opened in Jurong East on 25 March. A resident at a block at Jurong East St 21 shared a photo of an opened letterbox that he says was left unlocked by a SingPost postman, leaving important letters exposed.

Sharing a photo on the COMPLAIN SINGAPORE Facebook group, Mr Ridhwan Sudin described how postmen would leave a note on his door to inform him to pick up his packages at the nearest post office even when his family was home at the time. Others have shared similar stories where postmen seem to not even try to deliver mail and instead asking residents to collect them at the post office after an apparent ‘failed delivery’.

This time, Mr Sudin said he found the letter box unlocked with the door ajar. Tagging SingPost, Mr Sudin said, “looks like your postman really wants to get the job done fast to head back early”.

Screenshot from Facebook

TOC reached out to SingPost for comment. In response, a SingPost spokesperson said that a staff member was dispatched to look into the matter and found that the locking mechanism was faulty.

The spokesperson said:

“Following Ms Ridhwan Sudin’s post on social media, a staff member was immediately despatched to the block, where he found that the locking mechanism of the door was faulty. The lock has since been repaired, and the mailboxes have been secured immediately. We would like to assure the public that mailbox security is a key area we are addressing, as part of our operational review. We urge residents to call our hotline at 1605 whenever they spot such incidents, so that we can take timely action.”

The thing is, we also reached out to Mr Sudin who informed us that SingPost never actually reached out to him to verify his story or inform him that the issue had been resolved.

Checking with the resident, it appears that the door has in fact been fixed and a handle has been installed. Mr Ridhwan said of the new handle, “I assumed its purpose was so that the postman could confirm it is locked before leaving for another task. But my concern was, why wouldn’t they confirm it was locked before? Shouldn’t there be a protocol in place for the postmen to confirm that letter boxes are properly locked?”

Image from Mr Ridhwan Sudin

He also suggest that “an investigation should be held for negligence and a breach of safety”.

SingPost has had a string of bad headlines lately with cases of postmen dumping letters, failing to properly deliver mail and not fulfilling their commercial service. The company desperately needs to fix these issues if they want to salvage their reputation.