The Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) and the National Board for Consumer Disputes (ARN) both recorded a sharp increase in complaints against Postnord last year.

“This is, of course, not a positive trend,” said Emma Riblom, head of communications for the crisis-hit company, which changed its CEO earlier this week.

One area of customer dissatisfaction is poor delivery times.

“According to Postnord’s general conditions, they have 60 days in which to send packages abroad. I have proof that my parcel took 77 days,” says one complaint registered with the Swedish Consumer Agency.

In 2018, the customer standards agency received 390 reports regarding Postnord, a notable increase from 82 cases in 2017.

This year, the authority has received 51 complaints so far, of which most are related to terms and conditions and misleading marketing.

Complaints made to ARN have also increased. In 2018, the consumer disputes board received 146 cases, including appeals, compared with 63 in 2017. The total number of reports so far this year is 37.

“Most people who have a problem with the post service contact either us or the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS),” Riblom said, noting a good level of feedback received by PTS.

PTS was contacted 1,996 times regarding Postnord in 2018, a decrease compared to 2017’s total of 2,554.

“With regard to complaints received in relation to a specific operator, 66 percent of these concerned Postnord,” PTS press officer Petter Öhrn said.

Many of the PTS reports concerned missing post or post that was delivered to the wrong person. Other complaints include mailboxes that were moved, TT writes.

In February, Postnord reported post-tax losses of over 1 billion kronor, which resulted in a number of changes being made by the company. These include the end of Sunday mail collections as of July 1st. The possibility of reducing delivery days to every other day is also being considered in some locations.

Postnord said it was prepared for changes such as these to generate a new wave of complaints.

“Humans are creatures of habit. When you want to send a letter, you might think that everything will be just as it was the last time you sent a letter,” Riblom said, noting that changes must be made to reflect the reduced demand for traditional mail.

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