People are being duped by late postal deliveries, including important official documents such as tax forms and legal documents, the national ombudsman has said in a letter to home affairs minister Judith Uitermark.

In addition, complaints about late deliveries and the disappearance of mail are not beging adequately handled, the ombudsman said.

Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen cited several examples of official mail that failed to arrive, which led to people being fined through no fault of their own.

One man who failed to pay his water tax did not receive a reminder but was served with an injunction and a fine. PostNL admitted fault but the water board said undelivered mail was not a cause for complaint.

PostNL has long been struggling to fulfill its legal obligation to empty postboxes and deliver post five days a week, or six deliveries a week in the case of medicine and death notices.

The company has already cut the number of delivery days and is pressing for longer delivery times. It is also removing 300 of its 11,000 orange post boxes because they are underused.

“We are at the limit of our capacity, when it comes to delivering mail,” commercial director Noud Wegman told consumer programme Kassa.

Meanwhile, postal workers have complained about their workload which they said has increased following reorganisations, the AD reported on Monday.

Union FNV confirmed that absenteeism among post workers is “soaring” at an average 8.5% compared to 5.9% in 2020, with a local peak of 20% at a depot in Rijnsburg.

The ombudsman said the final responsibility for postal delivery lies with the government. Uitermark said in a reaction to the ombudsman’s letter that “the interests of people who get into trouble because of late delivery of official mail must be taken into consideration.”