Hundreds of letters have been left in the open next to an Australia Post box in Melbourne’s east, and would have been left for the entire weekend, had a concerned resident not picked them up.

Michael told Neil Mitchell he found this tub on a main street in Malvern East at 7pm on Friday night.

“We decided to put it in safe keeping until Monday,” Michael said.

“So there’s a tub of letters sitting open and freely at the bottom of the post box?” Neil asked.

“Exactly, on a main street, we tried to ring Australia Post, but to no avail.”

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Michael took the box of which he said contained “literally hundreds” of letters and put it in his shed for safekeeping until this morning.

Just before 5pm, Australia Post submitted the below statement to 3AW Mornings:

Australia Post can confirm that we have spoken with today’s caller and collected all mail items, which are now being processed.

We are confident that this is an isolated incident and wholeheartedly apologise.

We have discussed with the driver the seriousness of the situation and have commenced a disciplinary investigation.

If customers have any concerns about their mail delivery we encourage them to log an enquiry at auspost.com.au/help or call 13 POST.