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 says.

With more customer complaints coming through, Toni 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 confirms 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. About 2000 parcels on board were destroyed because of the fire,” it says.

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

NZ Post is investigating the cause of the fire but says all its trucks have up-to-date Certificates of Fitness and are 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 apologises for “any disruption and disappointment caused”.

Toni is not happy.

About 15 of her orders seemed to be lost - NZ Post couldn't give her a list, so she has to work it out for herself - and a lengthy claims process with NZ Post will 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 can only claim for the cost of postage and the items inside each parcel, she says.

“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 says.

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

-RNZ.