Royal Mail

[Kestrel]

Has anyone ever used Royal Mail to send them anything?

I ordered two locos on Monday using Royal Mail. Following the tracker, they arrived in Chester and were scanned on Tuesday at 19:38. Since then they've been 'in transit'. Chester say they've gone and my local sorting office haven't seen them so somebody is clearly on the rob. I've just discovered the insurance cover only goes up to £150 which barely covers the cost of one and you have to wait 15 days before making a claim. That's done by the supplier.

In contrast, I ordered two other locos from a different seller before 2:00pm on Thursday using DPD and they arrived on Friday morning.

In the past, DPD have been great, I don't know why I didn't use them instead of Royal Mail who are now on my black list.

Never use Royal Mail.

[Atlantic 3279]

Going by reporting on one of the BBC news broadcasts over the weekend, the amount of Mail not delivered on time, or not delivered at all, by Royal Mail is a matter that is coming under serious scrutiny. Whether anything will be done about it remains to be seen. Perhaps the dishonest nature of Royal Mail's compensation arrangements needs to be slammed too, and ideally ruled unlawful (as an unfair contract) by a court, since I gather they try to get away with paying only the supplier's "costs" when a claim is made, excluding the very real cost of the supplier's own time and endeavours.

I wouldn't wish to praise any courier firms though. My impression is that their roundsmen, by and large, totally ignore any special instructions telling them where to leave/deliver an item, and where NOT to leave/deliver an item, if there's no answer at the door of the addressee, and they tell blatant lies to the tracking system about where they have allegedly left the item - sometimes clearly at odds with any photographic evidence that they have obtained too.

We rescued a courier-delivered strong card envelope for our neighbours three days ago - simply thrown down on their driveway alongside the car, while they are away on holiday!

[Kestrel]

Hello Atlantic

I live on the Wirral and was quite prepared to make the 50 odd mile trip to Hatton's to pick up whatever because I didn't want the parcel lost in the post.

This time I didn't fancy the 200 odd mile round trip to Yorkshire and now what I didn't want to happen, has.

[jwealleans]

I have had items from Ebay vanish without trace in the RM vortex. Genereally the seller has been very good at refunding, but when it was the item you really wanted (s D&S GE outside framed van still really irks me) it's not a complete consolation.

I posted a parcel to Australia on June 6th with them. According to their tracking, it's still awaiting transfer to overseas partner, or whatever term they use. It's been delivered over a week.

[Hatfield Shed]

Going by reporting on one of the BBC news broadcasts over the weekend, the amount of Mail not delivered on time, or not delivered at all, by Royal Mail is a matter that is coming under serious scrutiny. Whether anything will be done about it remains to be seen...

The present government has greater problems, so if there is to be significant action it's a way off.

It's very obvious what's wrong, organisational principles that were sound in 1840 with a virtual monopoly, now inflict demands that outstrip the income required to maintain the current operational standard. My popular programme to rectify the situation would include elimination of the weekday collection and delivery of letter post requirement, for 'frequency as commercially viable'. (Twenty-two miles North of Trafalgar Square we average five deliveries a week, so this is already happening, unannounced: hasn't created any problems and I have been testing the letter post in earnest these last seven years operating lasting power of attorney for up to five family members; practically all the financial, legal, medical and care documentation having to go by letter post.) Choose to live in the wilds however, the service will be very slow.

There's plentiful tracking automation capability available to fix the 'lost in the post' problem: once it is clear at what stages items 'disappear' the problem can be quickly solved by any half competent management. Oh, and cast iron postboxes have to go, because the input scanners won't connect to the mobile network from inside a well earthed faraday cage.