Royal Mail incompetance

[Faith28]

Is anyone else having problems with mail they post to customers.

I have a regular number of calls from customers that have not got their packages. It's getting silly now.

What can I do?

[KidsBeeHappy]

Are they in Swansea :) ?

[mconridge]

We've seen a large increase in 'my order hasn't arrived' in the last month.

We don't normally claim compensation from RM for lost parcels, as the time spent making the claim outweighs the cost of the loss, but the amount of parcels going missing recently has meant we've got to start claiming.

I don't know what's going on, but it's very frustrating!

[alex4orne]

Are they really going missing, or is the customer doing a dodgy ? It is happening a lot more lately. In saying that, my postman leaves parcels outside my front door and just post recorded delivery items through the letterbox

[chris nangle furniture]

i have to say touch wood i have never had any problems with royal mail

[Allan123]

I send approx 20-80 items a day through RM and very rarely have a loss thankfully.

[MrGBoy]

We send out more than 1000 documents in the mail each week - we also have problems with lost mail on a weekly basis - a few weeks ago we even had a document opened at a sorting office, and it was then forwarded to somebody in Glasgow - not our customer. The lady from Glasgow called us to report it?!?

When the customer phones to complain - they don't believe us when we say that it happens with Royal Mail all the time - so we now refer the customer to this link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4700190.stm

What else can we do?!

[windowontheworld]

Are they really going missing, or is the customer doing a dodgy ? It is happening a lot more lately. In saying that, my postman leaves parcels outside my front door and just post recorded delivery items through the letterbox

Regarding doorstepping parcels, it's not supposed to happen, depends if you have any kind of relationship with your postie.....if not, get onto your local pdo, and have a word with the line manager for your area.

[Christiane]

I had a lot of problems between Aug and Dec last year but it got better this year (1 to 3 missing a week). I was adamant there was a problem at my sorting depot though and that if someone had been stealing they got found out and I no longer have as many parcels missing (1 or 2 a month now).

Complain to your local depot, repeatively, they might launch an investigation in the end although they will never say it. Mention the various postcodes lost mail it sent to, to prove it's not a particular area. You never know!

[Fuzzy]

We use Royal Mail and so far (touch wood) we haven't had any major ongoing problems. Sorry to hear that:(

[scologic]

I just wish i still had a post office... they closwed ours and with 3 ebay reselled shipping 10 bags of mail they still closed it down... useless company is post office counters plc.

i tend to allways loose international mail... but RM do have their period in the year that they perform poorly.

[This Charming Girl]

I find Recorded Delivery items go missing more often than packages sent by standard First Class.

Touch wood, very few I have sent (I can count on the one hand) have gone missing in the past 6 months. One that never showed up was bound for Romania. International post has been very slow recently though, particularly Italy and the Netherlands, sometimes the US recently as well.

[windowontheworld]

Italy seems to have a real problem with disappearing packages, everything I send goes Datapost now. Don't forget, the US has had some pretty dire weather recently, that must affect the distribution network.

[TraceyAnn]

Touch wood I have not had any problems with RM - I posted some mail to my dad in Switzerland (large A4 envelope) on Thursday - he received it on Saturday.

[Faith28]

Well, just rang the customer again this morning. Turns out the parcel got there last evening just in time for a workshop this afternoon/morning!

First class isn't what it used to be.

[Lasting Designs]

I have heard it said, (but it would never be admitted publicly) that to meet their "so many miles in an hour" delivery rates, some posties are deliberately posting the occasional letter in their recipients neighbours house to halve the time for those two house, longish paths to the front door aren't welcome by some it seems...

[KidsBeeHappy]

And they think that privatising the Royal Mail will improve things - it will result in 10 years of chaos!

[wevet]

In defence of the Royal Mail - considering the volume they handle the percentage of problems is small.

With regard to the possible privatization - will a card I send from Sussex still get delivered through the door on a remote Welsh hillside - I have my doubts.

[Faith28]

In defence of the Royal Mail - considering the volume they handle the percentage of problems is small.

With regard to the possible privatization - will a card I send from Sussex still get delivered through the door on a remote Welsh hillside - I have my doubts.

Well the percentage of problems is quite high for me.

[dingbat]

As said above, still a very good service. The main problems I have is dodgy postman claiming they've left a card when customers are not in.

Just to add...I did find quite a bit of mail going missing when sending stuff from a particular post office in the past. I had my suspicions that either staff in the branch or those collecting were up to something.

[dingbat]

I have heard it said, (but it would never be admitted publicly) that to meet their "so many miles in an hour" delivery rates, some posties are deliberately posting the occasional letter in their recipients neighbours house to halve the time for those two house, longish paths to the front door aren't welcome by some it seems...

My postie writes out the failed delivery card before knocking on the door. I've caught him twice where he's not even knocked and just thrown the card and other mail through.