Royal Mail

[JBR]

Had a couple of experiences with Amazon once. Got a couple of failed delivery emails

Obviously, they're not perfect then, but I have found Amazon Logistics reliable. They usually deliver before the estimated delivery date, and they also send an e-mail to confirm they are going to deliver that day.

Now I've said that, of course, you know what will happen.

 

[JBR]

Just a quick update.

Five and a half weeks on, and I have just received a stock letter from Royal Mail apologising for the occurrence and enclosing the ubiquitous book of six first-class stamps!

I find the free stamps slightly insulting though, as it suggests that I am (as many others no doubt do) just complaining in order to get some sort of hand-out. I'd much prefer to be told that the lazy postman has been reprimanded as an example to others to make the effort to deliver items properly.

Nevertheless, I'm sure this sort of problem will continue.

 

[masona]

The best thing I've ever did, no more trip to the sorting office! Royal Mail signature is done by the postman which is accepted by them

Parcel hopper

• masona
• 26 Nov 2012
• 1

Parcel hopper

• masona
• 26 Nov 2012
• 1

Even the neighbours with our permission are using our parcel hopper

 

[jeds]

Well only his fault if you can prove he didnt try and deliver it. As you have stated, you seen him scurry away and he left a card indicated he did try and deliver it. Just because you never heard him (may be he chapped the door and never seen the bell).

Fortunately, the evidence is in my favour. I had been informed only 20 minutes earlier that the package would be delivered within half-an-hour, so was consciously listening for its arrival. Also, I managed to hear the quiet scuffling of a card being inserted into my letterbox, so I should imagine I would have heard a knock, to say nothing of the doorbell.

Also, I now know that the package had the word 'perishable' printed in large letters on the front. Bearing in mind that I had immediately telephoned RM to complain, and that they said they were going to contact the local depot, someone somewhere should have put these two pieces of information together and arranged an immediate re-delivery. In fact, I now know for certain that the depot were informed as, when I informed the postman who brought the package today that his colleague had not knocked or rung the doorbell, he told me that he had 'knocked on' (a Lanky phrase!).

The fact that he left a card means nothing. It is a well documented occurrence that some postmen don't bother to carry the parcel, they just write a card to say that they have, presumably so they can finish their shift earlier. I have read examples where customers have discovered that their parcels were not even on the van, but left in the depot! Easier for the posties if the customers come and collect themselves, I suppose.

I'm a but confused by this. He drives to your address, sneaks up to your door and knocks as quietly as possible - so's you can't hear him, writes out a card and sticks it through your door - quietly, so as not to be heard - and then scurries away. Wouldn't it be easier to just knock and get a signature.

 

[Brigadier]

I'm a but confused by this. He drives to your address, sneaks up to your door and knocks as quietly as possible - so's you can't hear him, writes out a card and sticks it through your door - quietly, so as not to be heard - and then scurries away. Wouldn't it be easier to just knock and get a signature.

Ahhh, but you are ascribing to the postie, a level of care, diligence, and intelligence that you yourself may apply to the task. You may be amazed at the ingenious ways that some people contrive to balls something up, when it would have been far easier to do it properly in the first place. Must be a rebellious gene or summat.

Also, have you noticed how frankly dreadfully-presented your average postie is nowadays? (especially in the warm weather). Our posties are often:
in scruffy shorts,
totally unbuttoned shirts, therefore bare-chested,
sporting half-a-week's worth of stubble, and
heavily-tattoo'ed


(and that's just the ladies

)

 

[JBR]

Well only his fault if you can prove he didnt try and deliver it. As you have stated, you seen him scurry away and he left a card indicated he did try and deliver it. Just because you never heard him (may be he chapped the door and never seen the bell).

Fortunately, the evidence is in my favour. I had been informed only 20 minutes earlier that the package would be delivered within half-an-hour, so was consciously listening for its arrival. Also, I managed to hear the quiet scuffling of a card being inserted into my letterbox, so I should imagine I would have heard a knock, to say nothing of the doorbell.

Also, I now know that the package had the word 'perishable' printed in large letters on the front. Bearing in mind that I had immediately telephoned RM to complain, and that they said they were going to contact the local depot, someone somewhere should have put these two pieces of information together and arranged an immediate re-delivery. In fact, I now know for certain that the depot were informed as, when I informed the postman who brought the package today that his colleague had not knocked or rung the doorbell, he told me that he had 'knocked on' (a Lanky phrase!).

The fact that he left a card means nothing. It is a well documented occurrence that some postmen don't bother to carry the parcel, they just write a card to say that they have, presumably so they can finish their shift earlier. I have read examples where customers have discovered that their parcels were not even on the van, but left in the depot! Easier for the posties if the customers come and collect themselves, I suppose.

I'm a but confused by this. He drives to your address, sneaks up to your door and knocks as quietly as possible - so's you can't hear him, writes out a card and sticks it through your door - quietly, so as not to be heard - and then scurries away. Wouldn't it be easier to just knock and get a signature.

I propose two possible reasons:

Either: he was in a rush to get home/down to the pub, and thought it would be much quicker to write out some cards (mine included) to quietly push through letterboxes, than to wait for customers to answer their doors and sign packages.

Or: the parcel was never even in his van! I have heard that this is a far from uncommon practice.

 

[pred]

We had this conversation a while back when Schity Link managed to put a note through the letter box without one of our three dogs hearing it, this is no mean feat in our house!!

I finally caught him by tying a piece of string around an MT tin can, as soon as he pushed his note on the third attempt through the letter box even I heard it clatter to the tiled floor, result..

 

[masona]

I'm a but confused by this. He drives to your address, sneaks up to your door and knocks as quietly as possible - so's you can't hear him, writes out a card and sticks it through your door - quietly, so as not to be heard - and then scurries away. Wouldn't it be easier to just knock and get a signature.

They are saving 2/3 mins instead of waiting, then time that by 30. Some of them are not interested, just to get home quicker. I've caught one of them on my door cctv there and then. I asked the driver would your company like to see the cctv playback of what you did.

 

[jeds]

I'm a but confused by this. He drives to your address, sneaks up to your door and knocks as quietly as possible - so's you can't hear him, writes out a card and sticks it through your door - quietly, so as not to be heard - and then scurries away. Wouldn't it be easier to just knock and get a signature.

They are saving 2/3 mins instead of waiting, then time that by 30. Some of them are not interested, just to get home quicker. I've caught one of them on my door cctv there and then. I asked the driver would your company like to see the cctv playback of what you did.

That's it then. The World really has gone mad.

 

[securespark]

I have been home shopping for nearly 3 years, since I was forced to stop driving.

It is becoming an increasing problem.

When I ordered my long-thought over Galaxy Mega, I knew which day it was coming and stayed in all day. I waited till about 6.30, then I went out to check if he had delivered it to one of the recycling bins.

I found my Mega on the driveway bordering the pavement!

No card through the door, no phone call, nothing.

I have also had many silent deliveries, with a card through the door, but luckily (or unluckily, should I lose it) they have left the parcel accessible on the property.

 

[JBR]

Logically, when we have a competitive parcel delivery industry, it should be possible to create statistics (yes, I know!) of acceptable and unacceptable/non-deliveries.

I'm not sure how the best way forward would be but, bearing in mind that most people will not bother to report correct deliveries, perhaps it should be a case of reporting only unacceptable deliveries. This could, of course, be done on the internet, perhaps to some government organisation (perhaps independent might be better!) which could periodically publish their findings.

It would then be possible for customers to insist on which courier they would prefer suppliers to use. Suppliers would then have the choice of employing the most reliable courier companies or risk losing sales to disgruntled customers.

I'm not sure how workable this is, but I do think that problems should be reported and publicised.

 

[EFLImpudence]

then I went out to check if he had delivered it to one of the recycling bins.

I found a delivery in the bin recently - no card through the door.

If I hadn't had more cardboard to put in the bin I would have just wheeled it out and the binmen would have tipped it into the lorry.


I have also had the card through door when home.

 

[masona]

Next time if you see the delivery van, rush out to collect the parcel and have a look inside the van, believe me all the parcels are chucked in and thrown about.

A friend of mine worked part-time for a well known courier company but left after 2 months because some of the employees do not care. The favourite is they open the 2 doors at the back of the van using it as a goalpost to hit the parcels in.

 

[bernardgreen]

A few years ago an acquaintance of mine received damaged parcels but the courier service claimed they were not ( could not be ) damaged while in transit. He was able to video the staff at the local depot ( a franchised operation ) handling parcels. He sent the video to the head office of the courier service and within days the local depot was stripped of the franchise. He got an gesture of goodwill payment. Within weeks the local depot was operating again under a different franchise.

 

[JBR]

I've just received a tracked package from Royal Mail, small enough to be dumped through my letterbox, which has a different address to my own. Granted, it is almost the same, except that the house number has an 'A' after it. Yes! It's for next door!

Now normally I would pop next door and drop it in, as I have done many times in the past. I am often asked to take in larger parcels if my neighbours are out, and do not object to this. On this occasion, however, no-one asked me to do so and I must assume that either the postman didn't look at the address properly or perhaps thought he'd save himself a slight detour.

If anyone has been following my posts, you will see that I am not Royal Mail's number one fan, and this was just one time too many, so I decided to telephone RM and ask for the package to be collected and redelivered (even though I was obliged to go through no less than FOUR layers of choosing which button to press.

I had to control myself to prevent my laughing out loud when the, very polite, lady on the other end asked for my address and the delivery address. To her credit, she remained very calm and polite and even apologised for my inconvenience (it crossed my mind that she could have been inwardly somewhat sarcastic, although this didn't come across), and she happily arranged for the parcel to be collected and redelivered.

Yes, I know I'm leaving myself wide open for criticism as being a Victor Meldrew, but I'm becoming a little fed up with Royal Mail. What makes it worse is that last year we gave our regular postie £10 as a Christmas thank-you. Not this year.