Royal Mail? Delivering undamaged/on time letters? Yeh right.

[m1spw]

Ok. Royal Mail are crap. What is it about their system that is so amazingly bad?

Example 1: Letter sent on the 26th of August 2005, from Newcastle upon Tyne. Arrived in Cambridge...14th November 2005. I could have walked faster, and delivered it by hand!

Example 2: Late November, order PH calender. Calender arrives about 4 days later in an envelope clearly marked with a big red "PLEASE DO NOT BEND". So what does the postman do? Bends it in half to force it through my letter box.

Fill in 3 forms for Royal Mail to claim compensation for it and order another calender, send new calender to somewhere which doesn't have a postbox, just a 'mail delivery room' so theres no chance of it being bent to be shoved through a letter box. However, even though the PH shop packaged it in a Do Not Bend envelope, with another beside it for extra strength, and then a load of bubble wrap around it...and then another envelope, I open it to find...its equally as badly damaged...

Possibly it was the new Royal Mail football? Or maybe the postman was a bit annoyed he coudln't shove it through a letter box, so just decided to walk on it and throw it against a wall.

3rd time lucky, and Ted sends me a new calender. With lots of packaging, and FINALLY! ITS NOT DAMAGED!

Now, Royal Mail, why couldn't you just do that in the first place????????

[pdV6]

"Do not bend", "Fragile", "Urgent"

Red rags to a bull in the sorting office.

Especially at Christmas time when they're staffed by temps...

[UncleDave]

Don't get me started on the Postal Service

[FourWheelDrift]

m1spw said:

Example 1: Letter sent on the 26th of August 2005, from Newcastle upon Tyne. Arrived in Cambridge...14th November 2005. I could have walked faster, and delivered it by hand!

I think the mail was delayed due to an accident.

[Balmoral Green]

Shame really, I cant say I have ever had a problem with them, and I have lived in lots of different areas and i'm quite old too now, so I have experienced a lot of letter/parcelling type things in my time.

Derby is really good though, pretty much everything I post arrives next day, and vice-versa when I am recieving. I generally have about a dozen items a day in/out. The parcel service is ace as we have a depot in Belper, If I miss a delivery I just pop down and swop my advice card for my package.

Then again, I cant say I have ever had a problem with my bank, or any utility company either come to that. It must be just me

[UncleDave]

Good to see they are planning to upgrade their old vans.. might speed delivery times up a bit.





And I just noticed their 'slogan'... when I first read it in my head it sounded like a threat

[singlecoil]

Perhaps if they were allowed to charge a commercial rate they would do better. For the silly money they get for taking a letter the length of the country I think they do bloody well
Every time the TV news does a feature on the Post Office they show these other firms who are going to take over. I wonder how much they would charge for taking a letter from Plymouth to Carlisle?

[m1spw]

singlecoil said:

Perhaps if they were allowed to charge a commercial rate they would do better. For the silly money they get for taking a letter the length of the country I think they do bloody well Every time the TV news does a feature on the Post Office they show these other firms who are going to take over. I wonder how much they would charge for taking a letter from Plymouth to Carlisle?

But at the moment they have a government controlled monopoly for any letter under 50p (except for Deutch post in Londin IIRC), so technically they could charge 49p for a standard letter, and no one could do anything about it until its privatised.

[bga]

pdV6 said:

"Do not bend", "Fragile", "Urgent" Red rags to a bull in the sorting office. Especially at Christmas time when they're staffed by temps...

My brother is one of those temps - they are still keen & eager. Apparently the full timers are pro's at parcel footie & letter frisbee.

[vixpy1]

FourWheelDrift said:

Think i can just pick out the legs of the Wicked witch of the East there..

[jessica]

UncleDave said:

Good to see they are planning to upgrade their old vans.. might speed delivery times up a bit. And I just noticed their 'slogan'... when I first read it in my head it sounded like a threat

I guess I need to become a post person then ............

>> Edited by jessica on Friday 9th December 23:09

[nickjm]

I sent off my son's application for a secondary school in october, apparently the school only received it on the 7th December! Lost post bag or something, WTF!!!!

Royal mail are IMO.




>> Edited by nickjm on Friday 9th December 23:11

[UncleDave]

nickjm said:

I sent off my son's application for a secondary school in october, apparently the school only received it on the 7th December! Lost post bag or something, WTF!!!! Royal mail are IMO.

It's 10x worse in those situations, the calendar I s'pose is replaceable (but very rare 150 limited edition ) but what if a place at a secondary school or something like that had gone down the pan..? Their standard £30 compensation wouldn't cover that one!

Dave.

[nickjm]

UncleDave said:

nickjm said: I sent off my son's application for a secondary school in october, apparently the school only received it on the 7th December! Lost post bag or something, WTF!!!! Royal mail are IMO. It's 10x worse in those situations, the calendar I s'pose is replaceable (but very rare 150 limited edition ) but what if a place at a secondary school or something like that had gone down the pan..? Their standard £30 compensation wouldn't cover that one! Dave.

Exactly! Fortunately the school were very understanding and sent us back the receipt of application telling us that the post bag had gone missing.

[singlecoil]

My response to the undelivered mail situation is that it's similar to other situations where you pay somebody to do something for you- they might do what they've been paid to do or they might not, with the Royal Mail the chances of success are a lot higher than average and when you think of what they charge then that's pretty amazing.
In the end, though,the old adage applies, if you want something done properly, or more to this point, if you NEED it done properly, then you have to do it yourself.
Anyone wondering why I'm speaking up for them? No, I'm not a postman nor are any of my family. I do know a bit about running a business, though

[FunkyNige]

m1spw said:

singlecoil said: Perhaps if they were allowed to charge a commercial rate they would do better. For the silly money they get for taking a letter the length of the country I think they do bloody well Every time the TV news does a feature on the Post Office they show these other firms who are going to take over. I wonder how much they would charge for taking a letter from Plymouth to Carlisle? But at the moment they have a government controlled monopoly for any letter under 50p (except for Deutch post in Londin IIRC), so technically they could charge 49p for a standard letter, and no one could do anything about it until its privatised.

Nope, the agency that oversees Royal Mail (Ofcom possibly?) set the price of stamps, a postie friend of mine says it costs RM about 50p to send a letter now.

[puggit]

Their current TV ad does amuse me - just one postie covering the entire UK... It certainly feels like that at time

[tvrforever]

FunkyNige said:

m1spw said: singlecoil said: Perhaps if they were allowed to charge a commercial rate they would do better. For the silly money they get for taking a letter the length of the country I think they do bloody well Every time the TV news does a feature on the Post Office they show these other firms who are going to take over. I wonder how much they would charge for taking a letter from Plymouth to Carlisle? But at the moment they have a government controlled monopoly for any letter under 50p (except for Deutch post in Londin IIRC), so technically they could charge 49p for a standard letter, and no one could do anything about it until its privatised. Nope, the agency that oversees Royal Mail (Ofcom possibly?) set the price of stamps, a postie friend of mine says it costs RM about 50p to send a letter now.

Sorry not quite - there is a Royal Warrent required for the issuing of post to priavte/public addresses for under £1. It used to be just two companies in the UK had the warrent, The Post Office and the Hays DX system (now sold from Hays www.thedx.co.uk/). The latter was actually a membership system, but still to this day carries most of the real legal post in the country, and had a reliability rate so high that warrents/summons were deemed served by posting them rather than waiting to receive them. (Yes i used to work for Hays, and yes it came in very handy when a certain Irish mortgage company claimed my documents "had been lost in the DX" - they were a little surprised when the regional manager of DX phoned them to ask what they thought had been lost, and rapidly located my docs on a desk of a mortgage clerk).

Not sure what the exact situation is as I stopped following this a while ago but there is some stuff on the DX web site.

Problem with The Post Office is union mentality, temporary workforces, terrible mismanagement and no innovation at all.

[theconrodkid]

when i had my own buisness quite often the postie would ask where an address was,most couldnt read or speak english,how are they suposed to find a place?