Royal Mail Late Deliveries and the price we have to pay

[Sue]

I had post this morning.

[another annie]

Thanks  for the reminder nellie. Have today received two letters dated February 2024. Heading down to Highshore Road tomorrow to see if there's anything for us.

I'm getting obsessive about missing/late arriving bills since having our phone and broadband cut off when we hadn't received (so hadn't paid) a bill from BT that had been posted to us. I now keep a note in my diary of when the various utility bills are expected, and phoning them when I think something is due, invariably they say the bill has been sent out. It shouldn't be so hard.

Edited June 7 by another annie
adding info

[Cyclemonkey]

Wouldn't it be easier to get the bills emailed to you or use direct debit?

[Spartacus]

Whilst Another Annie could even pay all bills by direct debit, the point is that it shouldn't be that hard to get post delivered and what other important documentation is going missing ? 

[Sue]

Off topic but I don't want to start another thread.

I just had a Royal Mail delivery of a parcel.

The postman ignored a large sign on the door asking people to ring the bell, and just rattled the letterbox, which luckily I heard.

When I opened the door, I found the parcel on my doorstep in full view of passers by, and the postman getting into his van a few houses down.

I then received an email informing me that my parcel had been delivered to my "safe place", an "enclosed porch".

I don't have a safe place, and my porch is not enclosed, it is basically a doorstep to a terraced house .

I know posties have a lot to do, but I find things like this really annoying.

[malumbu]

Most of the delivery companies do this to us so you not just RM! 

[Sue]

Just had through the door a letter from King's offering me  an appointment last Friday.

Lucky we have phones, emails and texts, isn't it? The appointment was originally made by phone.

The letter was dated 6 June, the envelope is stamped 11 June,  the appointment was on 14 June, and today is 17 June.

🙄

 

[malumbu]

Ideally NHS should let us opt out of hard copy.  In deed, I get texts and have the NHS app.  And always good to have a calender in your kitchen to write out down too.

[Sue]

1 hour ago, malumbu said:

Ideally NHS should let us opt out of hard copy.  In deed, I get texts and have the NHS app.  And always good to have a calender in your kitchen to write out down too.

I do all that, I wasn't expecting a hard copy as well, I'm just annoyed at the delay.

And I'm concerned in case my postal vote is equally delayed. I can't remember why I have one, unless I applied during the Covid era.

[lbanks]

Not had post for a couple of weeks now and getting a bit worried our postal vote won’t arrive in time. What is the recourse for this? Feels very wrong that the poor state of the postal system might prevent us from voting!

[Sue]

2 hours ago, lbanks said:

Not had post for a couple of weeks now and getting a bit worried our postal vote won’t arrive in time. What is the recourse for this? Feels very wrong that the poor state of the postal system might prevent us from voting!

I got my postal vote in good time and posted it back on Friday.

There is a number you can phone if it hasn't arrived. I don't think I  still have it, but I'm sure someone on here will and can post it on here!

[lbanks]

Interesting to see it does appear to be a wider issue:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c849w09535ko.amp

[peggoula]

have not received a poll card or any post for the last 2 weeks!! I am on Crystal palace road.

what is going on???

[Burbage]

2 hours ago, peggoula said:

what is going on???

What's going on is that Royal Mail's being prepared for a flog-and-scarper operation on behalf of an offshore billionaire.

East Dulwich was a pilot attempt at that, with the local delivery office being offloaded onto the property market, and "operations" euphemistically relocated to Peckham. Which means that our post, if it doesn't hit landfill first, now gets sent to languish in a bunker off the Highshore Road until someone chooses to destroy, deliver or steal it. Delivery is probably the least likely outcome, probably because not hiring people to deliver post has landed the manager with some toppy KPIs and they've rightly calculated that the pitch-fork wielders of Dulwich won't be bothered to walk that far, while the peeved of Peckham are only a half-brick's throw away.

That has had two effects. One is that we tend not to get post any more. The other is that the tireless Helen Hayes has spent a tireless six or seven years tirelessly telling us how tireless she's been. Which is great if that's your jam, but it's neither buttered any parsnips nor delivered any post. Though it has got her picture in the local papers, and sometimes the BBC, so it's not been as entirely wasted an effort as a cynic might suggest.

The official view, as is usual for corporate and political communications, is a steaming pack of thieving lies, so there's nothing to be had from that. Moreover, although a great deal of post has gone reportedly missing, that's never been properly followed up, mostly because it's very hard to prove an absence, only senders can do the complaining and the most you'll get for your effort is a passive-aggressive non-apology and, in exceptional cases, a stamp. Which, given that Royal Mail's own stamps have been bouncing, is a self-servingly poisoned chalice.

To sum up, if you're in a position to invest in cleft sticks or urchins, I wouldn't wait much longer. The rest of us, however, remain stuffed, and will be further stuffed in five year's time when we have to bail the buffers out. But never mind. If five years seems too long to wait, we''ll have Thames Water to bail out before that.

[tiddles]

Well I think I have a new record - package of documents (thick A4 envelope) sent to East Africa June 2022. Was sent tracked and appeared to disappear into a warehouse in South Africa …. It was finally delivered last week … 🙂 I don’t actually think Royal Mail were the culprits for once!

Edited July 2 by tiddles

[Sue]

Royal Mail are claiming to have delivered two tracked packages to me yesterday. Both were eBay orders (from different people).

I haven't had either of them.

There is a GPS map associated with one,  showing the vicinity of my house, but neither of my neighbours has the package and there is nothing behind any pots etc at the front of my house.

The other one just says "delivery recorded", with no further information.

I was out, and I have spent far too long today on two phone calls to Royal Mail, in the first of which I was given completely wrong information about the process, and now find if the packages don't turn up after 72 hours, the sender/s have to refund me and also make a complaint to Royal Mail.

I'm sure they will be delighted.

Meanwhile, I don't have items which I needed for this coming Saturday. Nothing of any monetary value, but I can't get them locally, so very annoying indeed.

Has anybody else had similar instances lately? Judging by the time I had to wait both times I phoned, Royal Mail must be inundated with complaints at the moment.

The first time, I was told things could have been affected by the Microsoft outage, but surely in that case there would have been no information available at all about the packages, not two separate statements that they had been "delivered" ?

ETA: I've just had to make a THIRD call to Royal Mail because I only got email confirmation of one of the supposedly delivered packages.

It turns out that only one of them was reported to the delivery office yesterday. FFS. How many hours do I have to spend on this because of so many people's incompetence? Now a day has been missed in the timescale of their "process", plus obviously the two items should have been dealt with at the same time, because they were in the same delivery, so presumably are with the same (wrong) person or in the same (wrong) place.

ETA (again): Both of these packages have just arrived (Wednesday morning).

The lovely postie said he couldn't get them through the door on Monday, but couldn't explain why the tracking info said they had both been delivered on Monday. Oh well, at least I've got them now! 

Edited July 24 by Sue

[MrChuffy]

Well, first I was disenfranchised thanks to Roya Mail not sending my postal vote. Now it seems I won't be able to use my bank debit card because they have failed to deliver it. Utterly disgraceful.     

Edited July 23 by MrChuffy

[Sue]

13 hours ago, MrChuffy said:

Well, first I was disenfranchised thanks to Roya Mail not sending my postal vote. Now it seems I won't be able to use my bank debit card because they have failed to deliver it. Utterly disgraceful.     

Our local delivery office must be absolutely inundated with complaints at the moment.

But both of your non-deliveries are appalling.

Have you complained to anyone apart from Royal Mail,  eg the MP?

[KidKruger]

On 23/07/2024 at 13:40, Sue said:

Royal Mail are claiming to have delivered two tracked packages to me yesterday. Both were eBay orders (from different people).

I haven't had either of them.

There is a GPS map associated with one,  showing the vicinity of my house, but neither of my neighbours has the package and there is nothing behind any pots etc at the front of my house.

The other one just says "delivery recorded", with no further information.

I was out, and I have spent far too long today on two phone calls to Royal Mail, in the first of which I was given completely wrong information about the process, and now find if the packages don't turn up after 72 hours, the sender/s have to refund me and also make a complaint to Royal Mail.

I'm sure they will be delighted.

Meanwhile, I don't have items which I needed for this coming Saturday. Nothing of any monetary value, but I can't get them locally, so very annoying indeed.

Has anybody else had similar instances lately? Judging by the time I had to wait both times I phoned, Royal Mail must be inundated with complaints at the moment.

The first time, I was told things could have been affected by the Microsoft outage, but surely in that case there would have been no information available at all about the packages, not two separate statements that they had been "delivered" ?

ETA: I've just had to make a THIRD call to Royal Mail because I only got email confirmation of one of the supposedly delivered packages.

It turns out that only one of them was reported to the delivery office yesterday. FFS. How many hours do I have to spend on this because of so many people's incompetence? Now a day has been missed in the timescale of their "process", plus obviously the two items should have been dealt with at the same time, because they were in the same delivery, so presumably are with the same (wrong) person or in the same (wrong) place.

ETA (again): Both of these packages have just arrived (Wednesday morning).

The lovely postie said he couldn't get them through the door on Monday, but couldn't explain why the tracking info said they had both been delivered on Monday. Oh well, at least I've got them now! 

I had a couple of eBay parcels due same morning a couple of weeks ago. Updates told me morning delivery due. I purposefully worked in hallway so there’d be zero chance of me being marked as ‘did not answer’.

An hour or so later separate updates for each parcel told me delivery attempted but occupant ‘not home’. I checked outside, no sign of postie or parcels stashed anywhere.

No information was provided about what will happen next, whether redelivery will be attempted, whether the parcel(s) will be stored at the delivery office, no note through the door. Next morning I got a notification that delivery would be soon, I waited in the hallway again doing some work, then same thing I had notification that delivery has been attempted and occupant was not home.

So I know these updates (on these occasions) were BS.

Planned to go to the delivery office next day, on the off chance that these parcels are traceable/stored there. Later that afternoon, knock on the door and both parcels provided, for which I was grateful.

It’s just all very weird.

[MaryT]

Same thing has just happened to me. Apparently, the Court issued a notice of enforcement for a parking fine that I'd already challenged. Didn't receive that correspondence; possibly it will come through the letterbox eventually, so I couldn't act on it. In the meantime, it's gone to enforcement agents. All of these processes are time sensitive and rely on post being delivered on time. Of course there is no action which can be taken against Royal Mail since it's impossible to prove that a specific item wasn't delivered. I've emailed our MP yet again on this issue (now Ellie Reeves MP) but I'm again left sorting out the mess created by our persistently unreliable local mail service.

[ianr]

Mary there may be a remedy -- paradoxically perhaps, and maybe a bit scarily, when the matter reaches the high court, where the matter is made into a civil debt.   I wrote about it on page three of this thread, and there's also an authoritative account (see in particular the statutory declaration section) at

https://www.londontribunals.gov.uk/eat/understanding-enforcement-process/moving-traffic-pcn-enforcement-process

Or perhaps I've jumped the gun and you're already past that stage?

 

Edited September 16 by ianr

[redpenguin]

Hilariously, I got this reply from Tyne Tunnels about an appeal I made regarding an outstanding fine my brother accrued for me. 
We are obviously in the 0.3% they talk about! 🤣
 

In your appeal, you told us that you did not receive the UTCN letter until 12/09/2024.
We use an external provider to produce letters sent by post, and each batch of letters is assigned a consignment number which confirms that they have been passed to the Royal Mail for delivery.
Our records show that the UTCN was assigned a consignment number and sent on 21/08/2024. This was sent to the registered keeper using information provided by the DVLA.
While consignment numbers themselves are not traceable via the postal service, government figures show that 99.7% of items dispatched by the Royal Mail are deemed to have been successfully delivered, and delivery in this case did not fall within a period of industrial action.
We also receive notifications whenever letters cannot be delivered. In this case, the UTCN was not reported as a failed delivery.
 

[Sue]

9 minutes ago, redpenguin said:

Hilariously, I got this reply from Tyne Tunnels about an appeal I made regarding an outstanding fine my brother accrued for me. 
We are obviously in the 0.3% they talk about! 🤣
 

In your appeal, you told us that you did not receive the UTCN letter until 12/09/2024.
We use an external provider to produce letters sent by post, and each batch of letters is assigned a consignment number which confirms that they have been passed to the Royal Mail for delivery.
Our records show that the UTCN was assigned a consignment number and sent on 21/08/2024. This was sent to the registered keeper using information provided by the DVLA.
While consignment numbers themselves are not traceable via the postal service, government figures show that 99.7% of items dispatched by the Royal Mail are deemed to have been successfully delivered, and delivery in this case did not fall within a period of industrial action.
We also receive notifications whenever letters cannot be delivered. In this case, the UTCN was not reported as a failed delivery.
 

Dear oh dear.

They have a childlike trust in Royal Mail, don't they?

[redpenguin]

Absolutely!

[JohnL]

As we stop using royal mail we forget - not used it for 5 years then had a letter needed to go to a solicitor

I used old stamps I've had for years - no they're not allowed you need posh bar coded ones now- that letters gone into the Ether -I'll try another.

Tempted to go back to what I did in the 1980s write  "FIRST CLASS URGENT" on the front underlined and a return address on the back but it'll probably wind them up.