Missing Post In East Dulwich (Especially Lordship Lane) not strike related

[spark67]

on the 22december i had a card delivered through my door saying post had arrived for me that was 8p underpaid, and i had to collect and pay the excess 8p, plus a ?1.00 handling charge !!, i thought maybe someone had sent me a large envelope and not paid the extra by mistake, ( as my old dad usually does) but no it was within the size for small mail, it was because the card had a cut out xmas stocking on it making it 1mm to thick!!, so i had to pay ?1.08 to get it, how they work out that it costs ?1 to handle it, it was all screwed up and muddy looked like it had been handled by an angry rugby team !!

[bob]

Sorry to be so boring 16.00H still no post.

Bob S

[James Barber]

The Post Office External Relationship Manager has emailed me today that they are looking into the East Dulwich postal matter.

[bob]

Thank's James I do hope he will act on his finding's in a positive way by getting the post office to do the job their payed for.

Bob S

[bob]

Hooraa good new's post Bad new's appointment for opticians posted 18/12/09

Bob S

[Will_i_am]

Thanks for all the replies in this thread and PMs too (which, I'm sorry, I haven't had the chance to reply to). Since making this original post I too have had another incident similar to one previously posted.

My collegue watched the postman put the 'sorry we missed you' card into the letterbox of an open door at 12:30pm having made no attempt to deliver the parcel. The time written on the card was 2pm. I have made the trip up to the sorting office twice now to see if the parcel is there. It's been lost. I've made numerous complaints but nothing has been done.

I also saw the postman over christmas on Lordship lane taking a wedge of his letters and dropping them back into the letterbox of the post office.

[bob]

Will i am

Use the link on Sue's post to Complain it works

Got post to Day

Bob S

[helinka]

I am on Copelston Rd and have missed many important items of post including parcels, bank statements and medical notes over the last few months, especially in December. I tried, and fail to contact Royal Mail via email. Does anyone have the link?

Thank you ;)

[bob]

Helinka

Please read Sue's post and use link

Bob S

[Sue]

Here's the link to complain again - click below:

Royal Mail complaints

[snowylady]

Loads of missing post too. And lots of missing parcels. And missing DVDS from Love film- I complained a few times and they arrived- open (after nearly 3 months "lost"). I reckon someone took them home to watch.

[Gelboy]

The last two items I have ordered from Play.com have not arrived. I haven't had a problem with their items being delivered in the past so perhaps it is connected to this problem.

[Sue]

I am still waiting for a CD I ordered from eBay for a Christmas present. This was posted to me on 13 December by a seller with 100% feedback, who says all the others posted that day have safely arrived.

It was a bit of a niche genre but I guess the thief wouldn't know this prior to nicking it, if that's what's happened.

Also - I have heard nothing back from Royal Mail re my two pre-Christmas complaints about packets being left on my doorstep. I am putting this down to a complaints backlog over the Christmas leave period, but I shall be chasing them hard if I haven't heard anything soon.

[bob]

TJMP any new's re missing post.

Bob S

[tuxjay]

My amazon parcel was delivered to a neighbour, who then redelivered it to me.

I've redelivered 3 pieces of post now in the last week. Two were on the same road at least, so close.

One of my wife's parcels sent last week has totally vanished, along with one of my parcels (both sent first class). One of her recorded items of post is being kept at the delivery office and no card was posted through our door (she discovered it by checking the mail reference the sender gave to her online).

This is pathetic! I'd also like to point out we only received any post at all on 2 out of 5 days last week. Sorry and a second edit.. during December the postman left letters outside the front door. As if lifting his hand to the mailbox was too much effort.

Make sure you all complain to Royal Mail about this. When I phoned to complain one hour ago I was informed that over 15 houses on my road have complained. I'm hoping that if enough people complain this can be sorted out, individual complaints alone seem to be ineffectual.

[Sue]

Better to complain via the link I posted twice on this thread - no guarantee that any record will be kept of phone calls, and they have to reply if you complain via their website.

Not that I've actually had their replies yet .....

[Luisa]

We regularly get the wrong post here and I always post it on. We get a lot of lovefilm dvds for 100 East dulwich Grove which definitely isn't here!

I have a feeling the postman chucks a load of stuff through our letter box which isn't ours out of laziness which is a huge worry as God knows where all my post is (currently waiting for a credit card, ebay parcel, national insurance bill and restauratn vouchers).

Just made a complaint to Royal Mail via website link above.

[figgins]

I complained via the website a week ago. No reply. Yesterday we got our first post for seven days - but still no sign of two magazine subscriptions. We rarely get anyone else's mail, and to be honest this is the first prolonged period where we've had problems.

[ianr]

> but still no sign of two magazine subscriptions.

My latest Private Eye, due Wed 6/1, didn't arrive until Mon 11/1. The one due 11/11/09 didn't arrive at all.

I had been thinking of starting a thread just to log these, usually predictable, benchmark mail deliveries, in the hope getting some clues as to where specifically in the postal system any such losses or delays were happening.

[James Barber]

I've had a reply from Royal Mail. It makes you wonder why it took so long for this reply. But at least I have a reply. Mr Sxxxx you know who you are. It now appears clear that unless Royal Mail get sufficient compliants about East Dulwich that it wont stick out as having a problem that needs fixing. I suspect more problems have been highlighted and shared on this forum than with the Royal Mail. If, on this thread we all followed a rule of complaining to Royal Mail stating our complaint reference number with each post Royal Mail would soon recognise the blip on their radar and do something.

Anyway, the reply:

REF 1-1283752414

Dear Councillor Barber

Thank you for your email to Mxxxxxx Mxxxx about problems local residents have reported with their delivery service. As you are aware I have been asked to investigate and respond directly to you.

First of all I would like to offer my sincere apologies for the concern Mr XXXXX and the other residents have been caused. We aim to provide an efficient and reliable service to all of our customers and take any failures very seriously indeed.

For further information I contacted the Management Team at East Dulwich Delivery Office. They have confirmed that there is a regular delivery officer on the round that covers Mr XXXXX's address and on his day off it is covered by a number of reserve officers. There have been no reported problems with deliveries and all mail received in the office is taken out

each day. As a precaution a mail monitor has been implemented on Mr XXXXX's address until the end of the month, this should highlight anyissues and give us the opportunity to take any necessary action.

With regard to the losses and delays mentioned by Mr XXXXX, perhaps I could explain that due to the volumes of mail we handle every day, we cannot always explain what has gone wrong when a problem occurs. Whilst we keep records of vehicle breakdowns or problems with sorting machinery which might contribute to a delay, the large volume of mail we handle means we are unable to track individual items of mail as they travel through the postal system. In the absence of any major disruption to the service, it is sometimes difficult to explain why a delay or a loss has occurred. Nevertheless, we do endeavour to provide an acceptable level of service to all of our customers and I am sorry that we have let Mr XXXXX down. If he or any of the other residents experiences any further problems please ask them to contact our Customer Services on 08457 740 740 or via our website at www.royalmail.com where they will be able to register the details and

enquiries can be made. In the case of delayed mail retaining the outer packaging or envelope can also help with our enquiries.

In closing, I would be grateful if you could once again extend my apologies to Mr XXXXX and the other residents for the problems they have experienced. We are certainly not complacent and I would like to stress that the safe delivery of the mail is of paramount important to us. If I can be of any further help in this or any other matter do not hesitate to come back to me.

Yours sincerely

Assistant to Board Members

[James Barber]

Via Simon Hughes MP office I've had Channel4 contact me about this issue.

I've pointed their researcher to this forum. So you might get a PM from him at some point.

[tuxjay]

5 outright mistakes and 3 missing items in the past 8 working days:

* A parcel that we arranged for redelivery today has not been redelivered.

* A recorded package is marked "Waiting for response from addressee" when we have received no indication at all they have it (only by contacting the sender and getting them to check online are we aware of its status).

* 2 items of post for other houses have been misdelivered to us.

* 1 item of my post has been delivered to someone else.

* My wife's pay slip sent from her London office last week still not arrived.

* Two parcels sent last week still not arrived.

[Penguin68]

The problem is that our problems with post are multiple.

1. From mid summer we have been badly affected by the unofficial ?action? (inaction) of postal staff, which started the backlog which the official strike action only exacerbated. I was told that a 20 (working) day delay for post had become the norm during the strike. This seems to have been caused initially by problems in a main sorting office before post even got to Sylvester road. The longer post is delayed the more chance it has of going missing/ being wrongly delivered. The fact that I (and of course others) are still getting delayed post suggests that whatever is being argued, there is still an underlying backlog of deliveries.

2. There has been an acknowledged (at least it was in the East Dulwich Police Station when I had to report the theft of a cheque book from the post) problem of dishonest staff (mainly casuals) employed out of Sylvester Road. NB I have no doubt that the majority of staff are honest at this sorting office.

3. It is clear that the sorting of letters into rounds is at times ineffective ? I believe many miss-deliveries are because letters are caught up inside batches properly sorted, so they get delivered wrongly as part of a group ? although clearly there is also evidence see (4 below) of delivery staff short-cutting by randomly delivering to empty their sacks.

4. Some postal delivery staff (casual or not) are inept and careless, without being intentionally dishonest ? mainly interested in completing their rounds quickly. Taking time to ring at a door and wait for a reply (as opposed to stuffing a ?you were out note? through the door without ringing, or not even that) is not worth their while. Neither is ensuring they are delivering the correct letters.

I suspect that a final failure is one of management ? apart from the hold-ups up-line in the delivery process all the remaining issues are Sylvester Road failures ? and that means that it is Sylvester Road management which is actually failing ? probably because the first-line manager in charge will not even be based there (I am happy to stand corrected if this is not so). Many of the Sylvester Road staff that I meet are caring and helpful individuals ? some of them have given me numbers to call to register complaints, because they too are feeling frustrated by management inaction. But it is very difficult for individual front-line staff to change an organisation acting as individuals, where there is no management focus on quality improvement or even, from the tone of the letter received, any real acknowledgement that there is a problem to solve.

[Sue]

Yeh, most of that letter was just a standard cut and paste job, wasn't it.

[gufflings]

I'm having similar ongoing problems with late/non-deliveries of post. I live in Dunstans Road. I'm currently waiting for an ebay parcel posted on 17 December, a letter posted recorded delivery on the same date and a parcel posted recorded delivery on 4 January. Sometimes items are taking up to 3 weeks to arrive when they've only travelled across London, and are overtaken by other items that have come from absolutely miles away. Makes no sense. Plus, today we received all the post for next door - and vice versa, I think, since I've just discovered our post waiting for us downstairs.

I shall be adding a complaint to the Royal Mail website as I'm now at the end of my tether. It's making me reluctant to buy anything online at all, which is unfortunate as I'm hugely pregnant and the internet's my shopping lifeline!

I've been on to the sorting office but they were no real help; they can't track recorded delivery items until they're delivered, and they just advised me to ask senders to fill in a lost item form if the delivery doesn't turn up after 15 working days. Apparently if this doesn't happen they have no way of logging patterns of non-delivery and investigating accordingly.

Frustrating/tedious.