Royal Mail, beyond a joke now

[dsc]

Curious if it's just local or country wide, 90% of stuff I ordered in the last two weeks is sitting at the local Gatwick MC, no deliveries from the local sorting office, I have to go there myself 8-10 each they and check if there's any post. Last time they said they have 11 people off sick 24/48 service means nothing, it can easily take 5-10 days to get them, signed for stopped arriving altogether even though a few weeks ago it was the only thing actually getting delivered.

Anyone has any more info on what's going on? I have a feeling loads of workers are taking off sick days due to stress (apparently they are getting absolutely hammered by upper mgmt to deliver more and more) and / or union politics, but it would be nice to hear from insiders.

[vetran]

sadly a postmans life is not a happy one.

4-5 years ago the profitable mail was going to other suppliers over price and quality of service. Seems RM has done little to stop this.

Q how do you make a million pound mail service
A start with a billion pound one

[northernladuk]

I'm sending quite a bit of post out at the moment and I've switched to first class signed for and the tracking is an eye opener. I might get two, maybe three in ten arrive next day or the day after. The rest can be upwards of five days and the number where the tracking fails/get lost is eye opening. It's an absolute disgrace. The get out is they 'aim for next day' but can't call it late until 4 days after. 4 days!

If my experiences are anything to go by calling it First Class is bordering on breaching the trade descriptions act.

[vetran]

I'm sending quite a bit of post out at the moment and I've switched to first class signed for and the tracking is an eye opener. I might get two, maybe three in ten arrive next day or the day after. The rest can be upwards of five days and the number where the tracking fails/get lost is eye opening. It's an absolute disgrace. The get out is they 'aim for next day' but can't call it late until 4 days after. 4 days!

If my experiences are anything to go by calling it First Class is bordering on breaching the trade descriptions act.

Its the Agatha Christie style first class where you need Hercule Poirot to work out what happened

[Paddy]

Had problems for years with missing mail and mail wrongly delivered. It worked perfect for a year when we had a nice lady postie. These days it's just temps working who don't speak much English. I caught the postman delivering wrong mail and I pointed it out to him. His reply was "it sometimes happens". One postie was convicted of theft and his flat in a nearby town contained loads of stolen mail.

[d000hg]

RM is actually our most reliable delivery service. It's the same guy every day so he knows us and where he can safely leave parcels instead of just throwing them on the floor and not even bothering to ring the doorbell, or appearing at a random door/window. I expect that with Hermes but now even DPD are as bad.

The new collection service is pretty handy too, though we mostly use it for Amazon returns!

[dsc]

I'm sending quite a bit of post out at the moment and I've switched to first class signed for and the tracking is an eye opener. I might get two, maybe three in ten arrive next day or the day after. The rest can be upwards of five days and the number where the tracking fails/get lost is eye opening. It's an absolute disgrace. The get out is they 'aim for next day' but can't call it late until 4 days after. 4 days!

If my experiences are anything to go by calling it First Class is bordering on breaching the trade descriptions act.

I was told the 48hr service (trademarked btw) now means it should arrive in 2-4 days. Nice of them to relax the delivery deadline yet keep the name. Absolute feckers (I'm talking upper mgmt not posties and all the on-the-ground staff).

Clearly RM needs to sit down and think hard how to resolve this, they must be loosing loads due to businesses either switching or having switched already. I bet dividends are getting paid on time though, so who cares, right?

[d000hg]

Loads of couriers don't expect next day to mean next day though

[SueEllen]

Oddly after myself and neighbours complained in the late 00s the mail has been fine. Things turn up when expected.

I do remember the postie "mistakenly" delivering a blank envelope containing a complaint response an unnamed neighbour had made. (I was hardly ever in and they knew that.)

The response asked for the neighbour to reply within 14 days. So I responded saying this may not be for me but the postal delivery in the street is poor and listed some issues with examples.

I later found out the intended recipient was one my next door neighbours who was happy that I did respond.

[cojak]

Lordy! Thanks for this. I was about to send out an expensive item via signed-for RM, but I’m not sure who to use now.

Despite their terrible reputation, Evri have been ok but the things I sent out were cheap.