Royal mail difficulties

[Torvean32]

I normally love Royal Mail, every year i give my postie a voucher and card.

However I've been waiting 8 days for mail that was sent first class.
I'm gutted as one parcel had a personalised item I had done for my nephew's first Christmas. I've not been able to meet him due to Covid so it was really special to order this.

The ppl who sent it is all blaise saying oh there's delays dont panic. Royal mail ( who apparently were delivering on Sunday, didnt happen here) don't give a crap.

I'm away first thing Thursday. I'm so disappointed. It's not the same if i send it after Christmas.

The parcel was sent from London to a large city in Scotland which i know is a direct route. So its not due to rural delivery.

BBC said RM increased their workforce by almost a 1/3 to make sure deliveries were recevied in time , but that's obviously not true. I can't call or collect from the Sorting office either. And you can't get through to speak to anybody at Royal Mail.

I think they've made a mistake in offereing a collect and delivery service when they can't deliver regular mail.

I've always ordered in plenty of times so I'm pissed.

Is this happening where you live?

Twice I got a text and email from royal mail to say "a parcel was arriving today between 9 and 1pm"
They never turned up. Then a few days later were delivered to me.
It's just annoying as I stayed in waiting only to be stood up! at least I eventually received them though.

I do blame Royal Mail. Hermies and DPD still manage to deliver on time.

They’ve had almost a year to get used to operating in a pandemic. They knew demand would increase as more people are buying online and Christmas is coming. They should when recruited more staff. If they don’t have space for more staff they would of had time to set up temporary sorting centres. This was completely foreseeable.

I had a tracked 48 parcel that Royal Mail received on 02/12 and it arrived yesterday. It really isn’t good enough.

I run a small business and sell on Not on the high street. I offer tracked postage or free postage by first class. Very few people choose tracked.

If there’s no tracking there not much the seller can do once the item is in the Royal Mail system.

Also please don’t blame individual posties. The volume of mail being processed is huge.

One thing I can tell you though is how entitled and rude people are. The way people have spoken to online sellers that I know is so nasty.

Hermes and DPD don’t deal with the volumes that RM do. They also don’t deal with letters/cards or have to provide a service that covers the whole of the uk for the same price. Anyone in the Highlands and Islands will tell you all about the surcharges they pay.

One thing I can tell you though is how entitled and rude people are. The way people have spoken to online sellers that I know is so nasty.

As an online seller I concur! I cam only post your item, once it is in the post I really have no control over it, abusing me won't make it turn up any quicker!

Are you absolutely sure it's been posted in the first place?

RM is excruciatingly slow here in SE at the moment.

I've been waiting for 16 days for a parcel from River Island. I wrote to them, they apllogisedand said RM is experiencing delays. Still no parcel, though.

pink YOU should have ordered your stuff earlier, you knew there was a pandemic and postal services would be under huge strain.

So why not take some responsibility for your lack of organisation.

Christmas comes at the same time every year.

Edinburgh mail centre have been having a lot of issues.

Check out the service report here: personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/12556/~/service-update

The bit that says

Edinburgh Mail Centre: Some mail posted in other parts of the UK over the weekend, for delivery today in the DD, EH, FK, KY, PH and TD postcode areas.

Has been saying that daily for a week! I'm in one of those areas and yesterday got post dated 30/11!

Royal Mail is on its knees. They've rented warehouses in some areas to temporarily store unsorted post that is waiting to go into the system, entire cages of sealed sacks are waiting because of the increased volume of the post, the restrictions put on the working environment because of COVID-19, plus staff being off either ill or self-isolating. I've seen photos of the distribution centres where there's physically no room for more post so the lorry has had to take it back to where it was collected. As an online seller I've closed my shops a week earlier than usual because of this.

I have no wish to be accused by buyers of ruining Christmas because something they ordered got delayed in the post.

Sunday delivery would help the backlog.

I think they’re bundling parcels for one household together even if it delays some of them. This has been happening right throughout the pandemic where I am. We tend to get post every other day, sometimes every 3 days but when they turn up they have a humongous pile.

@houseinthesnow I don’t think I was unreasonable to expect things I ordered from Black Friday sales to arrive before the third week of December. That wasn’t me being unorganised.

They’re the ones being paid to deliver a service.

If I took money at work to do a job that I didn’t have the resources to complete within a reasonable time scale I could be struck off by my profession’s governing body.

Apparently it’s okay for Royal Mail to work to whatever timescales they like.

I know it absolutely isn’t the fault of individual posties it’s the people in management positions.

Update, I've had my parcel today. To be fair, we all knew RM would very, very busy before Christmas so I don't feel like complaining. I'm pretty sure they're doing their best. I also did my Christmas shopping in October, but I guess this isn't always possible for various reasons. I'm not ordering anything for myself this month, November was my cut off.

It’s a combination of RM and some companies. M&S send orders in different parcels, even though they’re ordered at the same time and are pretty much the same thing. I ordered two packs of knickers and a thermal top. They were apparently dispatched in three packages. Two arrived, one hasn’t. It’s impossible to see from the tracking where it is and impossible to get through to M&S. I’ve tried phone, email, live chat and Twitter.

M&S send orders in different parcels, even though they’re ordered at the same time and are pretty much the same thing.

This really gets my goat. They bang on about sustainability and then use three separate plastic wrappers for one order.

'Tracked' parcels are prioritised as these are the ones that make a greater profit. You may have no mail or normal parcels for 3 days, but if there is a tracked parcel you should get it the day it arrives in the local delivery office.
Due to the pandemic, RM are allowed to fail the USO (universal service obligation) and are using it to their advantage by not covering rounds that are now being left undelivered for days.
They claim to be losing money due to sickness and covid measures, when the world and his wife have been ordering everything possible online for the last 9 months.
But your local Postman is not to blame.