A huge Royal Mail exposè is coming...

[Skimm]

I saw my postie today after not seeing one for weeks and asked whats been happening with the mail recently. He took out his ear phones and wouldn't stop talking.

He said that its chaos at the depot, they are being giving thousand of letter to post and when you complain they say ai don't care what you do with them, dont bring them back.

They are also being told to prioritize parcels and that letters aren't important. People are quiting or going off sick so the RM are having to hire agency workers who are dumping letters in bushes and quiting within days.

I haven't had post in over 3 week. I have only noticed as I'm waiting to recieve 2 v.important letters that were sent 3 and 2 weeks ago. So who knows how long its been going on.

I have phoned the help line and been told that 50% off the staff in my local depot are either sick or absent and that they have shut down certain postcodes to deliveries. They said after the complaint I will recieve post within 72hr. It never happened and I've had to complain again.

If you search online you will see I'm not the only one. It seems to be happening nationwide in cities and rural areas. The issue is that RM are denying that there is an issue.

They are suppose to deliver post to every postcode Monday to Saturday and now I've been told that they are closing down certain postcodes over the phone but then denying it on social media.

I still didn't get my mail today so I'm starting to wonder if I'm one if the people whobhave had their letters dumped.

2 days ago the Postie handed DH the post as he was leaving the house and the top one was a card addressed to a village about 18 miles away so he handed it straight back. Guess what I just took out of our post box. It'll go back tomorrow with a big arrow pointing to the correct village and a note saying it's been delivered to our village twice. It's not they've put the incorrect post code on either.

It’s been days since we’ve had any post… haven’t seen hide nor hair of any posties either. Or mail vans. Or tumbleweed… although that would be fitting. We’ve had five Christmas cards and we know some have been posted, heaven knows where they are or when if ever they’ll turn up. Christmas 2024 maybe?

Bit of a silly statement. What would we like them to do? Provide a decent service as per what we’re paying for. This didn’t happen overnight, they’re either burying their heads in the sand or couldn’t care less about their customers. We had a redirect set up for a year (about £70 if i recall correctly). 3 letters were redirected, the rest were sent to our old address. We were fobbed off with ‘oh, we’ll have a word’ etc. nothing changed in a year

There would have been the same number of letters, but millions more parcels.

Public ownership of the mail service in nearly every other country in the world seems to work, otherwise they would have all been privatised.

Hi, still no post.

Yesterday I went and opened a MetroBank account. I only needed my drivers licence.

I got a contact less debit card that day. I transferred some money and paid off what I needed to pay off. I can relax a little bit now. But im still waiting for important letters.

But for anyone that is waiting for a bank card you can open a simple debit account with Metro.

Yes i think this company should never of been privatised, i remember 1st and 2nd class post every day. Knowing who the post man was, it is sadly like a lot of companys nowadays lacking in customer care.
Had a issue with my post, a postie couldnt be bothered to slide the bolt on my gate, (its not stuck or stiff) so he threw my post over my fence, it was extremely windy i had to run out in my nightwear to stop a large cheque, a hospital appointment and a bank statement going off in the wind. Good job i spotted him doing it.
They have a duty of care to private information, i contacted the delivery office who said they would look into it, were sorry i had an issue, never heard anything since.
I offered for it to be left in a local shop or somewhere so i could collect it if it was easier for them.
Who ever the postie was on that day and 2 previous days is not currently on my route.
Hope he doesnt come back, i dread to think if any other letters have gone astray.
I will be surprised if the Post Office as we know it still exists in a year or two.

I've just read this on Facebook about six times.

The op has written it like it's her own words.

I’ve had many a parcel that was supposed to be Royal Mail 48 hour delivery take a week to arrive. Had an order from hotel chocolat that was supposed to be delivered on Tuesday, Tuesday night tracking said it had been scanned at a collection point, I ordered for delivery so someone got my Christmas presents and hotel chocolat have had to resend them.

They have a legal obligation to provide the services which you’ve paid for. Effective breach of contract. Contract being, you paying for the service……

I am in South Yorkshire and I only get post every second Friday. That's it. It's been like this since at least October. Absolutely disgusting.

So am l. We get it every Tuesday if we are lucky.

I am a seller on Etsy. My business relies on small and large letter size. We send hundreds a month. I am one of thousands of sellers just on Etsy who use letter and large letter.
There is NO alternative. No other business that we can use to send our products. Just imagine for a moment that whatever job you do- someone told you that ‘I’m sorry, literally no way you can ever work in your chosen field ever again. Via any company. It won’t be easy but yeah- ho hum.
Royal mail are delivering to every address every day. They can carry mail alongside parcels. Even if the cost has to go up slightly.
Paying £7 to send a letter is not feasible either and if everyone started doing that as suggested previously, we would still be in the same state as we are now because it would be unachievable.
Yes it needs a shake up, but there must be some way to send smaller items.

I live in one of the countries with a three days a week delivery - although parcels are delivered on any day (other than Sunday). There was a lot of grumbling at the begining, but it's been happening for so long now that we have all adjusted. Surely if other countries can cope, then so can the UK?

Apparently I had a parcel delivered yesterday according to the tracking, except I can't find it. I live in a block of 6 flats(we all know each other so it isnt going to be taken by one of them), flat right next to the main door (that locks behind you so hallway is secure) opposite the post boxes. The usual postie normally knocks on my door or leaves by my door if I don't answer, I was in when it was meant to be delivered, there are no parcels in the hallway.

It's a cd for my Dad so hardly worth nicking unless you like random folk music but I'm now missing a Christmas present. I will have to go out on Christmas eve and find him something else now so am not amused.

Okay I take the previous post back, it was delivered in my post box.

I completely feel your pain @PurpleWisteria1. I also run a business on Etsy that mostly relies on letters and large letters - I suspect we are selling the same type of products!

It seems that nobody apart from those like us really understands the impact Royal Mail's behaviour has on our livelihoods. As you say, it's like being told we can no longer do our jobs. As small businesses we have no one to turn to and no one it seems is listening to us. It's a very frightening place to be, which is only made worse by everyone seemingly stating that 'letters aren't important and should be phased out.'

The irony is that on the Royal Mail website they say that they help to deliver our reputation. Well, all Royal Mail has done to mine is make me look like a scammer when my products don't arrive.

I don't know what the answer is but something has to change.

What do you want them to do pull posties outta there arses the woman said well would you sit back for wks if your xmas parcels didn't come till after Xmas nope I don't think you would our postal service is crap

The trouble is that Amazon next day already has every other seller by the short and curlies. Buyers more and more expect personalised gifts next day or within two days. It just wouldn’t work if customers needed to wait 4 days minimum for their order even if you shipped asap. Post on a non, tues and wed. Buyer orders on a Monday evening. Takes 1 day to make and ship. They won’t likely get it until the following Monday.
Etsy / eBay etc also wouldn’t update their delivery estimates so sellers would just be in a total mess with awful reviews / shut down.
I can imagine that if this happened, I would need to sent letters as parcels. That would be the only way round it. But buyers would need to pay more - they probably wouldn’t so likely other large companies like Amazon, Temu and shein would grow even larger. And smaller UK sellers would be pushed even further out. Bad all round for the UK
Saying other countries do it doesn’t help. Other countries do a lot of things differently but they have different set ups with retail, import, consumers and what they consume.

I can't actually see your point about other countries, and I doubt we do much different here to the UK. Here, if people want to send something small and get it there quickly, then yes they do send it as a small parcel. I've not heard anyone complain about the price of doing so, and really it doesn't cost that much more. You are only thinking about it from your point of view, fair enough, but having a six day a week mail delivery service for a small number of letters no longer makes sense.

Incidentally, I do a lot (far too much!) of online shopping, and paying the cost of postage is something I don't really even consider, if I want the goods I pay the postage.

As a postie dont blame the staff, this is why RM staff went on strike last year so save the service we provide

There is no other postal service other than Royal Mail

a small letter is £1.25 first class. A small parcel is 3.95 first class. How can you say there is not much difference?
People selling low value items ie small prints, cards, hair and costume jewellery, make up, tickets, small gifts of 1000’s varieties literally thousands of retailers sell small and large letter items every day. No they don’t use small parcel! That would be insane unless you are a big business volume retailer and then you wouldn’t use Royal Mail most likely anyway.
Its not just my circumstances. 1000’s others are in the same boat.
I don’t know what retail is like in these other countries? How good is Amazon there? Amazon in parts of Australia for instance is utter shite.
How big are the Chinese brands temu/ shein? Do customer have extremely good alternative means of shopping without using the postal system? Or are people happy to accept the 3 days post as there isn’t much viable competition?
How many people per capita? How many large shops like tesco are in an easy 10 mins drive? It all matters!
Taking down the post to 3 days would kill my business completely and take 1000’s of other down too. More money in Amazon and temu’s hands, not back in the UK.
Letters everyday could still work just fine. It’s just that the company is putting all its profits in the wrong place and not actually servicing its users. As usual it’s all about money and not service.

As I don't live in the UK the price difference is not the same, so I don't know why you mentioned it? Temu/Shein are very much used here, and as in the UK online shopping is huge. We do actually have another business which delivers business letters - why can't that happen in the UK?? This other business does interact with the usual postal service as well. There are a lot of rural people here - they do get a five day a week delivery, but they also have to pay an extra fee to receive parcels.
Why would taking the post down to 3 days kill your business? If I order something which is going to come as a letter I know it will take a day or two longer than it used to - it's hardly the end of the world. Are people in the UK so intractable that they can't wait a few extra days, or pay a little more, for their goods? Incidentally, I buy a number of items from overseas every year (including from Amazon) - and the postage costs a fortune, but it doesn't put me off buying.

This is a huge management failure. And whoever is Director of Resourcing is completely incompetent
Having said that, our postie is great and we've had the same one for overt 20 years. He's a lovely person. It's most definitely not the fault of the posties who are most likely trying to do their best in really difficult circumstances

I would love it if there was another business offering to take letters. Anything- literally any other option but there isn’t.
Thats because Royal Mail have all entire distribution tools at their disposal and have done for decades since it was a national service run by the government. It’s not profitable for any other business to start setting that up and hiring people to deliver.
Royal Mail have it all there and actually I the central hubs it’s a fairly slick machine. It’s the localised sorting offices that are bad as they haven’t hired enough staff or treated them / paid them well enough to make them stay.
Since it’s gone private too much has been taken out and not much put in.
I mentioned the price difference because you said why can’t I send letters as a parcel- there isn’t much price difference!!
If you don’t like and buy / sell in the UK then there may be factors you can fully appreciate.
IME selling, people don’t expect to wait extra days for orders to arrive/ they would just use Amazon