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.

I hope that’s not true! Evri are absolute awful! Next have started using Evri for their deliveries, and i’ve had two parcels go missing in 6 months, when I’ve never had issues with Next in all the years i’ve used them. At least RM have someone you can contact if things go wrong. Evri literally have no-one you can speak to or contact, only a Bot via online chat. They’re a nightmare.

It's the same in my area and has been for several months. Letter post is delivered about once every 3-4 weeks.

I've already told people not to bother with Christmas cards as we're not due our next delivery til first week of Jan at the earliest.

It does annoy me the comments of 'oh not Evri' yet look at the disaster that is RM, non deliveries, lost items etc
Evri have a 97% delivery success rate and put out 650m items per year and took on RM parcels last xmas due to strikes yet it's always awful Evri/Amazon, most people wouldn't have their xmas if it wasn't for these companies.

Our Evri person is brilliant, they're the most reliable delivery service by far here.

Is that you, Evri?

All seems normal with the postal service here in rural Leicestershire. Postie in his little van turns up around the same time every day, and we are receiving everything as expected

Absolutely should never have been privatised. Should never have split Post Office from Royal Mail. Should never have sought profit from either as having a mail service is a necessary state good just as much health and education. Should never bloody pay the bloated management so much. Nick Read had a bonus of £400,000+ this year.

I just don't send anything via royal mail anymore. The price of postage is shocking. They also shut so many local post offices. My nearest one now is a bus ride away and always really busy as its the only one for miles. I couldn't bear to do the 40minutes plus queue this year, along with paying as much on postage as I spent on someone's gift. So I sent everyone presents/cards from places like amazon and moonpig etc. It's less personal but cheaper and less stressful.

We've had 2 important letters not turn up. I guess this explains it.

It's definitely not down to our lovely postie who is an absolute hero. (Our Evri delivery lady is also superb - we are very lucky!)

Does anyone know why when you buy parcel postage on the Royal Mail website it is now cheaper to have them collect the parcel than to drop it into a Post Office branch? First they kept trying to add "free" collection on and now it's 20-something pence cheaper to have it collected. I have stuck to paying extra to drop mine off as it makes me worry for our local Post Office branch. I presume that the 20-something pence saving is the fee Royal Mail pay to them for accepting the parcel?

What would I like them to do? Get their sodding act together and do the job they are raking in millions for?

Are you a director or something?

Going the same way as other privatised utilities. Too big to fail. Directors and shareholders will asset strip and then when it's crumbling, guess who will bail it out? (Yes, taxpayers).

Has anyone got any alternative for sending letters within the UK?

The Royal Mail manage to hire thousands of staff every Christmas. They could use similar hiring techniques at any time of the year.

No, as a PP said, the partnership is between the Post Office and Evri, not the RM.

So now people who work in Post Offices have to sell Royal Mail, Parcelforce, Evri and DPD, and deal with the angry customers who think they ARE the Royal Mail/Evri/DPD/whoever and blame them for their mail not arriving.

I didn't realise their staff were treated so badly ☹️

I sent 3 parcels off this year by RM, one by Amazon and the rest dropped off locally. Just hope the cards get there OK

Noticed it here. Parcels
recently are taking up to 4 weeks for delivery. Letters are barely coming.

it’s been a nightmare.

Yes, it's cheaper because it cuts out the Post Office.

Ooh postman. Vague memories of one of those, about 5ft 8”, greying. Looked pissed off most of the time?
I could summon a postie in Covid times. If you ordered a batch of government tests they would be delivered the following day, usually with a huge backlog of post. When I was expecting something or knew we hadn’t had mail for a week I’d order a test and summon a postman.
Sadly doesn’t work anymore 😔

If you haven’t received your post it’s probably at my house, had ridiculous amount of letters all in the last week, most for roads around me, some miles from my house, should submit my time sheet to Royal Mail to get paid for posting all these fucking letters.

I'd expect them to inform the public about what they could and couldn't do within their reduced capacity, be that suspending delivery to some areas or of some items, or advising of longer delivery times. The post is only one means of communication. If people knew what to expect they would have the option of choosing another. RM are not the only employer experiencing capacity issues due to difficulties with recruitment and retention of staff in low paid roles. Its up to those in the higher paid roles to manage customer expectations.

I’d like them to hire temporary Christmas staff early enough to train them & have them up & running in time for Christmas.
Christmas isn’t an unexpected event - we all know when it is & Royal Mail must have noticed it’s their busiest time of year! There is no excuse for being so badly organised.

Plus, you have to pretty much be a marine to do the job now.

Carrying 16kg bags around the streets for hours on end for nearly minimum wage. Who wants to do that?

It's physically tough, and you're doing it in all weathers.

All the old posties are retiring, leaving or off sick with physical ailments or stress.

New starters quit early on when they realise there are easier jobs out there.

The executive management is cutting corners and cutting costs and the job cannot now be done.

The shareholders matter, not the customers.

The company needs to be taken out of privatisation and re-nationalised.

Same!

The newborn blood tests that used to go via royal mail changed about 6 months ago to a courier because they weren't getting to the lab in time so the NHS has, at least in part, given up on Royal Mail

And that'll be something else that formerly worked like clockwork fucked up and then gone forever.

The Post Office are not the same company as Royal Mail.