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.

My local fb group had about 120 comments about post. The local mp put a survey on to collect info as they’ve been inundated with complaints.

we got a pile once a week. Lots had gone missing or been delayed.

l remember when there were two deliveries a day, morning and afternoon. Now they just seem to hurl them in when passing occasionally. It’s been like this for about a year round me.

If you privatise stuff, then the shareholders become the priority. Not the service users.

I’ve had a lot of work post go missing. It’s really frustrating because we still have to pay bills with cheques which need to be countersigned by two people, so if they go missing it takes ages to organise a replacement.

Royal Mail here just decides not to deliver to our huge estate. It’s always us and never anyone else. Often a week at a time. Regularly get “you opted to delay delivery”. No I fucking didn’t, just say you were short staffed.

Im not sure RM have any accuracy so you have to take a chance.
here it could be delivered from 7.30am to 6pm lately. Though if thay
poster knows they come early I’d set an alarm to be up for it tbh.

Well that explains alot. I was waiting 2 weeks for a replacement bank card recently, fortunately I have a second account with another bank so was able to transfer to and use that for the interim. Not everybody has that option to hand.

I'm also expecting a delivery of jewellery bought for me for Christmas, ordered last week under first class delivery with royal mail. I don't expect to see that this side of Christmas.

Also on the subject of Evri, I've had numerous problems with them in the past but the local Evdi guy for my area (Forest Hill - Jacob) has been great and a damn site more reliable than Royal mail.

Interesting. I've had other people's post and had to go round hand delivering letters in my street because the postie has just shoved several things through my door, all for the same road but different house numbers. I don't know how to complain about it.

I am a panellist for the company which monitors Royal Mail's performance. I send test letters and parcels on specified dates and report the dates and times I receive test items. Lately, nearly every letter I report on is queried because it is late. There are many many panellists around the country, RM don't know who we are.

They have stripped the assets out and are running it to the ground.

It should have never been allowed to sell off our postal service.

What happens when they are found responsible for poor performance?

I remember when RM use to hire extra Christmas staff, my DB would always sign up for extra cash in the run up to Christmas when we were younger. It was always a good company to work for. This was many years ago though.

Other than delivering more parcels I haven’t noticed a difference here. We’ve been getting mail 3 times a week for a while now so I hadn’t thought much of it. Around here it’s usually Evri that’s an issue. RM parcel delivers have definitely been superior to other companies, for us anyway.

Went to the Post Office counter in WH Smith to be told that they had run out of stamps. Switched to the ordinary counter, where they couldn't sell 2nd class, but had books of 1st class stamps.
Bought the bare minimum number of stamps, delivered 12 myself by hand, so feel £15 better off.
This is no way to run a business.

I'd heard this. It bit them right on the arse.

Genuinely curious what good people think renationalising a failing, not-fit-for-purpose business like RM will actually do besides be a drain on the taxpayer?

The main issue as I understand it, and as a few PP have mentioned, is the infrastructure. In a nutshell, it’s a 500 year old letters business that is desperately trying (and very clearly failing) to be a parcel business and compete with powerhouses like Amazon. When you compare the two (which is what many, rather stupidly, do as we have all come so accustom to everything being immediately available) it’s a one horse race. RM cannot legitimately complete, but they’re trying (and, in so doing, are neglecting letters deliberately as they don’t make any money) and not doing well at all. Their woeful profits speak to this. So what would
taking it back into public ownership do? These issues are, at best, going to take many years and millions of pounds to fix. At worst, they’re insurmountable.

In my view, it’ll no doubt come back into public ownership at some point because it’s just too large and too iconic a business for the govt to let it flounder. But I cannot see how anyone will benefit from this; not the business, not the staff, not the customers. It’ll just be another waste of the country’s ever depleting finances, will it not?

I’m clearly not an economist though so please, someone educated, enlighten me.

We have a brilliant postman who comes twice a day, once with parcels and then with post. They have a tough job and should have been listened to when they took industrial action. I also find Evri brilliant these days too, but they are only as good as your local delivery person.

It’s the same where we live. No post for days at a time, and postie looks shattered. He said there’s no staff and he’s on forced overtime. I really feel for them. The big bosses really need to pull their fingers out and fix the business that they have broken.

Mines not even coming twice a week, it THUDS onto the floor when it does arrive, so I'm hopeful I'm still getting it.

The price stamps are now, it should be being delivered by unicorns!

It's been a shitshow where I live too. Haven't had any letters for a fortnight but they all came at once this morning. There were Tesco vouchers which had already expired (£9 off a £60 shop, which would have been very handy), a hospital appointment for DH which was two days ago and a bill which is now overdue! I'm in the middle of probate atm so waiting on/sending out important stuff.

There's a new series starting 1st Jan called Mr Bates vs The Post Office. It's about the financial losses that started when the PO installed a new computer system. It's been since proven that it was the computer system that was causing the issues, but individuals were accused of theft, causing loss of their businesses, and I think in one case there was even a suicide. The company is a shambles.

RM were fined £5.6million by Ofcom in November for missing their targets. RM's performance will be calculated directly from the information provided by panellists like me.

Says me ! We see our Evri man virtually every day( have a lot of stuff delivered as semi disabled) always cheerful, always on time. DPD very good as well. Currently Postman reliable but much, much later than it used to be.

why doesn’t the King demand to know why ‘Royal’ Mail is so ineffective and in efficient? Do something useful for once, his head is on the stamp, after all.

I heard that it's because they want to hire people on new contracts which include Saturdays so they are hoping people who won't switch to the new contract will leave due to working conditions.

I get post (letters and parcels) every day.

The Royal Mail and Post Office are separate companies.