Why is royal mail so shit these days?

[maurawhom]

In the past few years I've had issues with my post being to the wrong addresses even though if I do get my hands on them they are clearly addressed and my home is not hard to find. I've also had issues with even tracked and special delivery issues being sent completely different parts of the country than where they were sent to and then disappearing and trying to get any help from Royal Mail is like trying to get blood out of a stone not to mention trying to get compensation!

I remember when royal mail was fantastic now its just awful, even if you send things by 24 or 48 hour services they say aim to deliver this item in 1 -2 or 2 -3 days (so more than 24 or 48 hours) but we might not, you could pay for a premium service and we'll still take weeks to deliver your item and if it gets lost tough titty. I'm just so fed up with it!

I agree, when you’re buying things you really should have the option to choose other delivery services.

Where I live the local sorting office is in a state of permanent chaos. It is 50:50 whether we will receive anything and when it does arrive it is generally between and week and a month late. So many people here have missed hospital appointments etc becuase of this.

I sent a birthday card 1st class to my db. Meant to post it Friday morning to get to him on the Monday, but forgot and posted it in the evening. Rang him on his birthday and apologised that his card might be late. He texted me a week later to say that it had just arrived!

I must be lucky then. Had no problems at all. Recently shipped pc, screen and a couple of boxes to central London on a 48 hour delivery and they arrived on time.

Plus we have a lovely postman locally who knows everyone on his patch and seems to enjoy his job because nothing goes astray.

Our Evri delivery person on the other hand ....words fail me.

I find it loads better than other delivery services available

I always have to allow well over a week for anything to get to my parents, they don't live in the middle of nowhere, but only seem to get post about twice a week. They get nothing for days and then get a pile all at once.
It's also played havoc with NHS appointment letters.

For the last fee years, Royal Mail has gone through huge changes in line with a new organisational structure and change of priorities, this includes a new set of T&Cs, job losses, later starts to lessen the need for airplanes (waiting instead for lorry deliveries of mail which are inevitably slower). This has resulted in higher use of agency contracts, posties on established walks leaving, and increased workload, often having to bring post back to the office, the organisation actively prioritises parcel delivery. Walks leaving later also mean there is less time to deliver post.

So yes, it had got worse.

Our service took a dip with very infrequent deliveries earlier in the year but it seems to have been sorted recently. I never rely on next day or 2 day delivery with first or second class but I posted a card 2nd class on Monday last week and it was delivered on Thursday.

Our Evri delivery chaps are great too, as are all of of deliveries to be fair. I nominate our safe space with each company and that gets used well to save them from attempting redelivery.

Completely agree.

I ordered something Tuesday evening.
It was next day delivery so was expecting it Thursday or even Friday. I'm still waiting.

I will chose literally any other delivery service if available to avoid using Royal Mail. It's not fit for purpose here. We've had appointment letters arrive weeks after the appointment, cards rarely get here before the date needed even if posted in good time and it's hit and miss if parcels turn up in the intended time frame.

We only get post at most twice a week and have done for a while. The local sorting office has even stopped letting you go and collect your own post because so many people started doing that in an attempt to get mail in a timely manner. I'm genuinely surprised they are still in business to be honest.

Royal Mail is brilliant here. And my local Evri delivery woman is lovely (but Evri delivery to my central London office was absolutely appalling). The rest are all so slow!

So I think it very much varies by area.

It's all about money as usual. For a long while, junk mail subsidised Royal Mail, and possibly government funding too. With the advent of email, junk mail has reduced and it gets emailed instead.

You can see this in the prices of stamps which have increased wildly, and the reduction of services as the Royal Mail struggle to balance the outgoings necessary to run a decent service with the income they receive. And then there will be the inevitable payment to investors.

Let's hope it doesn't go completely down the tubes, although I fear it will. Life is changing, and not necessarily for the better. I confess that I have also started sending electronic cards in order to avoid waste, so I am contributing to the problem faced by the Royal Mail, while also saving the planet.

My local post in SE London is pointless. My brother who knows the problems from his house in the Midlands intentionally send an 18th birthday card to my daughter 2 weeks before her birthday & it arrived about 10 days after. Last Christmas I received a Christmas card from my cousin in mid-January. I've asked family not to bother sending Christmas cards this year.

It's because RM closed our local delivery office and shoved the posties in with a neighbouring lot. Now that delivery office doesn't have enough room for all the post and stuff goes missing. Also, they aren't replacing the staff who leave. We are a very concentrated part of London so many 1000s of addresses in a small area. No wonder I only get my letters weekly.

Privatisation. Don't you love it? (No.)

Yes it's gotten worse but those mentioning late appointment letters, that is not always down to RM. Many trusts now have their letters printed and sorted at the printers into 1st/2nd/Eco class. The "Eco" is a lot cheaper to send postage wise but it's also classed as "non-urgent" so can take up to 5 days for the printers to receive the file from the trust. The reason the letters are late could be as much to do with the trust as the RM.

Yes, it is awful.
But surely the NHS doesn't rely on sending appointments by mail?

Yes unfortunately in many areas this is exactly what happens! Even if you ask to be emailed or sent a text you get told no wait for the letter with appointment.

Don’t get me started. I have a postie that won’t come in the apartment block so all my parcels get taken back to the depo which is only open from 8-10 - 4-6 THREE days a week. So I have to go through the process of them trying to delver it twice then I can schedule it to be delivered at the post office near me for collection.

Nightmare

Some of my regular parcel post comes RM and I've never had a problem, we do have one postie who is fairly regular, cheerful and friendly too.

I also get stuff from Evri quite often and - touch wood - I've never had a problem with deliveries from them either despite the terrible reviews they get.

Local FB pages of some areas close to me are full of people whinging about lack of mail deliveries and one of the areas was told they needed to collect direct from the local sorting office as they didn't have enough post deliverers due to sickness, lack of staff etc. At one point they were trying to recruit more staff.

They're not fit for purpose and they overcharge too. I run a small ebay business and its over a pound more to send a small parcel 2nd class with RM than to send with Yodel, so guess who I use? Yodel isn't fantastic either but 99% of my parcels arrive on time and i save £200 a month.

I ordered a card on Moonpig first class. 4 days later and it hasn't arrived :( urgh Royal Mail fail....

Horrific here too, local delivery office is open 9am-10am Monday and Tuesday only and has been this way for over a year. Royal Mail website states it's open Monday-Saturday 9am-5pm (apart from the Saturday)
Our local postie said they aren't replacing staff that leave so there is huge pressure on the remaining staff. I work in the next town over and the postman there said 2nd class post sometimes doesn't leave them for Gatwick for 2 weeks!

I paid £20 to send DD an Easter parcel to America, I chose collect from home and told them it was in my shed where they always leave my parcels
Day of collection I get a royal mail sticker through door which I wrongly thought was a receipt. A month later found the parcel still in the shed. Stupid me for not checking on collection day!!!
Many emails later they wouldn't refund me as I hadn't paid for tracking and according to them they had done their job.
I am guessing I was meant to put the sticker on the parcel and post it even though I paid for home collection! Still bitter about this as such a waste of money.

I'd still rather Royal Mail delivery things than cowboy delivery firms like Evri. Least if you are not in Royal Mail will take it to somewhere safe at the local post office for you to collect unlike Evri who will just leave it outside for anyone walking past to steal.

It’s the best delivery service out here in the sticks, if a bit slower for letters than it used to be, but most important stuff comes by text or email anyway (e.g. medical appointments). Everyone else often gets lost or delivers to the wrong address.

I swear it's got more unreliable, next day delivery just doesn't happen anymore