Royal Mail lost Special Delivery

[authenticallyclara]

I posted my wedding and engagement band three weeks ago to be rhodium plated... they were sent back RM Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm. Two weeks later there's no sign of them, 0 tracking updates & all RM have told me to do is file a claim 😒 (in hindsight should have gone with a local jeweller but I thought RM was safe!) has this happened to anyone else recently? Do you think they'll show up eventually? AIBU to feel pissed off?

File a claim. Tell them they will be out of pocket thousands of pounds. Have the sender go to their local post office to ensure the items aren’t still in some back room, try to find details of anyone who may work at your local sorting office or try asking your postie when he/she does deliver anything whether they could ask around.

Sorry op, I'd be so angry too. Not recently but I did have a passport turn up after 2 months looking a little worse for wear, that was RM tracked and signed for. No idea where it had been, it did have a letter giving a pathetic excuse.

Have you any sort of valuation for the rings? If so show them to RM alongside a claim.

Did you wrap the rings or just into an envelope?

The sorting machines can rip envelopes with coins/rings inside so it might just be sat on the side waiting to be hand sorted.

@LouiseTrees

File a claim. Tell them they will be out of pocket thousands of pounds. Have the sender go to their local post office to ensure the items aren’t still in some back room, try to find details of anyone who may work at your local sorting office or try asking your postie when he/she does deliver anything whether they could ask around.

Unless the op purchased the additional insurnace royal mails liability is only 50 quid

Nothing practical to add to above advice - but an item I was getting delivered appeared recently, recorded delivery - dropped off the radar, reappeared after 3 weeks with no explanation - so keep the faith!

I've had 3 parcels all turn up weeks late recently.

Surely the sender should be sorting this out. I hope they took out extra insurance as would only be covered upto £500.

You should read the company's terms and conditions as you posted the items and they arrived safely. But hasn't been received safely back to you.

It should be the sender to sort this out and claim and refund you id imagine?

But special delivery should still get there next day, by 4pm. I'm afraid if no further tracking details it's looking lost.

Get on to the company it's there responsibility

Someone I know is a postal worker. Royal Mail are just not coping with the volume of parcels at the moment. Nothing to do with coronavirus, but poor management decisions, the emphasis on tracked mail (for which managers get performance related pay on) and changes in consumer habits for which they haven't got a grip.

Special delivery items are scanned as soon as they are accepted at the post office and therefore enter the system. The item would then appear on track and trace as having been posted at such and such a time and place. If there is nothing at all showing on track and trace then I would suggest that the sender has not sent them by special delivery. Have they given you a tracking number? I understand how upsetting this is for you but it sounds very suspicious to me. Special delivery items do sometimes get delayed, misdelivered even but there is always a trail online . No updates at all looks like the service wasn't used. Sorry to be so negative

I had a retainer sent by my dentist arrive two months late recently... the second they sent out still hasn't arrived...

I had a bday card arrive in total mail 'we are sorry something may be missing' bag, or whatever it said. Pink envelope wripped open and money missing. I rang the number on the clear bag it came in and they apologised but I never heard from them again.

In a Royal Mail*

@LoveMyKidsAndCats

I had a bday card arrive in total mail 'we are sorry something may be missing' bag, or whatever it said. Pink envelope wripped open and money missing. I rang the number on the clear bag it came in and they apologised but I never heard from them again.

The same thing happened to us a month ago, The birthday card was inside its envelope which was inside an outer larger envelope which also contained a letter, some photos and a couple of children’s drawings.

The letter, photos and and drawings were still in the envelope, even the birthday card was still inside, someone had torn open the outer envelope and ripped along the end of the birthday card envelope and removed the money inside.

Clearly it was intentional.

RM apologised but said there was nothing that could be done and cash should not be sent in the post.

Basic special delivery cover is £500 and you can pay extra for more - how much were the rings worth?

The jeweller should either be paying for the full value of the items or self insuring, as in replacing lost items themselves but obviously this is impossible with sentimental jewellry.

SD is usually very safe and tracked multiple times throughout the process. If the items are lost, the jeweller should make a claim and you'd hope this would prompt RM to have a good look around the relevant sorting office, because otherwise they're liable to payout the value of the rings, but if that will happen, who knows.

As to what the jeweller is required to do for you, that will depend on their T&Cs.

Off track but, what is rhodium plating for?

Oh my sympathies op. Hermes lost a parcel a few years ago, two handmade dresses for Christmas for my baby twins, hand sewed lovingly by my brothers partner. Absolutely irreplaceable and gutting.

I posted a hand drawn family portrait first class signed for and it arrived a month late and it had been damaged, creased, crumpled - basically destroyed. All I got was £20. I stupidly thought first class signed for would be ok as I was posting 5 miles locally.. RM are scam artists who never admit they are liable

The post office is in a state at the minute. Things are being delayed, often severely. Everyone is posting at the minute!

Where’s it tracking to? As in the last update? Hopefully it is simply lack of staff in a local sorting office- all it takes is a few self isolating on a skeleton staff...

I also don’t think transport is running as usual, fewer lorries, planes, ferries etc running so parcels have to wait for the next shipment with room.

I posted a passport application to an EU country a few weeks ago. It left my local village fine, 3 or 4 updates until later that evening when it hit the “big town” sorting office, tracked as en route to heathrow.

No update for over a week. I’d started re-ordering copies of birth certs as I was convinced it was lost.

Then it turned up at heathrow, sat there for a few more days, then once it left the country things were fine.

I sent a parcel to Italy by RM last December. It never got there. It only contained a packet of tea, coffee, Christmas card, Christmas decoration and a card game. I didn't pay extra because the items were low value but the postage was more than the items. I didn't bother contacting them.

@LoveMyKidsAndCats

I had a bday card arrive in total mail 'we are sorry something may be missing' bag, or whatever it said. Pink envelope wripped open and money missing. I rang the number on the clear bag it came in and they apologised but I never heard from them again.

I'm sorry but I can't believe people would still send cash in a birthday card.

@Harrisismyparadise

I posted a hand drawn family portrait first class signed for and it arrived a month late and it had been damaged, creased, crumpled - basically destroyed. All I got was £20. I stupidly thought first class signed for would be ok as I was posting 5 miles locally.. RM are scam artists who never admit they are liable

That's unfortunate, but that's the only protection you are buying for that service. Signed for is only to prove delivery, it's not for insuring valuable items. The Post Office are very clear about this.

They can send items to the other end of the country for under a pound and the large volume necessitates machine sorting and obviously some items do get caught up and damaged and if you don't want to risk this, you have to pay for a less intensive service, so special delivery.

RM are struggling due to covid, it’s unfair to say it isn’t because of that. They naturally have lower staff members due to SD and staff self isolating as with many businesses.

Absolutely gutting for you OP but I don’t think I’d ever be able to place something so valuable in the post even at the best of times.

@StCharlotte My PIL's still do, 3 times a year!

Royal mail are useless. Constantly losing it damaging things, and I'm bloody sick of their refusal to leave with a neighbour or in a safe place when their bloody card has it as an option. The only issue we ever had with any of the others was dpd delivered my parcel to the same house number on a different street, it's an easy mistake to make, they look like they're on our street. Luckily the man came and told me.

File a claim. Tell them they will be out of pocket thousands of pounds.

Unfortunately they will only be liable to the level of compensation that was bought with the postage.
ie, Lowest is pay £7 postage for up to £500 comp, £8/£9 for up to £1000 comp. I don't think they have anything higher than £1500 comp but I could be wrong.

But a pp is right, if it was the jeweller posting the rings back to OP, they are liable if they didn't post with the right level of compensation.

Off track but, what is rhodium plating for
It's to replenish the white rhodium coating on white gold. It's wears off after a while and the yellow gold shoes through.