Royal Mail - you should be able to trust it surely?

[JoeyCreek]

A few weeks ago we sent a birthday card in the regular post to DS who is at University. I didn’t want to send an empty card so put a £40 nandos voucher in with the card. He never received it.

I told some work colleagues about it and they were horrified. Not that the card had gone missing, no, but that I’d even risked sending a card with a voucher using Royal Mail. Lots of stories about people who’d done similar in the past and recipients never getting the card or the card arriving with cash/voucher missing.

The more people I’ve spoken to the more inherent this theft seems to be. My mum told me she’d also made similar mistake and sent a card with a gift card in. Her brother got the card but the voucher had been removed.

Apparently me sending it in a blue envelope was a signal to the Royal Mail worker that it was a birthday card so might have something inside.

I reported this to Royal Mail they just trotted out the line that I shouldn’t send anything valuable in the post like it was my fault. Nothing about investigating their employees.

Im sure the majority of Royal Mail workers wouldn’t dream of thieving but it’s obvious there are many who consider it a perk of the job.

So disappointing that we can’t even trust the UK post anymore especially with the cost of postage. I’m so reluctant to send anything to DS in the post any more. A friend said she sent her daughter at Uni a parcel recorded delivery and even that had been opended and items removed.

Use the Signed for service, or the next day. They are tracked and insured and more unlikely to go missing. And if they do, you have a claim. It's what they are there for.

And yes, a blue envelope won't help.

Of course you are not being unreasonable, but unfortunately people are human, and some of them will be out right thieves, and others will be on their uppers, with Christmas around the corner, and the temptation must be high.

What you should do is send it recorded. I always try to do something like that when it’s important I have never had things stolen from my post. They seem pretty good here.

Also, if she’s at university, could it possibly be that she shares a flat or halls of residence and somebody else has stolen her mail?

Oh, sorry op. Always send valuable things by recorded delivery x

Could've been the post office staff or someone in halls

I've given police witness statements twice in the last 4 years for RM staff prosecuted for stealing, and I hardly ever buy anything online, maybe once every few months, if that? So on that (very limited) anecdata I'm not surprised it happens a lot. The second item was sent recorded delivery as well so not even that is a failsafe.

My postie said things get stollen constantly, and much more around Christmas when they take on temporary staff.

Signed for every time.

I've posted around 10k worth of items in over 50 different parcels using Royal Maill this year without any loss.

Appreciate this was a loss to you but losses are still a tiny percentage of their and any other couriers business.

No you can't. And they even tell you not to send valuables.

If I have something valuable to send I always use special delivery.

Royal Mail have no way of knowing whether your card was genuinely lost / misplaced in transit or, if stolen, at what point in the mail chain that happened - the postman who collected it from the mailbox, the half a dozen people who handled it at the distribution centres, the postman who was supposed to deliver it to you - so they can’t really commit to investigation. They’re very clear that anything of value should be tracked and insured, there are dishonest people in every industry and they’re often very hard to catch.

I posted two small packages in the postbox and the postman collected another from the house, all on the same day. Correct postage page, clearly addressed, my details on the back.
i had an email confirmation that the postman collected one, with tracking code. It completely vanished. That was 3 November. The tracking code confirmed it was collected then zilch.
The two in the postbox have never reached their destination, the third one I re-sent (signed for, tracked the lot, cost me £6.30 🫣) and it arrived at its destination 48 hours later, along with the original one posted first class 18 days earlier 🤷🏼‍♀️
My local sorting office didn’t want to know.
I wouldn’t trust Royal Mail an inch now.
And claiming compensation was futile.

A birthday card that I sent to a friend a few weeks ago has never turned up. There wasn't even anything of value inside it - just a card. Someone clearly ripped it open in the hope there was money or a voucher.

I complained but Royal Mail weren't interested.

I won't be using their service any longer unless I absolutely have to, in which case it will be Signed for.

The card I sent to my grandson took three weeks to arrive and was ripped open. There was nothing but the card in it, so anyone hoping for a voucher or cash would have been sadly disappointed.

Absolutely disgusting that so many people have experienced this. Do Royal Mail even care? Why don’t they do what other workplaces do to stop theft for eg in sorting offices carry out random checks. Places like Amazon don’t have this problem as security is high.

Even DS friend who works in HMV has to have random bag searches to stop theft.

Royal Mail just seem to get away with it.

We lost my daughter’s retainers. She left them at home and I posted them back. They were in a hard case, so probably mistaken for jewellery or a watch.

I sent it registered tracker and insured and they compensated me and paid for the dental appointment and new retainers but by the time she got an appointment to get new ones made up her teeth had moved a bit and are crooked. I offered to get Invisalign for her but she wouldn’t take the money. It didn’t help that for 3 weeks they were insisting they would turn up.

Fucking thieves even with registered post. The customer service rep even suggested I should have taken out insurance to cover the cost of potential additional dental treatment in addition to paying for the tracked delivery and insurance thing.

It was Medway sorting office - notorious apparently.

for what its worth, I totally agree with you that it’s disgraceful and a real problem that appears to be getting worse by the day (I’m privy to a lot of info re these problems) however random bag searches of Royal Mail employees wouldn’t really prove anything would it? Other than they might have items on them but nothing to say where those items have come from.
Also, Amazon absolutely have this problem, in fact in my experience it’s even worse with Amazon than RM.