To think Royal Mail is absolutely useless?

[SnugShaker]

I am so fed up with Royal Mail. Late deliveries, lost parcels and zero accountability. I’ve had items go missing with no explanation, “attempted delivery” when I was home the whole time, and their tracking system is a joke.

I get that delays happen but it feels like their service has gone downhill. Anyone else had issues or is it just me?

I’m boycotting them at the moment. Having sent all my eBay parcels with them over the years (over 2000) they lost an expensive one and flat refused to refund me as the address was very slightly out, buyers fault. My address was on the back of the parcel so it should’ve got returned but they admitted they lost it, so I escalated it twice and they just kept throwing T&Cs at me. EBay refunded me in the end as a gesture of goodwill. Fuck ‘em. They’ll go under at some point,

Totally agree. I live in London and deliveries are sporadic, with it not uncommon for the whole street not to get mail for a couple weeks..
They never leave a ‘missed delivery’ card so it’s only when I’m expecting a package that I follow up. I get temperature sensitive medicine delivered via 24 tracked and three times have had to chase it down to the sorting office as they never tell me when they attempted delivery.
I have often rearranged delivery through their app, indicated a safe space and taken responsibility for it, only for that to be ignored and again I’m going to the sorting office - only open between 8-10am!
And cost of stamps, first class is no longer overnight but can take days…

I think everything has gone downhill. My Boots order finally got refunded with no word at all of apology or explanation. Absolutely tripe manners and management skills. It’s absurd.

Yup, Royal Mail has been poor for a long time, but just recently their service has plunged new depths. If I pay extra for a signature, I want a signature. Not rocket science. I don't want the Postie to sign for it! That means nothing.

A client sent me a very important packet of documents under Tracked 24! It never arrived. Checked the online tracking and it was signed for by a squiggle. There was a picture of the door it had been posted through, but it wasn't my door. It wasn't any of the immediate neighbours either - it was obvious from the picture that it wasn't! Eventually found the door several houses away, it was a glass door - I could see the packet through the glass, but there was lots of other mail too! The owner finally came home from holiday a couple of weeks later and brought in round to me, properly addressed, and confirmed they'd been away and hadn't signed for it!

When I complained to RM, they weren't remotely interested.

I've had similar both sending and receiving documents which were "tracked" with signature paid extra for. Posties just sign them themselves, so it's pointless paying extra for a signature as it proves nothing. That's before the inordinate amount of post that gets lost or delayed.

They've really lost the plot!

@SecretKeeper1

Fuck ‘em. They’ll go under at some point,

Yup, I agree and Post Offices too! The other carriers are so much better these days. It's too risky to send parcels/packets via Royal Mail as other couriers are similarly priced and have far better tracking etc., and also far more convenient to send/receive via their parcel shops rather than being strangled by Post Office's restricted opening hours.

I think it very much depends on where you live and if you have a regular postman. I'd take Royal Mail over Evri every single time.
Our postman is great - always polite, cheerful and helpful.
However, I think we're going to see more and more problems with both Royal Mail and Evri now that eBay has started insisting that private sellers use either company for their Simple Delivery nonsense. An already overwhelmed service is soon going to become impossible to manage, I think, and mistakes are going to be made....

We have a main PO in our little town, got taken over by a private owner but retaining the PO services. It shuts at 4pm each day and 11:30 on Saturdays, and apart from that ridiculousness it’s full of tat. Shit clocks and tacky lamps and cheap ornaments for graves and the like. Weird, and never busy.

Our actual postman is a darling, and I see him now if I return Amazon parcels via the Royal Mail collection service. Seems they get a few pence for each collection but might as well do it as they’re out pounding the streets anyway.

Don’t even get me started on the cost of stamps!!

My usual postman is fab but when there's cover then it's a nightmare.

I was expecting a parcel last week, postie came and said he'd left it in the van as it was too big, he'd bring it around later. He marked it as delivered anyway! He never came back with it and it was a PITA arguing with the company. Luckily I have CCTV so could show that he didn't have a parcel.

Another time, my medication was delivered to my neighbour but there was no card. I only knew anything as I had a delivery notification, saying it was delivered to my address. Very stressful as it was a Friday and I didn't have enough medication for the weekend. My neighbour brought it around later, she'd assumed I wasn't in as it had been taken there (I was).

My heart sinks if I have a delivery from Royal Mail. Our Evri lady is fab so I'd prefer all deliveries come via her.... Even if she is a talker 🤣

Where I live, all the post boxes have 7am-8am collection times. Bar the ones outside sorting offices and in post offices. How many people have not noticed the change? So your mail is sitting in the mail boxes longer.

Then the sorting office hours are silly. They used to be open about 25 hours a week, including one afternoon. Now, its 8 hours in the morning. There are staff in during those dropped 17 hours. What do they achieve from not allowing residents to pick up their parcels from doing this?

A friend who has about 15 friends and family living in a city about 70 miles away, found it cheaper to drive to the city and hand deliver than to post Christmas cards by about £12. Just needed to plan which order to post the cards to use the least amount of fuel.

Funnily enough I’ve been moaning about them earlier today.
I walked to one of the two postboxes in the village at 10.30 this morning to post a birthday card, collection time now states 9am so when it’s emptied is anyone’s guess. It was used to be 5.15pm.
It seems that it was emptied pretty early today as the next collection sign said Thursday so my post will be sitting in the postbox for a day before being collected, adding a day onto the delivery time.
I’ve seen it said that boxes are emptied once the delivery has been done but the postman didn’t deliver by us until 1pm today.