Royal Mail rant

Wasted a whole morning in the house when I wanted to be out. We tried to deliver your parcel but you weren’t in.

My ears and the front door camera would suggest you are lying. Now they’ll try again on Monday when there definitely won’t be anyone in.

Bike bits that could have been fitted tomorrow too

ARSEHOLES

We’re really lucky round here, had a few parcels in the last few weeks all turn up on time.

Yeah standard message when the Postie wants to go home. Let’s them off the hook target wise “99.99999% of mail delivered on time…* Not our fault if you were out. “

That said, our Posties are excellent.

*made up figure as they’ve just been fined £5 million or something for poor performance.

Experienced that many a time.   Royal Mail are shocking in delivery service, hence this week they were fined £6.5m for under performance.  I never have a 1st class letter on time and we are lucky if we get a postal delivery more than once a week.  My wife won’t buy a 1st class stamp anymore, she says “what’s the point?”

Its a shame really, because we have had some pleasant and helpful posties in the past, and I feel for them wandering around the streets in the bad weather likely taking the brunt of peoples frustration.

I was a Postie for nearly 26 years, took the money and ran in 2009 . Best thing I ever did . Still in touch with a few now , our postie I gave tuition to when he first started, I’ve never seen a person look more and more worn down as time goes on .

Having said that though I missed a Special Delivery last week so I went online and rescheduled delivery for Wednesday confirmed by email. On Monday I had an email from delivery office telling me they would be attempting delivery again that day 🙄What is the point of having an online option if that message isn’t past on ? 🙄

Im currently waiting on 2 parcels. One is a wheel, the other a chain guide. Ordered together from the same basket(on CRC).

Not sure why its two parcels this time, previous orders paid for together and at the same time were in the same box.

But just so long as they both turn up today, I’ll be happy.

Had it a couple of times with DPD lately too.

Our driver is running a little late, but will be with you shortly.

Oh really, his tracker shows him back in Stoke (where the depot is), I’m in Derbyshire

But just so long as they both turn up today, I’ll be happy.

If it’s Royal Mail, you’ve got no chance after mid day. If it’s DPD, I reckon you’ve got about an hour to hope it lands. My money’s on it not coming – maybe if it’s evri and you have a decent driver

The redelivery thing is really annoying. Until recently I could just go to local sorting office and pick it up either that afternoon or the next day. Now you have to go through 2-3x ‘attempted redeliveries’ before you can pick up…. So insanely frustrating.

Posties themselves – fabulous people! Ours always seem content too.

I liked this week’s email saying “we’ve collected your parcel from your house and this is your receipt” – which is clever as it’s still in my hallway and has already been refunded!

Mind boggles how at much money must be refunded with goods never getting back to retailer.

I got an email last saturday from ebay/royal mail to say my packet was delivered at 7.48am. It wasnt
I spent hours trying to call RM (on monday) but it was literally impossible to get to them.
Then the postie delivered it at 11am tuesday

DPD are the worst for me, the old “we attempted delivery” BS. The driver had actually ditched a load of parcels at some odd shop converted into a “mail centre” that had stuff dumped there from all different services. I never knew the place existed till I had to go there.

Custimer service were adamant he had attempted delivery but just happened to have ran out of the cards they put through the door… Not bother attempting to give it to a neighbour. CS swore blind his tracking showed him outside my house even though my camera showed no vehicle/ or person knocking on the door an hour either side of the supposed attempt.

I mean, I get it, the driver wanted to get home so dumped a load of his parcels at this mail centre place at the end of the day. Just dont lie to me about it, that’s what annoyed me about my call to CS.

Ditto DPD – regularly track the van via the app only to see it 5 miles/5 stops away and then rather than come up our dale it just goes to ‘we missed you’. Happened Thursday; I saw red and jumped down the rabbit hole of ringing the call centre, trying to communicate with someone somewhere who barely speaks my language and finally speaking to the depot who told me it would be delivered later (it wasnt). Its a particular driver who clearly just can’t be ar$ed going out of his way. Probably gets 50p for a 20 minute drive so not that surprising I guess. On this occasion I got an upgrade to ‘before 10:30’ and it arrived on time (although a day late).

To post some good news the Amazon chap came back in the evening on Friday because we were out at 3pm and so were the neighbours. Top service by the driver and he got an ‘attaboy’ feedback from me later in the evening.

You’re almost always dependent on the driver regardless of the badge on the van, because People.

I ordered something a little while ago, presently got an email from the sender saying that Royal Mail had attempted delivery twice, waited for me to collect it and then returned it to them. All of which was news both to me and to my video doorbell. I reordered it and arrived via RM the next day, so someone somewhere was lying.

DPD is the gold standard but you need to be aware that DPD proper (red logo) and DPD Local (blue logo) are different entities. DPD Local makes Nevri look good.

Best one for me (I posted about it ages ago) was DHL returning some watch straps (Barton) to America because I wasn’t in.

My Amazon delivery was by a contractor in an un-branded white van. He also received an in-person thanks at delivery time.

Sent over 1,000 parcels over the last 2 years. RM have been superb. Only 1 missing,which suspect was the buyer realising wasnt tracked so said it want delivered. They are by far better than any of the other couriers.

Its massively sad that the posties are excellent despite Royal Mail being managed by idiots; Their pricing seems daft; free collection when they could charge 20p and pass that through as wages. Also the web system is so flakey and terrible its embarrassing.

Parcel couriering is a classic race to the bottom. Keep paying ever cheaper prices, expect rubbish delivery. Daft when I get £100 worth of goods delivered by Evri and think, really! You trusted them with this for the sake of a quid extra postage!

I will be tipping my postie £100 this Christmas because he has been fantastic. Works out at 10p per parcel collected. Bargain!

It’s business suicide to be offering free collections now for ~18 months.

The automatic re-delivery for three(?) days and not allowing people to go and get them from the depot until day 4 sounds nuts.

Unless we have a Tracked parcel being delivered, we are lucky if we get two bulk deliveries of letters each week, despite them usually being first class.

All to maximise profits and try to  pay share holders dividends again, while rewarding the board and higher management obscene bonuses.

Royal Mail is going to the dogs and I feel sorry for many of the posties put in an impossible workload position since the strikes were called off in the summer… Being told to prioritise parcel delivery attempts and deciding which sections of their duty won’t get letter deliveries, so that they can finish at their contract finishing time.

In case you wanted another 100 reasons to hate the Post Office, listen to this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j

We’re lucky to have a really good postie. Even the Evri guy is good after a rocky start.

Our postie likes to play games too…

Daft when I get £100 worth of goods delivered by Evri and think, really! You trusted them with this for the sake of a quid extra postage!

It adds up. If Evri only destroys one in every 102 deliveries then…?

At my old workplace we paid for DPD but nothing was ever insured. It was a net gain to take the occasional hit on say a £10k router going missing than it was to pay the extra to insure absolutely everything.

Until recently I could just go to local sorting office and pick it up either that afternoon or the next day. Now you have to go through 2-3x ‘attempted redeliveries’ before you can pick up…. So insanely frustrating.

Our sorting office’s hours keep getting cut, its now 8-10am M>F but they do give you until lunchtime on Sat!

Yeah, “Sorry we missed you” is genuinely infuriating when you’ve sat in waiting and they haven’t come near you.
Actively lying to your customers seems like a bad way to generate good will.  If they actually communicated that they ran out of time and they will re-deliver I’d have more sympathy

It’s plausible that they just screwed up. My door number has a hyphen in it and more than once I’ve had a phone call going “where are you?” because “7 to 9” has been interpreted as 729 and they’re halfway to the east coast going “where the hell are all these houses?!” when the housing on our road ends at like #35.

But “we called twice and then were waiting for collection”? Someone’s fibbing. I’ve taken in deliveries for neighbours where the driver’s gone “can you…? ok, great, I’ll pop a note through their door” and I’ve knocked on a week later to find them oblivious and wondering where the hell their package was. I get that you’re pressed for time but, why bother saying that that’s what you’re going to do rather than just asking me to let them know?

“Handed to resident” is up there in the Great Lies Of Our Time alongside “I promise I won’t [ahem] in your mouth.”

I use the RM collect from home service pretty much every week – it is super useful – I live in a city any one of about 8 different post people can turn up to collect – aside from last year when the strikes were on they always turn up – some are agency staff, but one who’s a full timer is on first name terms with me – he’s great.

Delivery wise I haven’t had any major issues, last week they did tell me a parcel was out for delivery two days in a row and finally delivered it on the third

I pretty much dropped using Evri after they lost a parcel (they did pay out but took ages to do so and made the claim really difficult even though I had paid extra for full value cover) and sent a parcel all round the houses when the recipient asked for a change of address – took something like 2 weeks to arrive – the Evri delivery person by me is decent – always turns up, but never on time, so at least I know when to expect him

On the flip side, I find Royal Mail insistence on collections annoying. The first few times I worked out I could delete the collection before completing checkout, then I decided to give it a go and the next two items took four collection attempts and two post-it notes on the door because apparently the postie can’t see the section where it asks you to state your safeplace.  We only found this out when my wife happened to be in for one of the collections.

That’ll be the same place they deliver most of my parcels as I add it to line 2 of my address, so you would think they’d have a look there anyway…

My wheel finally turned up. 6pm, 3 days late. At least I’ve not got it, thats the main thing for me and i dont need to visit a sorting office or rearrange delivery and its not bashed about so all is well again.

DPD occasionally pull a fast one (I think my house and their route network doesn’t match) but it’s very rare that next day doesn’t come next day for me.

Evri is fine here, and we get Royal Mail deliveries 2-3 times a week depending on how much it’s piling up at the sorting office.

The most reliable by far is Amazon.

 Just dont lie to me about it,

This is the bit that annoys me, sure I get that you’ve run out of driving hours or you’ve been loaded to heavily and your still only half way through your load, just don’t feed me this bullshit “Oh, you were out line” at me when either I’m not, or I can track you. It’s a total failure/misunderstanding about what “customer service” actually means, written by people who don’t care at all.

They’re mostly really good here. I’m just relieved I don’t have to go and collect from the stupid opening hours sorting offince anymore. They do try to deliver… but the postie does seem to have an issue with me ordering vinyl records! In vengeance for my occasional ludditism he ALWAYS leaves them in the rain! One was even lobbed over my back gate and the cardboard cover literally fell apart when I picked it up. The record sleeve was just about ok cos it was shrinkwrapped.
Last one, I redirected to nearest Post Office and the queue was immense. One counter and she had to serve people, get stuff ready to give to the collecting postie and parcels for collection were up the other end of the shop. A **** shambles.

EVRI is the worst by a longshot! I’ve now stopped ordering from places that use them (if you get to find out before).

Awful company. It’s pot luck if you get what you’ve ordered around here. What sort of system have weended up with!?

I have an ongoing issue with Evri, I tried using the collect from local post office option instead of (not)delivering to home. Collected parcel ok. Now getting a reminder to collect my parcel every 2 days, by SMS, at 1am or 2am!! I’ve had to change the settings on my phone to stop being woken in the night by the absolute w4nk3rs.

I really really hate Evri.

TBH Amazon are the most reliable.

I did email royal mail re Last weeks missing parcel, but they still havent got back to me. Complaints procedure wasnt an option for me, as Im the recipient, and the sender said they couldnt process a complaint form because it had already been delivered.
This morning I have to abandon everything and wait in,so i can sign for a by 1pm special delivery,which was ‘despatched’ on monday. But if it was ‘despatched’ after 6pm yesterday, would it still be delivered today? Or do I have to wait in tomorrow as well? Ebay doesnt show those details, nor a tracking number now

When I was a despatch rider, before the M25 was built, I had to urgently deliver some passports to heathrow,to catch a flight, and rode the 70miles there doing 90 mostly(didnt have a faster bike), put them on the desk, and noone took any notice, just carried on with their teabreak. Since I almost died a couple of times trying to get there on time, it didnt seem right, and it still doesnt seem right, over 30 years later, when royal mail cant deliver properly.

What a bunch of cockwombles. CRC missed my house number off the marley frame I ordered. A lovely Evri chat AI bot let me fix the address for the headset that was coming seperately.

After 3 different routes through the automatic call system, I eventually got through to Parcelfarce who couldn’t add a house number as I might be trying to steal someone’s parcel.  Not sure how any of my neighbours knew I’d ordered something from CRC, got the tracking number and confirmed my name and what I’d had for breakfast but the guy on the phone wasn’t having any of it.

Eventually persuaded CRC to try and sort it, although they initially told me to deal with the courier.

Yodel excelling themselves.

Coffee  delivery was scheduled for Saturday, never came, rescheduled for Sunday – never came. Planned again for today, so we’ll see.

Have a Frahm parka coming via DPD today, but being number 79 on the van, not holding out much hope

Local postie is great. Very rarely have an issue. Main problem is Yodel. Coffee delivery again. Meant to arrive Friday. Check app around time said it was due and suddenly driver has had an issue. Gone back to depot. 

Due again and message on app saying they can’t find my address on their sat nav with the postcode. Know this to be rubbish as they deliver Gousto every week ( at a random time admittedly and occasionally to wrong address). Long message on app with someone who doesn’t get that I won’t be in on Monday and won’t let me swap it to work address. Eventually agrees to timed slot on Tuesday. Not holding my breath on that. 

only thing can do is complain to them to try and get a timed slot and then complain to the retailer to try and get them to change service. 

Lo and behold – DPD 15 minutes away and up pops ‘Robert has been delayed, we will aim to have your parcel with you by 3.55pm’.

Always seems to be 15 minutes away when it happens. I say when it happens – that’s every single DPD delivery I’ve had lately. ‘Roberts’ tracking has now disappeared, so the very expensive coat I’ve just come home to be in for obviously isn’t coming and they will presumably throw it on the van for tomorrow. I could almost understand if it was 5pm, but at mid day!!!

It’s probably more a function of local delivery network than the specific companies.

Round here they are uniformly very good in my experience. Very occasionally a mistake which is usually rectified by someone posting on the local FB group “whose parcel is this?” Evri, DPD, yodel, postie, tesco, or direct from local companies, I can’t remember the last time we had a problem.

27 Nov 2023 12:13
Stoke
Your DPD driver Robert has been delayed

So it’s back in Stoke (I’m not sure it ever left). Apparently he was in Darley Dale half an hour ago. Now I can cover ground quickly if needed, but in a DPD van, that aint happening

What is the point in giving you tracking details if they are blatantly 100% completely fabricated

Evri has been an issue recently. They took four attempts to deliver some goods from Wiggle last week. It was with a driver for two days (sorry we couldn’t deliver today, on both days), then went to our local delivery girl (who is usually brill) but it couldn’t be delivered again, then we finally got it on Friday – somewhat battered box by then.

As an ex-postie I can confidently say they must be one of the worst employers ever – they seemingly go out of their way to make employees life a misery. RM management have made incompetence an art form. That said, I do send a few hundred parcels a year and maybe one will get lost in that time.