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Monday 7 June 2004

Die, Royal Mail, Die! [beej]

This is part rant, part concern about the state of Royal Mail. We all know its fucked right? Proof as ever when I ordered a new 200GB Barracuda for 97GBP from Komplett (cheaper than Dabs, w00t!)
After it showed on the Komplett site as 'shipped, your Parcel Force UID is 123456789' I attempted to track it at parcelforce.com. What did I learn?
Well after they'd had it for 24-48hrs, all the tracker said was 'Service: Parcelforce 24'. Not a lot of use really is it. Is the package in a depot? No idea. In a truck? No idea. In London? No idea. On planet earth even...?
So given how straightforward e-commerce should be, I sent Parcel Force a missive asking where the fuck my parcel was, and with some constructive criticism suggesting that their end-to-end business probably allows for 100% tracking of every single package which they are paid to deliver. Like, for example, UPS and their little handhelds. Like Business Post. Like everyone else.
Their first e-mail back to me this morning authoritatively said that it will be delivered today. This is amusing, as I picked it up from the depot on Saturday (tee hee).
Then, a second e-mail (silver star for effort) that includes the following pearls of wisom:

'Your parcel has been posted using an untraceable service'

'Please allow up to 1 month for your parcel to arrive'

Untraceable service? What is that? Allow up to one month? Comedy! You take a parcel and you deliver it you fucking muppets! Just push the status from your internal computer system onto a website! You're monkeymen! With red vans! Now get on with it!
We've had a postal service in Britain for nearly 400 years... how hard can it be?

44 comments:

  1. Did you see that investigative documentary on the Royal Mail recently? Anyhow, isn't Parcel Farce another firm altogether now?

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  2. Due to costcutting and downsizing, the Royal Mail has had to bring out of mothballs its large number of carrier pigeons. Might I suggest placing a bowl of birdseed on your windowsill in order to facilitate easy location of your home by said avians?

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  3. since i work in this business i can say without a doubt that its rotten to the bone. of course, some companies refuses to see the logic in 'DONT SEND SMALL EXPENSIVE ELECTRONICS WITH A PICTURE ON THE PACKAGE'. 'Your parcel has been posted using an untraceable service' of course means: we had it now its lost, if we find it you will get it. 1 month is standard time for handing out cash to sender :)

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  4. Did you see topgear at the weekend? carrier pigeons would prbably be quicker even if they did know their arse from their elbow.Classic one I ever had like that was when they couldn't deliver a parcel as I wasn't there and it went back to the depot. I got to the depot and they hunt for the parcel. And don't find it. Conversation went something like this
    'we can't seem to find your parcel''sorry?''It's not here.''what the fuck? You tried to deliver it THEN you lost it?''Would you like a complaint form?''what the fuck do you think?'
    Next day a bloke phoned me up and arranged for the parcel to be shipped to me at work and apologised profusely. I have a feeling the Royal mail, like a lot of other public services has a percentage of people who want to do the job and do it well but they're being dragged down by an equal percentage of wankers who don't give a toss beyond pulling their wage packet every month and would be quite happy to ship your valuable parcel off to Uzbekistan if it made their life one iota easier.

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  5. Except it's not a public service, it's a standalone company. Don't you know they're run better than the public sector. Expect when the Royal Mail was public sector they delivered.

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  6. the guy who phoned you up is the guy that left the box in his car the day before because he had to run home to watch football. thats why they couldnt find it.

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  7. Had you seen that documentary (amazingly bugger all seemed to, only one MP fleetingly raised it in parliament as a result), you'd know that the reality of the situation is pretty close to what Lotta says. Many of the postage staff are minimum wage tempers these days.

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  8. Well Parcel Farce has been spun-off to an extent, but the responses to my e-mails came from royalmail.com and they're still connected somehow. It's all the same mindset though isn't it. They just get on with the drudge of delivering parcels but they don't think about what they're doing, or enthuse about it.
    Compares to the British Car Industry maybe? And we all know what happened to that...

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  9. I went to the Parcel Force depot last saturday to collect a parcel. When I got there, there was a queue of about 15 people, all in a state of agitation, most shouting abuse at two disinterested looking minimum wage monkeys behind the desk. Apparently, a couple of drivers had left early the previous night and not taken the parcels off the trucks. Of course, they'd taken the keys with them and now the two chimps couldn't recover anything. Shocking.
    Of course, I don't reserve my scorn for Parcel Force alone, since most delivery companies are frightening incompentant. DHL, for example, tried to make a delivery to us a few weeks ago. Of course, no being chavs, we were working so the parcel needed to be returned to the depot. No problem I thought, I'll just nip down and collect it. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the depot holding our parcel hostage was open 9am-5pm during the week, and closed all weekend. Tragic.

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  10. my current worst delivery service is city link - every single time they have tried to deliver something to me they have fucked it up.Parcel Force on the other hand have been ok - I order lots of stuff from ScrewFix, and nothing has gone wrong with their deliveries yet. Also, so far, I've not had any problems with stuff from Play.com, which comes standard post.

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  11. Parcel Farce are a fucking joke - and I knew that before I watched the documentary. They lost a bike I bought on Ebay for a month and they delivered my pimp watch from Tokyo and charged me VAT before handing me a box which had clearly been broken into and the watch stolen!
    I had to leg it down the road to flag down the van to get my VAT back!
    Before I watched that documentary I was under the stupidly naive impression that postie was an honest person who felt some sort of responsibility and honour about his job, you know...the queens mail and all that. I have now been officially diagnosed as suffering from irrational optimism!

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  12. It was royal mail that compounded my ebuyer returns fiasco. Paid for next day, got four days instead. Waste of bloody money.

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  13. My last delivery from City Link didn't show up when it was supposed to, I'd been in all day and no one had turned up. Phoned them up the next day to check and they said they'd tried to deliver but no one was in. They even gave a description of my front door. Only it wasn't my front door.
    CityLink and ParcelForce are definitely the worst of the bunch, I've never had a problem with UPS or DHL

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  14. I wont order of Scam because of them using Citylink.

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  15. I hate citylink with a passion. When ordering my pc from ebuyer I got stuck with these twatters. Don't leave with neighbours, got to pick up from depot etc..
    Then the re-arranged delivery time they didn't show. I had to leave work early and call em from home. Demanding it arrive within 2 hours. Said I had a punter waiting on this PC being built and I had already agreed it'd be done by next morning.
    rah rah rah, majorly annoyed delivery guy arrived at 6:30 and dropped kit off. Personally I won't use ebuyer now because of the citylink fuckups.

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  16. I think it's fair to say that it's a special kind of retard that manages to fuck up the movement of a parcel from point A to point B.
    I cannot for the life of me ascertain why so many jaw droppingly stupid people are allowed into this most essential industry; presumably someone up top figure's it's impossible to fuck up the movement of a parcel from point A to point B.
    They should learn eh?
    Anyway, in addition to this you would have thought that some enterprising soul would have realised that alls they need to do to capture the market and make a mint, is to, yes you guessed it, employee people who can't fuck this up.
    Instead, we have an almost tube driver mentality with these people.
    UPS and FedEX are the best. Easily.

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  17. I too have suffered the misery of most of the UK ones, Amtrak, Lynx, City Link. I ordered some hifi stuff, shopped around online like you're supposed to... trouble is, they all used different incompetent nincompoops. So, they all arrived on different days, at different times, to an empty house. Spent the rest of the week driving around delirect industrial estates trying to locate these depots.
    The best was Amtrak, went to the depot 7am, the warehouse had boxes everywhere. The bloke says, come back later, I've no idea where anything is.
    Came back, next day, lunchtime, for the sub-woofer. 'We've sent it back because you refused delivery' - eh! The house was empty! Went home. Back on the Saturday to collect something else, as I'm walking out, I spot the sub-woofer in the corner, clearly labelled, just left to rot. So they hadn't even returned it to the supplier, the lying gets!

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  18. Gotta agree with what you say about eBuyer/Shitty Link. I have ordered from them three times and each time I've ended up at a Shitty Link depot having been told it has been delivered. Each time they tell me a note was left. Each time I tell them they're talking bollocks and that no note was left. It's a shame because eBuyer really do some excellent deals. But these days I'm paying over the odds elsewhere just to avoid Shitty Link. Extremely bloody hell is what I say.

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  19. it was because of arsehole couriers like these that many early .COM businesses got fucked, they simply cudnt get reliable people to deliver a parcel, we all the feeling...u order something, wait all day hoping its gonna come and it doesnt, u just think of that twat in the van and evermore wondering where the fuck he is :@

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  20. Haven't had the same agro a some of you with parcel force. I always prefer them cos they know people in our village and hence are always happy to leave items with the old dear across the road. Saves the tour of industrial estates.

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  21. Parcel force what a bunch of wankers - pay for compensation for a pc - it gets delivered damaged (what do you expect!!). Now get a letter saying claim is invalid ????!!! and they won't pay any compensation - what is the point of fucking insurance????

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  22. I find most delivery companies are utter shite - the only one I've had reliable success with is FedEx, and that's even for stuff coming from the US - 48 hours!
    DHL just tend to lie about even bothering to come to your door in my experience. City Link have a local depot so aren't too bad.
    ParcelForce haven't been too bad for me either, though their '24' service is more like '72' but my local ParcelForce guy regularly turns up before 8am when I have a delivery which is ace - sorta. He buzzes, I let him in, he runs up to my flat, drops the parcel in front of my door, and scoots off - all before I've had a chance to scratch my balls, and rub my eyes.
    Marvellous.... or maybe not - considering he's meant to get a signature. That said, when I've just got out of bed the last thing I need is signing some piece of paper in front of some swarthy delivery bloke in my boxer shorts, so I'm not complaining.

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  23. Have now worked out how to do ebuyer+city link... after your first hell-order with ebuyer, you can specify alternate addresses - all my orders now arrive at work around 11am from ebuyer via city link.

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  24. Hi,I'm a postman and i handle all the computer bits i've nicked very carefully. Luckilly, i know what to look out for so i can just take my pick. Minimum wage tempers? if the minimum wage is ���£7 then your absolutetly right.
    I've been spat at, stabbed, run over, insulted daily after that goddam docu so I AM ENTITLED TO NICK WHAT THE FUCK I LIKE.
    Do i care? only on pay day, which is weekly btw.
    Now fuck off and die with all the other aids infected scum bum bandits.

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  25. And there, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine example of your standard 'Royal Mail' employee. Little wonder its in so much strife when they can't just deliver the mail without stealing stuff. Still, they'll all soon be selling the big issue.

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  26. Just had my first Business Post "delivery". I say delivery, what I mean is, they left a couple of cards with a ten-digit UID on and I had to call them. Answered the phone on the second go and all very polite, but here's the corker:
    "What time can I expect delivery tomorrow? Can you do the morning?"
    "Well sir, it'll be sometime between 8am and 5pm."

    Great stuff, I'll stay in all day then! Cheers!
    Oh, and the depot for London is in Dartford, so you'll not be picking it up yourself unless you live out in the sticks like Am :]

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  27. I had an xbox delivered from Ireland to London. The wankers at Parcel force 'delivered it to my address with prof of delivery'. The item never turned up at my address. When I inquired as to what had happened to my parcel, Some stuttering twat told me the delivery driver could not remember where he had delivered it to. I then went to the west London depot, where some spotted nose manager told me there was nothing he could do. WANKERS are probaly sitting in the tea room playing my xbox!I hope the machine shorts out and sets the shit hole alight.

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  28. What's the big deal? Claim against them. Don't let them fob you off with "proof of delivery" - ask them to produce the evidence of the proof of delivery. Can they? What is it? Did it not carry insurance? Claim on the insurance? Ask them who the ombudsman / regulatory body is an raise a stink and say that you are going to complain unless you receive a satisfactory settlement.

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  29. I have ha 3 items go missing with parcelfarce in the last 3 months, only today been in contact with them. Said they delivered a parcel I was waiting for 5 days ago, and they're right they did, but fuck knows to who cos it weren't me, I've took a week out of work for various deliveries. UPS - delivered. Citylink - Delivered. ParcelTheft 3 x items gone awol. Christmas will be lovely for the stinking theiving postie, but my kids will suffer. Humouse, did the bike you bought have red bags on it, cos I thought I saw a chimp on it this morning, selling Wii's

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  30. hey chimp..... 'Royal Mail' has shit all to do with Parcelforce...oh yeah..... apart from the fact that both their vehicles are red .... easy connection to assume... if ur a prick. ===========D

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  31. Just a slight correction to your post. When you so eloquently say "'Royal Mail' has shit all to do with Parcelforce", I think what you actually mean is "Parcelforce (full-name Parcelforce Worldwide) is the parcel delivery arm of the Royal Mail postal service in the UK".
    So ignoring the inaccuracy of your post, the awful grammar, the idiotic nickname, the infantile text speak and your crude attempt at ascii art, exactly what are you contributing here? The only thing I can think of is that you're making a good case for the under-12s not being allowed on the internet without adult supervision. Now run along and do your homework, I would suggest you give English an extra hour tonight.

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  32. Heheheheheh. I believe that plumbs new lows in self-owning. Congratulations, you sir, have just made a grade one dick of yourself.

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  33. We only order from firms using Citylink or ParcelForceLiving in a village with an address that is woodbine cottage, ogbourne st george (no road name, no number) - none of the other delivery companies can find us unless I add we're opposite the pub to the address.
    I've found citylink and Parcel force also happy to leave parcels with the lady across the road cos the delivery men know us now.

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  34. Another update. I've had a few days of delivery busy-ness after buying a new box. Komplett shipped by DHL and that went fine. Another bit using Citylink and they weren't at all shitty. Monitor from Amazon came Parcel Farce and I picked it up from the local Post Office because I missed the drop off and I'm really impressed with that.
    But today I missed a card for a "must be signed for" which I guess is Special Delivery. I know what it is, its a widget off eBay, probably a jiffy bag or small box. My missed delivery card has been neatly and legibly filled in, which in itself is impressive. Postie has even written out the tracking number, which he doesn't have to do. He missed me at 11am and on the back he has crossed out "wait 48hrs to collect" and has written beside it a "1" for one hour. So I go to the Post Office at 1pm and the guy at front of house says no chance. To be fair, he has a quick look, but basically he tells me that the "1" is a mistake and I've come over way too quick.
    I know +2 hours is a bit of a blag, I accept that - I suppose I must accept that the written digit might even be a mistake - but he took the negative approach from the off - the premise that the written "1" must surely be a mistake because there's no way on God's green earth that it could be possible. Even though Postie crossed out the 48. Even though the depot is a short walk from my house. How on earth do they get away with "please leave 48hrs before collection" as the default setting anyway?
    Still some customer un-supportive working practices evident at the Royal Mail methinks. (Ah yes, it has a retro 70s workers' union... silly me...)

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  35. I'm a postie and I haven't laughed as much as this for ages after reading this blog.

    Most of you have a fair point, there is a minority who let Royal Mail down, most of those are middle to high management, incompetant fools they are.

    I take my job seriously and have never (and I mean NEVER) been tempted to help myself to someone elses belongings, and for that I'm kindly rewarded with abuse and people moaning and groaning, example "what fucking time you call this then" or�  "Stiff me, at last, my fucking giro has arrived". If only they knew it's completely out of my hands as to what time I arrive, blame the frigging MANAGEMENT.

    Allan Leighton is doing his hardest to bring Royal Mail to it's knees and when that happens, guess what guy's and girls�  ..�  You're gonna be getting more of these joey's from other courier companies walking down YOUR path delivering your frigging MAIL.

    So much for the Queens Mail�  huh�  !!!!!

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  36. typical royal mail prices on deliveries are half that of the competition, but we aren't twice as bad, and we do deliver on saturdays and you can always collect your parcel from a local post office if you aren't in when we call, even on a saturday for no extra cost.

    local collection will however be of limited use when mr Leighton and Mr Crozier get their way and close 2500 more post offices, you will have to drive to collect your parcels then.


    If you think your letter delivery is late now, it is going to be later still if current proposals go through because delivery staff won't be preparing your mail from 5am any more, they will be starting at 6:30 or later, hope you all appreciate it when your birthday card drops on the doormat at 5 in the afternoon , or the flowers you sent to your wife get there while she is off collecting the kids from school and she then has to go fetch them from the depot the next day because we can't leave them anywhere 'safe' any more, even if you ask us to in writing.

    if your postie is miserable now, think how much more miserable he will be because he has lost 15 quid in early shift pay because his start time has been put forward 90 minutes and on top of it his wife can no longer keep her job because he is getting back from work after she would have started hers and there is no one to look after the kids.


    and

    I don't steal from anyone either, I wouldn't want your cheap crappy computer stuff anyway.

    I have thought of a way that you can avoid the perils of shit delivery services whether they be Parcel force, dhl, citi link or whoever and also stop all us delivery staff getting rich off your hard earned money.

    get yourself down to a computer shop and buy it over the counter, radical idea perhaps but then at least you would experience daylight and perhaps would interact with people face to face, or is that too scary a proposition ?

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  37. Haha, some dick comes onto our web site posting something accusing everyone of being geeks and using computers and stuff... while using a computer, to post on our web site. That's special! If only he could have shared the reasonable tone of his colleague and we could have kept heads a little more level.

    It would seem 'nuvvapostie' unsurprisingly doesn't understand the commercial reality of the world. We choose to mail order because it's cheaper, not to avoid the sunlight you ignorant unskilled dickhead. You really think closing of 2500 post offices will force us to drive to pick up our parcels? News flash moron, we stopped using the Royal Mail for parcels back in 2004 when this thread was started you dullard. I can seriously not think of a single e-tailer that uses the Royal Mail to send anything. So a nice man with his shirt tucked in drives his van up my drive and hands me my parcel. It's just now Citylink or DHL is written on the side of the van instead.

    Perhaps a bit of balance would be helpful. My postie is actually quite chipper and very helpful, which is a development I can put down to having moved out of London.� It's the same postie as ever and he knows us, I'm sure he doesn't steal our stuff and everything seems to be working peachy. So I guess it's a local issue first and foremost but if the big cities can't get sorted out, that's a hell of a lot of business that ends up going elsewhere.

    In a similar vein� I'm spectacularly tired of the random moaning of postal workers about pay, conditions and all that jazz. The reason that this is happening is because there's less revenue coming in. Why is that?

    The reason is because of what people are talking about here. The postal service� has gone downhill and that happened well before anything was closed, or any cutbacks were announced. Being� no longer reliable forced people to shift to using commercial competitors. There's no longer a monopoly, we have a choice. This lefty unionist idea that there's somehow money trees in the sky that can give postal workers whatever they want regardless of how well the company is doing really has to stop if anything is to turn around.

    It's a two way street. Stop thieving mail. Stop coming onto people's blogs slagging them off and whining about how your pay and conditions are getting worse. Get back to work, do your bloody job and we'll throw more business your way and then your bosses can afford to improve your working conditions and pay. Or is that too scary a proposition?

    Back to HumoredPostie, I'm afraid I don't really buy what you're saying. When I was in London, around about half my mail got there - in line with what other residential and business properties in the area were experienced (I asked and collected signatures). It was a big enough issue I wrote to my MP about it who asked questions in the house of commons - official complaints raised but it never improved. Mail would be stolen, delivered open, to the wrong address, or found in the street. I caught a postie stashing a bunch of letters once on the walk to work.

    Of course everything we talk about here is annecdotal. The pair of you might do your jobs well, and certainly my local postie (in the country) now does too thank Christ. There may be issues with management which of course we're not privvy. But I don't really buy it's their fault when our stuff gets stolen, they're not actually handling our mail eh?

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  38. Whoah fellas, big guns out firing on full auto already!About blaming management.  How do you expect the public to buy this when there seems to be a bottom-up (not top-down) reluctance to reform? A recent news report suggested that posties want new sorting machinery and no job cuts.  If this is correct... how does this work?Closing post offices is bad and I get the impression that you're trying to win over the public by blaming management. Well sure, we can do that, but its as much if not more a political decision. There's no reckless underhand closures - the Govt is well aware of the strategy but they're keeping it low on the radar because its deeply bad PR. To be party political, we live under a Labour Government... brushing aside rural community needs for the benefit of the cities should not be a huge surprise.But look, about the really straightforward stuff: You say that a plus point is that a punter can go to the Post Office to pick up your parcel any time. This isn't how it works where I live. If I miss the delivery, and go over in the afternoon, I am point blank hussled away and reminded of the 48hrs pickup time required to get my parcel. Its normally nearer 24-36hrs to be honest. Have to go over the day after delivery, not the same day. (This begs the question from the average punter... I wasn't in, fine, not your fault postie... and you started work at 5am so you've probably clocked off by the time I go to the depot... but my parcel isn't actually here in the depot nor in the post office? Its locked in the van, or worse, its locked in those green metal cabinets that sprung up over the last 5 years. Ummm... what kind of business model is this, when the parcel is in this limbo?) Sunday night just gone, I posted a letter in the box outside the local Post Office. I'm thinking, job's a good'un, postie will be here at the crack of dawn on Monday and off she goes.  First class stamp on it, so picked up Monday morning, gets trucked and flown and all sorts of logistics wizzardry that day, fingers crossed it could even make it to destination if its not somewhere remote on Tuesday first thing. BZZZZT! Last collection on a Saturday is 12:45pm. Subsequent collection on a Monday morning is not crack of dawn stuff. Its probably not even 9am. In fact, my pillar box right outside the Post Office didn't even say when it would be collected, only the latest time by which it would be collected. Which is AFAICT... about midday on a Monday. Check out this recent change to thousands of pillar boxes. Oh. Easy one I mustn't forget - British backwardsness. When you get a signature delivery, UPS got their famous pen and handhelds right. Loads do now, even people like Shitty Link. But here's what happens when I go to the depot for the delivery I missed: after pleasantries, card handover and id check, there's a little barcode sticker taken off the parcel that's stuck onto A4 on a clipboard, which I then sign. Hang on... you've got a barcode system, but you're not able to mark it off as collected there and then? There is, in fact, no computer on the front desk. So another postie later in the day must have to manually scan the barcodes? The mind boggles at this sort of flawed process. Or is this just my depot?I hope you posties are aware of the uphill struggle you have with your Union's action that it recommends to you. In this day and age, the public really doesn't buy industrial action. Unless its human rights or sexism, I don't think there's anything the public will support. Best reminder of that are the Fire Brigade strikes at least twice this decade. Union guy ranting and demanding things that even a GCSE student will clock that he just can't possibly have. Resulting in Army (at a time of war) doing firefighting job without grumbling in 1950s kit. Public aghast and Union utterly fails and gets about 1%.Royal Mail/CWU want more strikes? Isn't that the worst thing you could do? Driving the small/medium/large business that you badly need right into the arms of your competitors.

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  39. Beej , I will pick at your reply in no particular order (and no doubt you will have some sort of comment about that too)

    Anyway, you say "Royal Mail/CWU want more strikes . . . . . . . . Driving the small/medium/large business that we badly need right into the arms of our competitors". Well yes you are correct, Royal Mail have already lost some large contracts, BT, British Gas, Sky, HSBC, these were very large contracts, but who do you think makes the final mile, who actually delivers the mail through your door ?

    You mention something about a “48hrs pickup time” from post offices!! Well I for one have never heard of this, It’s normally 24 hours from the time you received the card, or in many cases much less.

    You also said, “I go to the depot... but my parcel isn't actually here in the depot nor in the post office? Its locked in the van, or worse, its locked in those green metal cabinets that sprung up over the last 5 years.” Well if you mean there locked in these overnight, then this is a serious breach of security and you should get it reported ASAP.

    I could continue picking your reply apart but I would be here all day. All I can say is you are naïve and ignorant, if you believe everything you read in the papers and hear on the news, then you really are stupid (which I doubt by the way).

    I don’t doubt for one minute that Royal Mail needs updating to this century, but should those changes involve the loss of thousands of jobs, should those changes involve disrupting the lives of thousands of employees.
    The strikes are NOT all about pay !

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  40. Car tax expired today. Walked down the Post Office. No V10 form in the trays.

    "I'm sorry sir, this Post Office doesn't do tax discs, you'll need the other Post Office up the road..."

    Uniformity of service would be a pretty good idea. People like you and me are just baffled by inconsistencies, and that's for over-the-counter as well as posties-relevant delivery/collection/holding times.

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  41. God I hate Royal Mail.

    Even though the strike ended weeks ago, its only now that letters and parcels are starting to arrive, some of which were posted over six weeks ago. Even at best the street that I live in ( Brentwood area ) gets a post delivery three times a week. Yesterday I had a letter that had been sent recorded delivery arrive, firstly it had been posted a month earlier and secondly even though it was recorded so I should of had to sign for it, it was just put through the letter box like a normal letter.

    I used to work in the post industry years ago and yes I know the pay is rubbish but come on the service is so bad now that something has to be done.

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  42. Gah. Made the mistake of sending my swiss army knife back for servicing through normal post...never turned up.

    Is it really too much to ask for sending stuff through the post and expect it to be delivered without paying through the nose for special delivery?

    It's essentially - "If you won't pay for tracking then we can't be trusted to deliver it."

    Bah

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  43. Spiny said:

    >It's essentially - "If you won't pay for tracking then we can't be trusted to deliver it."



    Absolutely. Also the nice added scam - only insured up to a certain amount, otherwise pay more, lots more. And then we'll steal it anyway, so you pay for the priviledge of losing your goods and having to fight a disinterested insurance company with the aid of a hostile postal service.

    Incompetent and uncaring.

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  44. More embarassing Royal Mail incompetence, this time from Parcelfarce. I get a bill for £100 due to incoming delivery from the US. It has a web site to pay it. Fine, I go online and I pay it. I get no email confirmation, nada. Parcel doesn't show up.

    I ring up, not paid mate says guy on the phone. Well it is, I can see it plain as day on my bank statement. We run around the houses finding out that basically it's not in the system any more to pay for it or check the status. In the end the guy, 'Dan', wants me to fax him my bank account statement so they can verify I have paid and release the package. That's right, fax them my bank account statement.

    Course I have to fuck around for hours to print, sign, and find some retarded one-shot fax service online that costs me about £4. Who the fuck uses faxes these days? We'll see if it has any effect.

    I think private companies should be able to bid on incoming international parcels. Clearly Parcelfarce are not up to the job.


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