Omlet cube and run

[AnnieP]

I am so astounded, I don't quite know what to say about this.

Figleaves dispatched an order to me on 4th August. It is a gift which I had planned to take to France this Thursday ( ). Needless to say it has not arrived, nor have I had a card through my door, so I rang my local sorting office to see whether it had turned up or not. I was answered by a poor chap, clearly flustered and stressed, who (incredibly honestly) told me that they are so snowed under with a backlog of deliveries, that they have no idea when they will be able to deliver it. The back log is huge (well over 300 parcels he said), he also asked me not to turn up to the office, as they could not guarantee being able to find it should I arrive to collect it in person!

 

I rang Royal Mail directly and was told I could make a complaint. I asked who would I be complaining about and was told it would be a complaint about the sorting office, which I am loathe to do, as they are clearly doing their abject best, in impossible circumstances!

 

Is this a common problem at the moment?

 

Just be advised that if you are planning on sending or receiving anything standard post, larger than a letter box, that it may be some time in its arrival!

Edited August 15, 2011 by Guest

[Valkyrie]

Always - our lot tend to store up Monday's deliveries and save them for Tuesday. Post marks tell the tale.

[squiffs]

Our suppliers have been receiving our cheques very late after we've sent them - but, bizarrely, the postmark on the letters they have received have been dated AFTER the date they've received them it's like they know they've messed up, try to hide it by guessing the postmark date that it will eventually arrive and then delivering it at a time that doesn't coincide with it

[The Dogmother]

We've had all sorts of things going missing lately, both work and personal. Cheques are the most common, and the latest is my new sports bra This has been going on for months and has got to the stage that I am emailing clients to let them know when the cheque goes in the post so that they can watch out for it

[Chucky Mama]

I was pretty hacked off last week when someone posted something for me using Special Delivery costing over £5. She put the stamps on an jiffy bag that was too small, she peeled them off and attached them to a larger one and put a little tape on the corners to make sure they didn't fall off. Royal Mail accepted it for post at this end and then refused to deliver it at the other end and charged the person receiving it £6.58 to retrieve it. I am hopping mad Is it my fault that they don't frank stamps anymore to say that they have been used.

[patsylabrador]

No problems here. Very rarely have issues with them here.

[kinsk]

That's a shame, figleaves are always pretty reilable too, shame they have ben let down by the Royal Mail.

 

They have been pretty useless round here for a while now. In the office we generally don't get our post till after lunch, sometimes it can be 3-4pm, not much help when you are trying to run a business.

 

I would be tempted to put in a complaint, your local sorting office is clearly understaffed and it's not going to change unless customers complain. I'd also complain to figleaves too as if it keeps happening it will affect their business, whereas if they know what's going on they can look into different delivery providers.

 

Last week we got a bunch of post that had obviously been lying around somewhere since July.

[AnnieP]

Thanks for that, I have called Figleaves, simply because I thought they would possibly have other customers waiting for this particular sorting office to get their backlog sorted out. Figleaves, I am pleased to report, were fabulous. They have offered to send my entire order again (minus one item which is now out of stock) via courier (not the post office) to me for tomorrow! I can leave my lost parcel wherever it is: It will eventually get back to them, they say!

Brilliant Figleaves!

[kinsk]

Wow fantastic service

[Lesley]

Our area was one of the first to trial new work procedures last November and it caused complete chaos - just before Christmas as well and the backlog was horrendous. Our MP had to become involved but it took ages to settle down to anything near what the service used to be.. We lost our usual postman and have had 4 different ones since, we rarely get post on a Monday and what we do get is slow to arrive.

 

One of the changes was to get rid of all the bikes (for the town rounds) and issue little vans - each round now takes longer. The rural routes were often delivered after the town so now the rural routes often aren't done.

 

Perhaps they decided that our trial was a success and are rolling it out over the whole country?

[squiffs]

When I was in Birmingham the posties were using their own cars because they didn't even have enough vans! Ridiculous! I'd see a bloke pull up with a rover and pull a pile of post out of his boot.

[The Dogmother]

Ours does that

[patsylabrador]

Ours have been using their own vehicles on and off for many years. It never occurred to me that it was an issue. Maybe I've been lucky but we get quite attached to our postmen and women. One has been delivering post to us for 8 or 9 years. It's nice, gives us an old-fashioned villagey feel.

[snowberry]

I love our postie (shorts, mmm!) Seriously, we've not had any problems until my uni letter didn't arrive a month ago. My sister & her husband are posties in Dorset. They being p/t have bigger rounds than those with f/t jobs, mad! She does her best but can find it a tad frustrating at times

[Valkyrie]

Yep, it isn't easy for some posties either. We always get on well with ours. We used to have Gabby on Parcel Force when we first moved here. He came from the Windies and he was lovely. Erin grew up with him - he always waved and called out to us even when we were out walking. Then he retired - "Ooops, word censored!"ody realised he was anywhere near 60 - he looked 40! Then we had Mick - who still occasionally pops in for a cuppa. Neil always checks on my mum and now he has made the connection I get a "yoo hooo" too! Recently we've had a cute young lad. I tend to go and grab the post. Ahem. But now we are getting different people who walk all over the garden and squeeze through the bushes instead of using the path.

 

Our sorting office is being closed down and the nearest one is in Basingstoke. I don't think the residents or the huge number of offices around here will be very happy.

[ubereglu]

Have to say service down here isn't that bad...at least I don't think so-well, we haven't had parcels delivered here for a while, so I'm not sure. Usually we get our post before 12 noon, nearly always before Lunchtime though.

 

My sister had to collect a parcel from the sorting office in Durham at Christmas and was greeted with, 'do you know how big it is?', before she even started looking for it...well, that's a difficult one if you order something online and haven't seen it, or know how it's packaged! Anyway, turned out it was literally behind the postal worker.