Royal Mail rant incoming...

[tom_e]

At which point you take them to court and I can't see what defence they could use?

They're gambling on 99.9% of the population just taking "Go away" as an answer I'd imagine.

 

[Haggisman]

They're gambling on 99.9% of the population just taking "Go away" as an answer I'd imagine.

Oh of course, for low value items, most people will swear a bit, have a rant on their computing forum of choice, and get on with life, but when you starting getting into the £100+ region, I'd guess people would start putting in a bit more effort?

I notice they say
"Due to the current coronavirus situation, we're no longer asking the recipient to sign for items delivered on or after Saturday 14 March 2020.
The recipient's name and confirmation of delivery can still be viewed"

Maybe worth putting a fake name on the parcel, that way you know whether it has actually been handed it over and got the real name (and so your buyer is the one pulling a fast one), or the postie has just copied it off the label...

 

[unwashed potato!]

I do actually have a smart doorbell but unfortunately I don't pay the subscription cost as its way too much for what, until now, has been totally unneeded. We use it for the notifications on our Google home/mobile.

Happy to go to royal mail local place but don't see what they will say different. This isn't an item they view as missing/not yet delivered.

Their postie signed for it. I don't get why they'd not do the usual thing of dropping a leaflet to say go collect it from the local place. Would completely solve any chance of this.

As op has said, we've checked with all potential neighbours/house mates. It seems to me 2 possible options. Postie signs for it and keeps knowing full well there's nothing to pin it to him, or he left it some where and it's been taken. Unfortunately both now leave it in royal mails hands to decide the outcome, but both are at fault of Royal mail.

I just don't see how they can sign for something themselves when something is specifically paid for to be signed for. Surely in their website, when this paid for, it should say, btw we won't actually take a signature.

 

[tom_e]

Surely in their website, when this paid for, it should say, btw we won't actually take a signature.

It does, buried in some T&Cs no ones ever going to go looking through as they assume signed for means it will actually be signed for.

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

You'd still have to be able to prove that the video you provided covered the time stated, I'm not sure if consumer grade equipment is reliable enough to be legally admissible (albeit this would be a civil case where the burden of proof is far lower).

Evidence from my Ring doorbell was sufficient to get a burglar sentenced in court

 

[Haggisman]

I just don't see how they can sign for something themselves when something is specifically paid for to be signed for. Surely in their website, when this paid for, it should say, btw we won't actually take a signature.

To be fair, it does say on both the signed for and special delivery product pages that they don't take a signature (although I don't know if it makes the obvious at the point you're actually buying it?)

Evidence from my Ring doorbell was sufficient to get a burglar sentenced in court

I'm guessing that's because it showed them actually being there and up to no good, rather than showing an absence of them being there at some point? Very different things, as I mentioned in post 49.

If you have a video of someone doing something with a timestamp of 1am, the timestamp being accurate is secondary to the fact you have a video of them doing the thing.
If you have a video of nobody doing nothing with a timestamp of 1am, then everything hinges on that timestamp. It doesn't prove that they weren't there doing nothing at 1am, unless you can also prove that the timestamp is accurate.

On a cloud system which is independently hosted and you have no access to change the timestamp in any way (or at least not without an audit trail), then fine, I can see that being admissible as evidence.
On a private system, where the individual with full control over the system also a vested interest in "proving" something didn't happen at a certain time... well, lets just say I wouldn't put much faith in it...

 

[SixTwoSix]

To be fair, it does say on both the signed for and special delivery product pages that they don't take a signature (although I don't know if it makes the obvious at the point you're actually buying it?)

Nothing at all mentioned when paying for it to be sent, as you say it's on the website so post office staff probably aren't inclined to re-iterate it.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

The time "stamp" should be encoded into the feed so that its not up for debate. Otherwise its not a time stamp at all.

As far as the accuracy of the timing, unless your planning a major time discrepancy into the future normally surely your time will be correct, otherwise you probably more likely to end up with it working against you at a later date.

Eg the video snips from Haggisman and Dlockers, can you go back to that same image and change the date / time to 1st Jan 2020, 3am, or can you only mis set the date / time going forwards.

When I have had signed for recently I have thought, pointless paying the premium sending to an individual right now. Special, they signed for it, but had to hand it to me physically.

 

[Haggisman]

The time "stamp" should be encoded into the feed so that its not up for debate. Otherwise its not a time stamp at all.

As far as the accuracy of the timing, unless your planning a major time discrepancy into the future normally surely your time will be correct, otherwise you probably more likely to end up with it working against you at a later date.

Eg the video snips from Haggisman and Dlockers, can you go back to that same image and change the date / time to 1st Jan 2020, 3am, or can you only mis set the date / time going forwards.

You mean like this? (yes I have edit this one, but only to cover my neighbour's reg. no)



I can literally set the time to whatever I want - like I said, it's my system, I have full control over it.

Obviously that is a poor example, it clearly isn't 3am, as it's broad daylight, but on topic with the OP, if I wanted to, Postie could come with my parcel at 10am, I wait till 11am, change the time on the camera back to 9am, wait another couple of hours, and then send the footage with a timestamp of "9.30am" until "10.30am" showing no postie arriving when they said they did...

 

[dlockers]

The time "stamp" should be encoded into the feed so that its not up for debate. Otherwise its not a time stamp at all.

Where do you think the 'time' comes from?

 

[unwashed potato!]

Special, they signed for it, but had to hand it to me physically.

which is what i'd at least expect at minimum. instead of recipient signing, royal mail only deliver if it can be given directly to the person, and then royal mail deliver. trouble is, they haven't in this case.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

You mean like this? (yes I have edit this one, but only to cover my neighbour's reg. no)



I can literally set the time to whatever I want - like I said, it's my system, I have full control over it.

Obviously that is a poor example, it clearly isn't 3am, as it's broad daylight, but on topic with the OP, if I wanted to, Postie could come with my parcel at 10am, I wait till 11am, change the time on the camera back to 9am, wait another couple of hours, and then send the footage with a timestamp of "9.30am" until "10.30am" showing no postie arriving when they said they did...

I dont know, is that image the "live" image as of when you changed the time, or was it in the past.
Its one thing being able to change the now and future as opposed to being able to go back in time which was what the point of my question was

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Where do you think the 'time' comes from?

Its not the "time" point, its the "stamp" point thats the relevant bit.
Its in effect like when someone physically stamps say "delivered" on something. You cannot undo it, nor if its a time and/or date stamped one you cannot later change it.
Many places for example stamp the physical post with a received physical stamp, which is what they will use to defend when something was delivered to them on things such as invoices from suppliers (who can often pre-date them to try to get paid earlier)

Hence the electronic "stamp" needs to be embedded in the stream and impossible (or nigh on) to edit later. If its possible to easily edit it, its not a "stamp".

Take webcam footage, my other halves I can change the time and date on the device, but I cannot do that to the footage itself, so if I set 1900 as the year, all the footage says 1900 and without a practically impossible task i couldnt edit the video to be a different time displayed.

 

[dlockers]

Its not the "time" point, its the "stamp" point thats the relevant bit.
Its in effect like when someone physically stamps say "delivered" on something. You cannot undo it, nor if its a time and/or date stamped one you cannot later change it.
Many places for example stamp the physical post with a received physical stamp, which is what they will use to defend when something was delivered to them on things such as invoices from suppliers (who can often pre-date them to try to get paid earlier)

Hence the electronic "stamp" needs to be embedded in the stream and impossible (or nigh on) to edit later. If its possible to easily edit it, its not a "stamp".

Take webcam footage, my other halves I can change the time and date on the device, but I cannot do that to the footage itself, so if I set 1900 as the year, all the footage says 1900 and without a practically impossible task i couldnt edit the video to be a different time displayed.

It isn't easy to "edit" but it is quite easy to change. The point was that footage showing nothing is all a bit pointless and any CCTV evidence "showing nothing" is easily faked. See my example of my daughters cot at 10pm this evening.

Much like your physical stamp example. It isn't hard to roll forward the date. The person controlling the stamp needs to be trusted or something else needs to corroborate the stamp. Some controlled environments will have "lockable" stamps which I guess is similar to hard coding timing info to get its info from a secure NTP server.

 

[Haggisman]

Its not the "time" point, its the "stamp" point thats the relevant bit.
Its in effect like when someone physically stamps say "delivered" on something. You cannot undo it, nor if its a time and/or date stamped one you cannot later change it.
Many places for example stamp the physical post with a received physical stamp, which is what they will use to defend when something was delivered to them on things such as invoices from suppliers (who can often pre-date them to try to get paid earlier)

Hence the electronic "stamp" needs to be embedded in the stream and impossible (or nigh on) to edit later. If its possible to easily edit it, its not a "stamp".

Take webcam footage, my other halves I can change the time and date on the device, but I cannot do that to the footage itself, so if I set 1900 as the year, all the footage says 1900 and without a practically impossible task i couldnt edit the video to be a different time displayed.

You are not showing the "correct" footage with the "wrong" timestamp, you are showing the "wrong" footage with the "correct" timestamp.

To use your physical stamp example, as dlockers has said, you'd have to prove that you didn't just change the date on the stamp to whatever you want: e.g. you receive an invoice with 30 days payment terms on the 1st of the month, you change your stamp to the 15th, stamp the document, and then when the supplier demands payment on the 30th, you tell them you still have 15 days left as you only received it on the 15th, and can prove it with the stamped date.

I dont know, is that image the "live" image as of when you changed the time, or was it in the past.
Its one thing being able to change the now and future as opposed to being able to go back in time which was what the point of my question was

That is an image of "now" (well, a few hours ago when I changed it). The point is, I don't need to go back in time to be able to provide a video showing nothing, I can take a video showing nothing "now" but with the date/time on the camera set to the date/time I'm trying to fake.

 

[Street]

I can understand why they stopped it for covid, but it seems strange that they haven't reimplemented signing as soon as (supposedly) safe to do so. Are they not ultimately leaving themselves wide open to abuse, since without the recipient's signature they can't prove they actually delivered it?

I had a SD delivery in work today and the postie handed me the terminal to sign. I'd almost forgotten that signing for deliveries was a thing! That was the first time in a long time I've had to do it, so maybe they are bringing it back in.

 

[SixTwoSix]

I am Jacks total lack of surprise

Thank you for your e-mail to the Postal Review Panel, received on 28 September 2021, regarding an item of Royal Mail Special Delivery™ mail, reference VE*********GB. Please accept my apologies for any problems this matter has caused. I have thoroughly reviewed your complaint and I am now able to respond.

I am sorry that you feel the responses received from Royal Mail Customer Services have bene taken from a textbook and are generic. Whilst letters and e-mails are taken from a standard template, I would always expect them to be amended to take account of individual complaints.

Upon receipt of your complaint, I raised this matter directly with the manager at the relevant Delivery Office to investigate. The Delivery Office Manager formally interviewed the appropriate member of his team and, after checking all information available to him, including the Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking for the delivery scan, again stressed his belief that it had been delivered as addressed. The Delivery Office Manager could find no proof that it was delivered anywhere other than ***********

I do appreciate that you have disputed this, together with the ‘signature’ obtained at the time of delivery. Although Royal Mail are not taking signatures at present, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, details of how Royal Mail are delivering items requiring proof of delivery can be found at https://www.royalmail.com/d8/coronavirus-changes-service. Unfortunately, without confirmation from the relevant Delivery Office that this item had been misdelivered or left in an unsecure location, there is no payment I could offer.

Please let me apologise once again. I would like to give you my assurance that Royal Mail are not complacent about the quality of their service and are constantly striving to ensure that you receive the level of service you have every right to expect.

Time for next level I guess with POSTRS but feel like i'm just wasting my time to be frank.

 

[booyaka]

As the seller, from what I can see, you've done all you can.

It's been confirmed initially as being delivered, then on full review, interviewing of the postie and gps tracking, it's been confirmed it was delivered to the address. Can't see what more you can do...

What has the buyer done to help here?? Other than claiming non-delivery?? Have they done anything to try and get to the bottom of it?

 

[unwashed potato!]

As the seller, from what I can see, you've done all you can.

It's been confirmed initially as being delivered, then on full review, interviewing of the postie and gps tracking, it's been confirmed it was delivered to the address. Can't see what more you can do...

What has the buyer done to help here?? Other than claiming non-delivery?? Have they done anything to try and get to the bottom of it?

Advice as to what can be done at this point?

The sign the parcel, leave it in an insecure place, what do we do? They sign it, say it was handed over, and then keep it themselves, what do we do?

Check neighbours, check other roads, check house mates. Submit a report but it goes no where as we aren't their customer.

@SixTwoSix genuinely upsetting to hear this is their reply. They have offered no proof of delivery other than their own postie signing for the item outside of the house on a day no one was in.

Do you remember the original delivery date? Not that I'm expecting this to work, but thinking to check neighbours if they have cams

 

[SixTwoSix]

@Apex it was 15th September, 12:30 ish I believe