When did Royal Mail become so useless?

atpbx said:
Its another thing where a sense of perspective is needed.

It looks a small and insignificant job, you want an A4 envelope dropped off to somewhere they are probably going to anyway, picking it up from somewhere they were probably going to have to pick up from anyway and in the middle have it sorted by a machine and people who are doing it anyway.


You couldnt have it moved by any other means, carrier pigeon, push bike, parcel delivery, walking, what ever, for £1.20.

There is a not insignificant amount of man power and machinery required to move your £1.20 letter across london in 24 hrs, and they offer to do it for next to nothing.
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I've got to agree with this, the amount of work they done for £1.20 is massive. That would buy you 6 minutes of my time, by which time I may have managed to get your letter a couple of streets over.
 
I've had the odd thing go missing but anything important that I need to guarantee needs to arrive safely is either RD or SD.

There's no profit in letters now, you have to move/deliver in bulk to make some money hence why only RM can do it as they have the infrastructure to do it. You might think that if there was competition from other companies that it'd improve efficiency and lower cost but nobody will come in and compete. TNT have taken on 'selected' deliveries, but only ones from areas that make money.

You won't see them tootling down country lanes to pick up rural mail as theres no money in it.

Oh and being both a customer of RM and an employee (yes I'm a postie) I see both sides.
 
Meridian said:
Did you seriously post legal documents and not use Recorded Delivery?


M
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Read above, speed was the issue and i wouldn't have been able to get to a post office for another three days. The documents were of no value, they just needed a signature so obviously scans wouldn't do. I've simply got the solicitor to email me a blank copy so i've printed the required pages, signed and since i'm on holidays now i have indeed posted it recorded.

Assuming it doesn't go missing, everything should be where it needs to be on time (just about).

But still, the issue here is the fact that Royal Mail have had a 50% failure rate (true this is from an incredibly small sample) with me in the past month. This thread was to measure whether this is common or in fact an issue with either luck or my local sorting office.
 
bitslice said:
I'd suggest if the 'missing' document was sent to a solicitor, it was actually the solicitor that lost it.
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This and important documents as others have said not signed for delivery?? you were asking for it really to save a a few quid. How you sent them should have been fine will be the arguement but how do you know the other end havent lost them and were actually delivered?

Speed essential, you don't know a single person who you could have said " i cant get out of work will you send these special delivery for me"?
 
Streeteh said:
touché



I'd argue that the postage system is actually rather expensive. One document I sent required two 1st class stamps due to being in an A4 envelope, it was just two sheets of paper that couldn't be folded. £1.20 to move two sheets of A4 paper to the other side of London in 24 hours seems pretty steep to me, especially considering it never actually got there.
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How much would you want for delivering it? How many processes did your letter have to go through.
 
I am quite happy with them today. I ordered something from Amazon on Sunday and it came today with free super saver delivery. That's quicker than picking first class for £3.99!
 
You sound like a cheapskate.

If it is important (e.g. Legal paperwork), send it "Signed for".

Alternatively, wast lots of time trying to find a cheaper and more reliable method - you will fail.
 
I can't think of one large British company with no competition (well RM did'nt for a long time but you get the point) that hasn’t being become bloated, inefficient and unwilling to change and innovate.

Other examples come to mind, BT sat on their ass’s with a ageing infrastructure which now means wee are well behind better off and less better off countries in the terms of commutations infrastructure and its biting us in the ass in several ways beginning with the cost now to catch up. Then there’s Railtrack or the single originations in charge of the railways, in its case its gone the other way with over fragmentation.

To me the problem is I think such originations/company’s 20/30 years ago had a setup/product which was working and though “That will do no point in changing anything for the better” and then kept thinking like that until its come round and bite them and us in the ass.

That’s my opinion anyway, feel free to disagree and say I’m speaking out of my ass lol
 
RomanNose said:
Am I the only one who has never had any problems?
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Not at all. I send and receive half a dozen packages a week, not including the usual letters and docs and things. Never had a problem or anything lost. Neither has anyone I know well tbh.

I've gotten to known all the postmen in different places I've lived and bought them Christmas pressies too.

I very much trust the Royal Mail, but if there's something that's very important, I always send it SD.
 
KillBoY_UK said:
Other examples come to mind, BT sat on their ass’s with a ageing infrastructure which now means wee are well behind better off and less better off countries in the terms of commutations infrastructure
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Infrastructure which in nearly all other countries is put in place by a monopoly telco or a government program. BT have a major problem: they are the only ones who have the wherewithal to put the backbone in, but the market is set up in such a way that it's hard for them to make any profit out of that structure. So there's no incentive. The PO is similar: lots of companies cherry-picking the profitable bits, leaving the PO with the loss-makers. And out of that they are expected to fund better equipment etc. Which will more more bits profitable to be cherry-picked by private companies. Private providers are happy to do the collection, sorting and delivery to the nearest sorting office - because they all make money. But that last bit is the killer: the delivery to your door. That's why so much bulk mail is private: the PO picks up the tab for the expensive bit, but the private company coins it in for the rest. That's why no-one wants to take on the whole of the PO's work, just the good bits. but the rest has to be done.
 
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