Has anyone sent a drone in the post?

[Andy82]

I'm currently selling my dji mavic pro on ebay and I went into the post office to enquire about postage costs, but was told royal mail wouldn't deliver it because of the batteries. It is the drone with its battery and a spare battery boxed.

Has anyone here sent a drone with battery in the post? Even the courier's seem funny about it. Yet amazon can deliver me one tomorrow no problem lol.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Ricardodaforce]

If you type “batteries” in the Royal Mail website search bar you’ll find all sorts of information.

 

[ecoleman]

I'm currently selling my dji mavic pro on ebay and I went into the post office to enquire about postage costs, but was told royal mail wouldn't deliver it because of the batteries. It is the drone with its battery and a spare battery boxed.

Has anyone here sent a drone with battery in the post? Even the courier's seem funny about it. Yet amazon can deliver me one tomorrow no problem lol.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Tell the person at the post office to get some training. You can send a battery in the device and a spare. It’s on their website. Print it off and shove it under his/her nose.

Alternatively, use collect plus

 

[tijuana taxi]

Tell the person at the post office to get some training. You can send a battery in the device and a spare. It’s on their website. Print it off and shove it under his/her nose.

Alternatively, use collect plus

Sent a camera start of this week via Royal Mail with a battery, make sure they print out and stick the label on that says "This package contains Lithium Ion batteries" its a big grey one

 

[Andy82]

Tell the person at the post office to get some training. You can send a battery in the device and a spare. It’s on their website. Print it off and shove it under his/her nose.

Alternatively, use collect plus

Thanks alot. I did find the info on their site too. It says exactly what you said. And the batteries from my drone are withing the size and output tolerance.

 

[the black fox]

Yep total b*****ks from a untrained idjit , I sent a battery in a box this week on its own , just declare it at the counter .

 

[ecoleman]

Yep total b*****ks from a untrained idjit , I sent a battery in a box this week on its own , just declare it at the counter .

Although a battery on it's own in a box is not allowed

 

[the black fox]

Although a battery on it's own in a box is not allowed

declared at p.o counter, scanned ,special label attached paid for ,and just checked arrived this morning .. that throws that one out the window then

 

[ecoleman]

declared at p.o counter, scanned ,special label attached paid for ,and just checked arrived this morning .. that throws that one out the window then

Not really. Perhaps you also had an untrained postmaster.
Batteries not connected to a device are prohibited and had your parcel been scanned they would have destroyed it.

 

[the black fox]

Well I’m now waiting for one to turn up that I have just purchased so we will see what happens there ,and b.t.w the other one was the second one of a pair I sold both got there fine . Also If you look on e.bay there are thousands of camera batteries for sale they ALL must go via the postal service or there’s no point selling them .
So your saying there’s thousands of untrained postmasters all over the u.k

 

[ecoleman]

I’m in the laptop battery business and no we are not allowed to sent batteries via Royal Mail, we have to use a courier.

If a customer want to return a battery to us we always warn them not to use Royal Mail and suggest a courier. Some have ignored that warning and received letters to let them know that their parcel had been destroyed.

There should also be a poster on the counter of every post office showing prohibited items. You can take your chances and your battery may very well be delivered, but if they do scan you parcel (if your post goes by air it will be scanned due to CAA regulations) then you will lose it with no compensation.

 

[StewartR]

I’m in the laptop battery business and no we are not allowed to sent batteries via Royal Mail, we have to use a courier.

Just to elaborate on Elliott's point, the reason for this is that Royal Mail use aircraft for some of their "domestic" services, but other parcel carriers (DPD, DHL, Yodel, etc) don't. It's the aircraft that are the problem, as Elliott mentioned. It would be far too complex for Royal Mail to try to describe which items might go on an aircraft and which definitely won't, so the only practical approach for them is to ban batteries (except when inside the device etc).

 

[Cagey75]

I'm currently selling my dji mavic pro on ebay and I went into the post office to enquire about postage costs, but was told royal mail wouldn't deliver it because of the batteries. It is the drone with its battery and a spare battery boxed.

Has anyone here sent a drone with battery in the post? Even the courier's seem funny about it. Yet amazon can deliver me one tomorrow no problem lol.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Could you not just fly it there?

Ok, stale jokes aside, why did you even tell them what the package contained? I have never been asked this information. I have been asked if i wanted to insure packages, and then what is the value of the contents, but they don't have any right to ask you what is in your private mail.

 

[ecoleman]

Could you not just fly it there?

Ok, stale jokes aside, why did you even tell them what the package contained? I have never been asked this information. I have been asked if i wanted to insure packages, and then what is the value of the contents, but they don't have any right to ask you what is in your private mail.

They don’t have a right to ask you what’s in the parcel, but they do have a right to ask if the parcel contains prohibited items. I know our local postmaster and they are meant to ask the question for every parcel they take in. They get mystery shopped and if they don’t ask they risk loosing their licence/franchise

 

[the black fox]

Elliot I do see your point ,but it’s a fact that e.bay ,Amazon ,and other online selling places have hundreds of thousands of non attached batteries for sale , at the end of the day I can’t see the majority of these being destroyed by the Royal Mail , I would think that a lot of these online sales arrive from China by airmail to .

There’s a distinct possibility that your local post office/ sorting office knows that you deal in laptop batteries and take the jobsworth attitude with you . Have you tried sending via a different post office or have items delivered to a family / friends address elsewhere .and as you have stated above “ I know my local postmaster”

Or is battery size a part of the problem . Obviously the larger the size weight of a item the more curiosity ( nosiness) it will arouse . I posted a flashgun yesterday all she heard was the “gun” part and went into full jobsworth mode , then laughed when I explained it was for a camera

 

[Nod]

When I've bought batteries without a device, they've taken longer than the rest of the order to arrive, presumably because they've been clearly marked with stickers so haven't been air couriered. Can't remember too far back but recent ones have come via Hermes/Amazon logistics/DPD rather than Royal Mail.

 

[ecoleman]

Elliot I do see your point ,but it’s a fact that e.bay ,Amazon ,and other online selling places have hundreds of thousands of non attached batteries for sale , at the end of the day I can’t see the majority of these being destroyed by the Royal Mail , I would think that a lot of these online sales arrive from China by airmail to .

There’s a distinct possibility that your local post office/ sorting office knows that you deal in laptop batteries and take the jobsworth attitude with you . Have you tried sending via a different post office or have items delivered to a family / friends address elsewhere .and as you have stated above “ I know my local postmaster”

Or is battery size a part of the problem . Obviously the larger the size weight of a item the more curiosity ( nosiness) it will arouse . I posted a flashgun yesterday all she heard was the “gun” part and went into full jobsworth mode , then laughed when I explained it was for a camera

We don't take our parcels to a post office. Our customer orders are collected by Royal Mail and DHL.

I don't dispute the fact that there are many batteries on eBay and Amazon and I'm sure many are shipped via Royal Mail. That doesn't make it right or legal (CAA regulations) though.
If you order a battery that is shipped from say London to a delivery address in the South, I'm sure there will be a good chance you'll get it. Deliver it to Scotland though and it will travel by air and all you'll get is a nice letter from RM telling you that your parcel was destroyed.

We also used to have a lot of competition from China selling cheap batteries on .co.uk websites which they would ship via China Post -> Royal Mail. Many of these websites have now had to up their prices and ship using DHL, Fedex etc.

We ship all of our batteries via DHL who do also use inland flights to get goods from one side of the country to the other. For this reason batteries shipped to Scotland usually take an extra day (sometimes two) because they are directed via Gatwick and driven up North.

 

[the black fox]

the one I sent the other day was clearly marked with a r.m sticker and got to the far north of Scotland next day . I do hear what your saying Elliot but perhaps they tend to ignore private stuff as opposed to business sellers

 

[the black fox]

and just had a Jiffy bag containing a battery for the olympus delivered , by this mornings post Manchester to north Wales 2 days ,no special labels , not even signed for just 2nd class post ?