Royal Mail...could you be any more inefficient?

FujiLove

FujiLove

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I ordered a new screen for my Rolleicord from the States a few weeks ago. I was a little concerned that it still hadn't arrived, so I checked the tracking details...

The screen arrived at Heathrow (20 miles from my house) eleven days ago. Since then it has been sent to Edinburgh, where it looks like it sat in a warehouse for almost a week, before being flown back to Heathrow. It doesn't seem to have been processed by customs yet, so who knows when I'll receive it. Two weeks after it arrived in the UK? Three weeks? At least now I understand why stamps are so expensive!

tracking.png
 
So is this actually RM or another courier?
 
I am just guessing but I would have thought RM don't get hold of it until it has cleared customs? @Gremlin
 
Who else handles packages that have been sent via US post? Everything else I've imported has been handled by Royal Mail.
 
Arrived in UK twice in ten days?
 
FujiLove said:
Who else handles packages that have been sent via US post? Everything else I've imported has been handled by Royal Mail.
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Hmmmmm google might suggest parcelfarce which wouldn't inspire me with confidence. :(

Sorry!
 
I don't think it's parcelforce as their national and international hub is 5 miles from me next to Coventry Airport and their air terminal is at East Midlands Airport

Irregardless of the above however I don't think there are efficiency issues here, I think it's a case of a system failure either automated or not...put simply there's no way this would normally happen I'm sure
 
St Albans? Next thing you'll know is it will be in Hertford.

Then Hereford.

Then that funny place called Wales.

Then lost :(

Oh golly, it smacks of incompetence, doesn't it? I had a parcel from the USA a few years ago and it took days to leave Heathrow. Two days from the USA to Heathrow then five days at Heathrow, then two days from Heathrow to my back door.
 
I'm struggling to understand how you make the intellectual leap from *one* bad experience to the conclusion that the entire organisation is absolutely incompetent.
 
I'm not seeing any claim in the OP that the whole organisation is incompetent, just that in this example is, to say the least, inefficient, which is clearly true.
 
StewartR said:
I'm struggling to understand how you make the intellectual leap from *one* bad experience to the conclusion that the entire organisation is absolutely incompetent.
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It is Royal Mail by the way. Just received my customs form this morning, so hopefully it will be here in a couple of days.

No, I didn't say the whole organisation was incompetent based on this one experience. But since you asked, I have roughly one item a fortnight delivered to a business up the road that has a similar number to our's (and vice versa, meaning I have to walk up there to swap post). This happened to a Special Delivery item last year, which I found particularly worrying. Recently they also seem to be unable to deliver a magazine without it being completely trashed (considering cancelling my BJP subscription because of this). This hasn't improved despite two complaints.

So no, I'm not suggesting the whole organisation is incompetent, but based on my experiences, I wouldn't use them by choice.
 
Hey, they deliver hundreds of thousands of parcels, so of course they will get the odd one wrong - I only fulfil 5 or 6 orders a month but I still make the odd mistake. The fact that a packet can be the other end of the country the next day for a pound or so is pretty good, and I very rarely have a complaint.
 
cambsno said:
Hey, they deliver hundreds of thousands of parcels, so of course they will get the odd one wrong - I only fulfil 5 or 6 orders a month but I still make the odd mistake. The fact that a packet can be the other end of the country the next day for a pound or so is pretty good, and I very rarely have a complaint.
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But when you do, my word I bet it's loud :lol: ;)
 
Royal Mail has been kicked around by successive governments ever since BT was yanked out of the GPO in the 'eighties. After that they opened up both parcel and letter deliveries to competition, with one "minor" difference between Royal Mail and the rest: the Universal Service Obligation. The new companies can refuse to deliver to any address but the Royal Mail has no choice, except in very specific circumstances.

Given this millstone chained tightly round its neck, there's no doubt in my mind that the Royal Mail staff perform miracles with the limited resources they've now been left with.

The astonishing thing is how few packages go astray or get delayed.
 
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My wife has ben trying to contact the Royal Mail Stamp Bureau by phone for nearly two months now a thing she's done regularly for some years now to top up an account for First Day covers. Nobody over a period of two weeks answered the verified phone number so we visited a major Post Office where they tried an internal number for 15 minutes or so. We wrote inclosing SAE's to two (verified) address over a month ago and I also emailed the Post Office 'help' contact via their website which promised an answer within three working days. The answer we received was that the query was being passed to Stamp Bureau for their attention, two weeks ago. And this is the Royal Mail's response to someone who wants to give them money. Not impressed.
 
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