Royal Mail - another batch of complaints

3.16.26pm GMT Sun 19th Nov 2006

Stephen Tall and fellow Lib Dems, Patrick Murray and David Rundle, campaigning outside Headington post office

It's been a while since I posted any, so here are two complaint e-mails that arrived in the last few days. The first is from a chap in London whose daughter has suffered the all-too-familiar problem of not ever being able to get through to the East Oxford delivery office to re-arrange collection of a package. The second comes from a little further away, but I'd be amazed if it were a problem unique to Leicestershire.

Here they are:

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My daughter, Victoria, started at Oxford Brookes University (which I may add seems extremely good) in September this year.

I sent her by Post a small packet containing an extension lead for her TV to connect the aerial outlet. It was just a fraction too big to squeeze into the letter box and the postman did not bother to try any of the other bells in her student block to leave the parcel but instead, on 19 September, left a card with the reference XXXX for her to collect the packet from the East Oxford Delivery Service in Ledgers Close. She tried to get there in opening hours several times but, relying on public transport and being new to the area, was not able to do so. She (and I) have tried many times to get through to the office on the number given (08456 113 225) but after listening to several recorded messages and navigating through a short automated switchboard to select parcel re-delivery, the call is allowed to ring two or three times then cut off.

My daughter has tried leaving a note for the postman to ask him to have the parcel re-delivered to the local post office in St Aldates where we would gladly pay the additional 50p charge. The postman has shown no sign of accepting this request as the note she leaves for him on the door is not picked up. She has also been in to the Post Office at St Aldates and I have been into the sending office in London. No-one can help. I have been told by my London local Post Office that the packet may now have been sent to Belfast as it has been unclaimed for more than three weeks and that the only way forward is for me to write to the East Oxford Delivery Service, which I will do.

This is only a relatively small problem in itself, but it is indicative of a much bigger problem of which you may wish to be aware.

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And then this one from a village in Leicestershire:

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Hello Stephen, just gonna spill this out as I'm still fuming!!

Yesterday I was delivered a wrong letter, it was my address but a different village and as I called the 'postman' back I noticed he was rather old, had neither uniform on nor anything that would suggest that he was even a royal mail employee. I asked him if he was a postman, an employee or a temp and he was very evasive and put forward an excuse of, he 'was just helping out the girl as her delivery round was too big'. As the 'girl' was nowhere in sight I telephoned the sorting office to complain about the wrong mail and also the illegal postal worker. I was assured that the matter would be 'dealt' with that day.

Today, I saw the same old man delivering mail a few streets away in our village and then the actual post woman delivered to my door. I called the lady back to ask her if the gentleman I saw earlier was an employee. She, at first lied and said he was an employee, then she stated he was a friend that just walked with her, then she gave in and offered the truth that in fact he was helping her and had been for some weeks as her round was that big that she needed help. She went on to inform me that she had been questioned about the 'man' yesterday and was then asked to go back out and deliver an extra round on her way home.

I got straight back onto the phone and spoke to the same manager as I'd spoken to yesterday. He stated he had passed the matter on to another manager and it had been dealt with and the 'old man' would no longer be delivering. I informed him that nothing had changed and he replied 'well your original complaint was the fact that your mail was wrong and that has now been rectified?. After a lot of back and forth pointless exchange I put the phone down.

He called me straight back to argue his point that it was handled and my complaint had been dealt with. I informed him that as he has chosen to ignore the bigger 'illegal' problem here then I feel I need to complain higher up the Royal Mail ladder and let more people know what's going on in our village via local papers and basically anyone who gives a damn!

So thank you for the opportunity to vent!! As a bit of background, this has not been my first complaint to Royal Mail, two years ago I had complained about none deliveries. Some weeks we were getting between 1 & 3 deliveries. I noticed a pattern of no mail Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, I was given the excuse by the then postal worker that the round had changed, we were no longer the first street of the round, we were the last and they had a set time to do this in, so, they just would miss us out and hope to deliver the following day if they had time!!

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As ever, do let me know your experiences of the Royal Mail - the good, the bad and the ugly. I can't promise I can do much to solve your problem, but I can help highlight it as a corrective to the Royal Mail's "all is well" spin machine.