Anyone had any experience of Royal mail Keepsafe?

ader50

I recently requested RM's Keepsafe for 17 days while on holiday and, so far, we've only had problems.
In my block of flats we have the tiniest letteboxes (only about 7inch square); we were going to be away for two weeks so after looking at the services available we deciced it would be a good idea to pay for Keepsafe.
I set up the service and paid £8.50 to have our mail kept at the RM depot while away.

The first thing we noticed was that the service didn't start on time (I set it up from the day before we left) so I called customer services and asked them to do something about it.The lady on the phone was very apologetic and said she would email our depot.

So we set off on holiday only to find on our return that our mail had been delivered at least 5 days into our holiday, so I called customer services again asking for a refund (which they immediately agreed) and asking them to make sure our mail would resume on the date requested.

On the date our mail deliveries were supposed to restart we received nothing, I waited until the following day to see if it was just a mistake but we still had nothing, so I decided to go to my local depot in case our backlog of mail was still being held. At the depot I was told that a bunch of letters (from the Keepsafe period) "should have already been delivered" and when I asked about our magazine subscriptions and 3 or 4 small packets that we were waiting for, I was told there were no such items and I should come on a different day to speak to the manager.

I appreciate this kind of service will only be as good as the depot that enforces it, but my main question now is, should I pursue a complaint with my local depot or is it more effective to use customer services. I don't really want compensation as I'd rather get my mail back.

Regards

omen666

I am currently in Beijing for a month for the Olympics and have also registered. I do think you are lucky though in getting a refund as I distinctly remember the terms of Keepsafe stipulating it takes 5 days from when you apply for it before it is introduced, which is what you have highlighted above.

Will let you know how I get on when I get back

ader50

Ahh sorry I didn't specify, the Keepsafe was set up ages before the start date (about 15-16 days earlier) hence it should have started on time.

I went to the depot again today and I was told that our postie is on holiday and he's the only one in the entire depot who may know where our mail is.

izzitme

ader50 wrote: »

....
I went to the depot again today and I was told that our postie is on holiday and he's the only one in the entire depot who may know where our mail is.

At our office we have to pass all keepsafe items to an office with the redirections. They are kept securely until the day of delivery resumption, when they are passed to the delivery frame to be delivered.

HTH

ickledee

unfortunately I cant imagine the postman remembering when he returns from holiday. Is it possible that the mail has been misdelivered to another flat. do you have problems with misdeliveries? RM dont pay compensation for delivery related failure so there wont be much point claiming im afraid. Hope you get your mail

ader50

Update:

Ok so we finally found out that our regular postman doesn't work on fridays and he knew there was mail for us. Since our mail was supposed to be returned on a friday it was all up to the replacement postman to deliver it. He's saying our box was full (while we know it was empty) and RM are saying there is nothing else they can do as no none knows where our mail is (according to them it "may have been sent back to the various senders").
None of the senders have received anything back yet and so now I've been told that I could try claiming compensation for the parcels we've lost, but in order to do so I have to get proof of postage from all the senders. Most of these parcels were Ebay purchases so I don't know how much luck I'll have there, one of these was sent from the US so I'm already assuming we've lost money on this one.

All along I thought I was helping our postman, in setting up this service, so he wouldn't have to fill out letterbox with red cards, but I was obviously mistaken! I will never consider it again!

Dreamnine

I've given up with Royal Mail. I don't send anything by them and I don't expect to receive anything by them, either.