Could someone explain....?

[Deleted User]

Not sure where to post this, but as it's a rant I'll post here!

I sent a letter of complaint to Barclays quite a while ago, and on Friday I received their letter confirming receipt.

The letter was dated 1st September
The letter was franked 15th September
The letter was received 18th September

Can someone explain how it takes 2 weeks and a day for a letter to go from being printed to being posted in Barclays' system?

Or is each letter type-set by hand? Or hand-written intricately?

Do they manufacture their own paper, hence the delay? Or were they waiting for the glue on the envelope to dry?

I never understand why it takes so long for them to send a letter when it's surely an automated process...

Debt_Free_Chick

There have been Royal Mail strikes in places and there are apparently 9m items of post stuck in the system, so it may not be Barclays.

Rant acknowledged, but what difference does it make?

[Deleted User]

If it's franked by Barclays, then the postal strikes aren't relevant.

It makes no difference at all, other than to illustrate how crap their systems are for dealing with complaints.

Reggie_Rebel

Deleted_User wrote: »

If it's franked by Barclays, then the postal strikes aren't relevant.

It makes no difference at all, other than to illustrate how crap their systems are for dealing with complaints.

Not necessarily, items are franked in house before they enter the postal system.

Barclay's are a bit rubbish though

fiscalfreckles

Deleted_User wrote: »

If it's franked by Barclays, then the postal strikes aren't relevant.

It makes no difference at all, other than to illustrate how crap their systems are for dealing with complaints.

Of course they are relevant, Barclays frank their own mail and then it is taken by Royal Mail.

Lots of mail is missing & delayed at the moment. You are not alone in receiving two week old post! Not necessarily barclay's fault.

montyrebel

it is only an acknowledgement letter anyway so who cares

geordie_joe

Deleted_User wrote: »

The letter was dated 1st September
The letter was franked 15th September
The letter was received 18th September

Can someone explain how it takes 2 weeks and a day for a letter to go from being printed to being posted in Barclays' system?

I've worked in a big organisation and just because the letter is dated one day it doesn't mean it was printed on that day. For us all letters were given a priority number, if your letter had a low priority number then higher priority letters would jump the queue. Also we only printed letters at night, so if the queue print queue was long enough and your letter was low priority there would not be time to print it before morning. Then, in the morning people would start sending high priority letters for print and push your low priority to the back of the queue again.

Some time it would take weeks for letters to come out the system!

Also, if your letter was actually written by a person, as opposed to someone just sending you standard letter number 16, it could be they started it on 1st but didn't finish it until 15th. They may have needed some information from someone else and that info took a couple of weeks to arrive.

custardy

what postage does it have ?
stamped?
a large M?
or what symbol on the envelope?

vervin

They are hopeless i had trouble with them , 5 letters to say sorry . One from the Chairman hand written , the rest from other departments . They have no idea !!!

edgex

Deleted_User wrote: »

Not sure where to post this, but as it's a rant I'll post here!

I sent a letter of complaint to Barclays quite a while ago, and on Friday I received their letter confirming receipt.

The letter was dated 1st September
The letter was franked 15th September
The letter was received 18th September

Can someone explain how it takes 2 weeks and a day for a letter to go from being printed to being posted in Barclays' system?

Or is each letter type-set by hand? Or hand-written intricately?

Do they manufacture their own paper, hence the delay? Or were they waiting for the glue on the envelope to dry?

I never understand why it takes so long for them to send a letter when it's surely an automated process...

looks like people are having trouble reading what was said

The letter was dated 1st September
The letter was franked 15th September
The letter was received 18th September

i believe the important part is the bolded part
ie: it took 2 weeks between being produced & it being franked by either Barclays or their mailing company
that time period has nothing whatsoever to do with Royal Mail

what if the letter had said something along the lines of 'payment due within 30 days of the letter date'
well, in this case, half that time will have gone.

[Deleted User]

Thanks EdgeX - That's what I was trying to get across in my original post! There may be delays with Royal Mail, but it's taken 2 weeks to get from Barclays to the Royal Mail system in the first place.

I spoke to Barclays on 2nd September and they told me a letter had been sent out the day previously, so the idea that the letter was started on 1st but not finished until 15th can't be correct.

Call me cynical (which I am), but I'd be really interested to survey Barclays customers to see how long different types of letter take to get from Barclays to the customer.

Being ultra-cynical, I would wager ten pounds that letters selling a Barclays service (loans, Barclaycard, overdrafts) arrive quicker than letters informing customers that they are about to be charged (e.g. advising them they are over their overdraft limit, or have had a payment bounced).

I just don't understand why a letter takes 15 days to go from being printed/finished to being posted, especially given it's an entirely automated process. The letter was standard as per the Barclays 'thank you for your complaint' template.