Royal Mail Recorded Delivery

usr1971

I know a postie who told me that recorded delivery is as useless as putting a first or second class stamp on it as there is no tracking system with it. They can walk out of the office and through it in the nearest bin an nobody would be any wiser...

If you really want to be assured that it will be delivered, send things 'Special Delivery'. It's more expensive, but its tracked all the way through the system and the postie has to sign it out and take responsibility for it before delivery.

hunsbury0

Recorded delivery does not mean anything to Royal Mail. Although it covers upto £32, it is hard to claim from them. I once sent a mobile phone to CPW where they did not get any signature that its been delivered nor did their tracking got updated on their web site.
RM told me that they had sent a letter to CPW for confirmation and there was nothing that they could do till CPW confirmed non-delivery.
I wrote back a letter to their CEO that they sold me a service "Recorded Delivery , signed for" & that the owness is on them to prove that it was delivered or else they compensate with £30 that I had claimed for. It took a while & few letters to get a cheque.
Saeed, if you have not told RM the contents of the letter, then claim for a mobile phone for the value of £30.
"Recorded Delivery" does not mean anything, as its sent with the normal mail, but "Special Delivery" is segregated and is properly tracked & guaranteed Next Day Delivery.

Saeed

hunsbury0 wrote:

Recorded delivery does not mean anything to Royal Mail. Although it covers upto £32, it is hard to claim from them. I once sent a mobile phone to CPW where they did not get any signature that its been delivered nor did their tracking got updated on their web site.
RM told me that they had sent a letter to CPW for confirmation and there was nothing that they could do till CPW confirmed non-delivery.
I wrote back a letter to their CEO that they sold me a service "Recorded Delivery , signed for" & that the owness is on them to prove that it was delivered or else they compensate with £30 that I had claimed for. It took a while & few letters to get a cheque.

Well done, persistence pays!

Saeed, if you have not told RM the contents of the letter, then claim for a mobile phone for the value of £30.

unfortunataly this was a 6 months ago so the chances of me getting any compensation are nil for the 3 lost letters. But I will remember what you have written above and will be more persistent next time they take my money and don't provide the service!

Does our 'royalmailchat' friend have anything to say on the matter?

royalmailchat

Lets start from the top and work our way down.

If RM can't prove it has been delivered "Signature" and the receiving company/person says it hasn't been delivered then like 'hunsbury0' compensation will/should be payed.
Bareing in mind how many 'Lost stuff ' gets reported it take time,we're talking 000's per week.
I know Postcomm are reviewing our compensation procedures so things may change with the way we deal with this sort of stuff.

As for the recordeds malarkey,it's well documented in here how they're treated,by RM and by some of us Posties.
This obviously needs to change,what with competition now we need to be on the ball.
Recordeds used to be seperated when we sort the mail and then handed into where the Registered mail is,and then scanned in like a Registered item then given back to us to deliver.
That way it's tracked when it comes in the office and Posties would have to then make sure a signature was got when delivered.

This does not happen in my office now due to job cuts and time limits,it never happend in one of my old offices either,i'll ask on my RMC board the other Posties how they deal with theirs,but i do think it's common practice not to segregate them as a rule now.

I'll report back what my findings are in the middle of the week.
If it is what i think it is then tbh it needs to change,because lets be honest if someone else could do it for you and guarantee a signature for perhaps a slightly higher price then you would go with them,which is no good to us.

There is also a price/profit issue here,treating Registered mail like Gold Bars is worth it because of the profit involved,where as recordeds are a lot cheaper so profit wise it's a lot less.
That's not to say the job shouldn't be done properly,just that there are no resources to treat them differently.

Of course if the Posties done their jobs properly then there would be none of this trouble,but as with all jobs(including where you work)there are always bad apples.

If my findings are what i think they are i will also e-mail our Chairman allan leighton about the situation and suggest the practice gets changed back to the way it used to be.
This will improve the service and give us one up on our competitors,and help us as well as you guys in the long run.

At the end of the day you've payed for a service,so you should get it.

sam1970

my experience with RM is very disappointing...they lost 4 recorded deliveriers i sent in one year..no compensation whatso ever...just 2 weeks ago i sent a cheque to a company..the RM website still says today that no information about delivery yet although the cheque has been already cleared 10 days ago.

if they say that recorded post is treated the same as normal post why do they charge more for it.

8 years ago i used parcelforce which is part of RM to send a box full of books and a large suitcase which had 6 brandnew suits and new shirts in it from glasgow to manchester....a week later the box arrived but the suitcase vanished and they could not trace it (obviously one of their staff nicked it) and after a month of letters and phone calls they sent me a cheque for £20 in compensation ( the suits alone were worth at least £1500).

simply i hope the RM will go bust as soon as possible.....the only royal thing about them is their charges not their service.

jertzy

i spent 8 months trading letters with RM complaints and didn't get anything...although i had satisfaction that they'd spent a fair amount of time & money on my complaint....i do special delivery every time now!

charlie320

I think recorded delivery is pretty useless. It's not guaranteed - you need to get special delivery for that or use a courier. I don't see the point as it's only trackable after it's been delivered! lots of times the Royal Mail tracker site isn't even operational...

then when you try to claim, they want your blood before they'll pay out...!