Royal mail sell off 'Lost in post' items

Snooze_Control

stevew8975 wrote: »

"What an outrageous and scandalous policy!"



(disengage Daily Mail readers Sarcasm mode..)

How much unnecessary hyerbole is used by the Daily Mail?? And the comments underneath are full of further Dailymailisms - astounded, monumental, expensive toothless quango, This needs to be stopped immediately, Totally unacceptable, It's a national disgrace, this state of affairs is a disgrace, How disgraceful, obvious incompetence - Breakfast tables across middle England were reeling from the amount of sprayed Earl Gray when this sensational piece of journalism was being read. :rolleyes:

:rotfl: :T :T Love it!

SC

wileycat

If you don't put a return address on an item (or even inside the envelope)how do you expect it to get back to the sender!
Items get addressed incorrectly and refused by recipient all the time (as I know well)..
Most my eBay packages I receive don't have a return address, and even more have nothing but the item inside them. So they would be untraceable and would sit at the Return Letter Centre waiting to be claimed

StaffsSW

wileycat wrote: »

If you don't put a return address on an item (or even inside the envelope)how do you expect it to get back to the sender!
Items get addressed incorrectly and refused by recipient all the time (as I know well)..
Most my eBay packages I receive don't have a return address, and even more have nothing but the item inside them. So they would be untraceable and would sit at the Return Letter Centre waiting to be claimed

What an outrage!!! This is a total disgrace, and wholly unacceptable behaviour.


Sorry - Daily Mail Reader mode kicked in! :rotfl: :rotfl:

wileycat

stevew8975 wrote: »

What an outrage!!! This is a total disgrace, and wholly unacceptable behaviour.


Sorry - Daily Mail Reader mode kicked in! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Hah.
I can't believe how many of the postmen I work with actually read the Daily Mail.!

Contains_Mild_Peril

Dave_Brooker wrote: »

Note how all 43 reader comments agree with the article...

I like the one blaming the whole thing on the EU....

"shame what the EU regulations have done to the RM"

The fact that the 43 published comments are in agreement with the Mail tells us nothing about the actual proportion of comments expressing those views: what the Mail don't tell you is that they pick and choose which comments to publish (as was discussed recently on one ofthe other boards).
The fact that some items which have got separated from their packaging in the post are sold is not a scandal, but the situation with the bagpipes is. I would not expect RM to hoard unidentifiable mass-produced modern items forever just in case they might somehow be reunited with their owners, but when an unusual item is reported missing then they have a responsibility to do their best to find it - which would include trying to match its description with any similar items before sending them for auction.
The sheer volume of mail lost in transit is also scandalous. Admittedly there are cases where the customer is partly or wholly to blame (illegible addresses, flimsy packing etc) but they admit to losing around 14 million items of mail each year.
It is equally unacceptable for any other organisation (e.g. airlines, train companies, police stations or whatever) to sell off lost property without first making every reasonable effort to reunite it with its rightful owner. Some train companies levy extortionate charges for people to reclaim their own lost property, so when the charge exceeds the value of the property, some will decide not to reclaim it for that reason. Property is also sometimes unclaimed because it gets sent to depots far away from where it was lost, and the company expects the customer to make the journey if they want it back. That is a disgrace, and tantamount to theft.

Pennywise

Fair enough that RM can't have the time to do proper searches and matches for the bulk of these items, but surely it wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes for someone to do a search on their lost item database for "bagpipes" to re-unite the bagpipes with their rightful owner, would it? After all, you wouldn't expect RM to have dozens of bagpipes in their warehouse to be matched against dozens of people who claim to have lost them in transit. Obviously, you wouldn't expect them to make much effort for small low value items, but I think it unacceptable that they don't spend a few minutes on the more valuable and unusual items.

Dave_Brooker

Pennywise wrote: »

Fair enough that RM can't have the time to do proper searches and matches for the bulk of these items, but surely it wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes for someone to do a search on their lost item database for "bagpipes" to re-unite the bagpipes with their rightful owner, would it? After all, you wouldn't expect RM to have dozens of bagpipes in their warehouse to be matched against dozens of people who claim to have lost them in transit. Obviously, you wouldn't expect them to make much effort for small low value items, but I think it unacceptable that they don't spend a few minutes on the more valuable and unusual items.

Given the volumes they handle, they may well end up with loads of bagpipes, along with loads of everything else...

mah_jong

I have knowingly helped mail several ......I asked about insurance on all!!!!


And whilst on that subject of insurance ....... people say often say things like ....oh I dont want to pay that, ...... I have never lost anything ........ it will be fine.


I bet they forget that should anything go missing!!!

scbk

I always put a return address on everything I post. I once received a letter back a day after posting it. Nothing marked/written on it, just looked like the way I posted it apart from the fact it had been franked