Is there any point to Royal Mail Signed For???

robin58

Personally signed for is a waste of money and time.

I have had 2 letters recently which were for me to sign for on receipt.

One was just posted through my door complete with all the label. The section which the Royal Mail peel off and attach to their signing sheet was still there.

The second as above but they had detached the signed for part of the label.

On both occasions I was not in and I did not sign for either of the letters.

So unless you pay for their Special Delivery service I would say the Rail Mail signed for is a waste of money and gives no effective reason for the letter to be received at the other end by the person or company you are sending it to.

takman

hybernia wrote: »

Sigh . . .

Having made clear in my post that British Gas says it is unable to read even a single email attachment (which in this instance comprised a jpeg of a proof of posting measuring 4 inches by 5 inches) and that this reading failure has occurred not once but twice. . .

. . . and that British Gas is now saying, please post it to us because we can't read your email attachment. . .

. . . and as the complaint I originally posted to the British Gas PO box necessarily ran to 11 A4 pages comprising copies of billings and screenshots of meter readings submitted and acknowledged, rather than a single solitary jpeg email attachment which British Gas cannot read even though there's nothing wrong or corrupted about the 252kb file. . .

. . . in what way do'you reckon that "that's what email is for?"


@ agrinall and castle: many thanks to both of you. The insights are appreciated as is the courtesy shown in reading a post before commenting on it. For the avoidance of doubt, I prefer email, too. But when you're dealing with a complaint dossier rather than four or five paragraphs of text, then email didn't originally seem to me to be a wise move -- as is now confirmed by British Gas's seeming inability to actually read *any* attachment. Ah well.

You should have sent the original complaint as a PDF document it would have been alot easier and cheaper.
Also why would you send a Jpeg image twice if they couldn't open it the first time??.
PDF if usually the standard when it comes to documents and ive never had a company that couldn't open it!

bod1467

By the same token, I've never known ANY computer* not able to open a JPG file.

* In the last 15 years or so

agrinnall

bod1467 wrote: »

By the same token, I've never known ANY computer* not able to open a JPG file.

* In the last 15 years or so

But BG may have disabled it on their computers for security reasons.

Pennywise

What have they said. Have they said they can't open the JPG file or can't read it. If they can't open it, could be a block at their end to prevent viruses, etc. If they can't read it, it's probably getting through but simply impossible to read.

I've found JPG files can be a real pain to try to read. They may look ok to the sender (especially if taken on a "small" device like a camera or phone), but often when they arrive in my email in box, they are impossible to read, i.e. too small and then blurred if you try to enlarge, or inverted or rotated. As said above, convert it to a PDF which is a more universal file which is usually a lot easier for people to open and read.

s_b

signed for by the post office is a waste of time and once you fill all the paperwork in to them to make a claim they send you 6 first class stamps
waste of time and money OP as you have found and i did earlier this year

Kim_13

I will never again use it after the tracking stated the item was being redirected and never updated after that. They also keep trying to sell you Special Delivery if you do ask for Recorded Signed For.

thrifty_pete

Signed for seems to be a simple cheap and cheerful product to let you know when something arrives the other end. As the compensation if it doesn't (£20?) it is only going to be useful for bog standard mail. I guess Special Delivery starts to get more serious. I think there is even consequential loss as an option.

hybernia

An update for anyone who took an interest in this thread -- and, again, my thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to offer constructive comments.

I have provided as much detail as possible so as to preclude the kind of response received from an earlier poster. I have also addressed actual points raised by MSErs here since I last posted.

As previously explained, I have had cause to send a formal letter of complaint to British Gas about a particular issue. Delivery by post was necessary because of the letter's extent; it contains screenshots of an original transaction and scans of subsequent bills and emails.

I sent the complaint by 1st Class Royal Mail Signed For at 10:57am, Saturday, 23 April last.

I expected the letter to arrive at British Gas Customer Services, PO Box 4394, Dunstable LU6 9LG by the following Tuesday, 26 April or, at latest, Wednesday, 27 April. In view of the serious nature of the complaint, and the fact that the issue to which it relates is time-sensitive, I expected a reasonably prompt acknowledgment.

On Friday, 29 April, I emailed British Gas Customer Services to ask if my letter of 23 April had arrived. My email was short and simple. It included within the body of the text a jpeg insert . The insert was a scan of the Post Office receipt to prove the date and time of the letter's posting.

Both my husband and I have worked with computer graphics for many years so we know how to send jpegs and pdfs by email. We also know that unless the recipient's email system is set up to allow attachments, then no jpeg, and no pdf, will ever get through.

The image I included in that email was a hi res jpeg, image size 4" x 5", file size 262kb. It is my practice -- always -- to process any image intended as an email attachment in file minimizer software installed on my computer. The result is a crystal clear jpeg with a file size anything up to 90% smaller than the original but with no change of image size or perceptible reduction in quality.

This is the reply I received from British Gas CS:

Dear

---

Thank you for your recent email sent to British Gas.

I apologise for delay in responding to your query.


To enable me to raise a complaint/ enquiry on your behalf would it be possible for you to kindly provide me with the attachment once again as the attachment provided by you is truncated and I am unable to view details provided in the attachment.

I apologise for the further inconvenience this will cause you.

Regards, [name withheld]


As will be seen, the attachment (in the form of a body text insert, though that's by-the-by) was received by British Gas. The issue identified in its email to me was that the image on-screen at their end was 'truncated'. Not that the image had never appeared.

British Gas's CS email box is, therefore, obviously set up to handle attachments -- hence why CS requested me to send the attachment again.

Before doing so, I checked the image file's integrity. I also ran a test routeing, utilising the several personal and business email accounts which OH and I have with three different email providers: gmail; ymail; and outlook.

The jpeg was not inserted into body text but despatched as a straightforward attachment. This attachment was received in perfectly readable form in all inboxes. The was not 'truncated'. The image was not corrupted. That transit test concluded, I now emailed it, as requested, to British Gas CS.

I received the following emailed reply on 2 May:

Dear

---

Thank you for your recent email sent to British Gas.
I apologise for delay in responding to your query.
To enable me to raise a complaint/ enquiry on your behalf would it be possible for you to kindly provide me with the attachment by post on the following address as I am unable to open the attachment and view details provided in the attachment. I apologise for the further inconvenience this will cause you. The postal details of the organisation are as follows:
British Gas Services Ltd
PO Box 4394
Dunstable
LU6 9LG
Regards, [name withheld]


As I mentioned in my earlier OP, it struck me as absurd, posting the jpeg image of a proof of posting of something that British Gas CS clearly knew nothing about. As I also mentioned earlier, it was for that reason that I went online to royalmail dot com to see what had happened to my letter. The RM website announced:

'Progress of your item. Latest update: it's on its way. . . and is being progressed through our network for delivery'.

I've come to the conclusion that Royal Mail is deliberately disingenuous to the point of downright mendacity.

My letter was not circling the globe strapped to a pigeon's leg but transiting not much more than 100 miles. Posted by 1st Class Mail on Saturday 23 April, it could not still be "being progressed through our network for delivery" on Monday 2 May.

What had most likely happened was that the "progression" was over. The letter had finished its journey to the addressee's location but either (a) no-one from British Gas had been available to sign for it, or (b) someone from British Gas had been available but had refused to provide a signature. The letter was undeliverable.

Plainly, Royal Mail is never going to say that on its website; it can hardly tout the virtue of Signed For delivery and then confess that it can't actually deliver anything if the recipient doesn't wish to sign for it. That was why I came on here to ask: is Royal Mail Signed For really worth it?

Since I last posted here, I have Bullzipped the British Gas letter of complaint so as to create a high quality pdf. As with the earlier jpeg, so with this pdf: that, too, has had its file size minimized for email transmission, though with no loss of quality or reduction in page size. I have also, as before, test routed this pdf to our different email addresses at outlook.com, ymail.com, and gmail.com. The pdf has come through just fine.

I notified British Gas CS that I would now send through the complaint letter as an attached pdf. Having done so, I received the exact same response as earlier:

To enable me to raise a complaint/ enquiry on your behalf would it be possible for you to kindly provide me with the attachment by post on the following address as I am unable to open the attachment and view details provided in the attachment. I apologise for the further inconvenience this will cause you. The postal details of the organisation are as follows:

Obviously, nonsense on this scale can't continue on indefinitely so I have now had to resort to paying for this selfsame letter of complaint about British Gas to be sent to it by Royal Mail Special Delivery.

That despatch was made on Wednesday afternoon last, 4 May. According to the royalmail dot com website:

Latest update: Delivered. Your item was delivered from our DUNSTABLE Delivery Office on 05/05/16. Thank you for using our Special Delivery Guaranteed service. Proof of delivery (this is an image of an indecipherable signature) Printed name: B]XXXXX[/B Date: 05 May 20216, 09.05am.

Whilst on the RM website, I also checked to see if there was any further news of the progression of my 23 April Signed For letter. There was:

Latest update: Delivered. Your item was delivered from our DUNSTABLE Delivery Office on 05/05/16. Thank you for using our Royal Mail Signed For service. Proof of delivery (this is an image of an indecipherable signature) Printed name: B]XXXXX[/B Date: 05 May 20216, 09.06am.

The name of the signatory to the Special Delivery letter is the same as that of the signatory to the Signed For letter. . .

As for British Gas, I have now received this:

Dear

---

Thanks for getting in touch.

We’ve received your email and we’ll be in contact as soon as we can to resolve this matter for you. The reference number for this matter is xxxxxx.


What happens next?

You’ll receive a copy of our Complaints Policy in the post within the next 7 days; in the meantime an online version of this can also be accessed here Our Complaints Policy. We’ll try to handle your complaint quickly but if it’s a complex issue we may need to take some time to ensure we’ve covered everything. We’ll be in touch as soon as we have an update and aim to take no longer than 8 weeks to resolve your complaint.

Thanks again for contacting British Gas.

That this refers to an email instead of £13'sworth of posted correspondence says much about the calibre of British Gas Customer Services. . .

. . . Unless, of course, my emailed pdf complaint did get through.

In which case, I'm left to wonder if the change from a "truncated" jpeg attachment to "not received" for any attachment was not an, how can one put this, not an entirely. . . accurate. . . representation of what goes on at British Gas CS.

As to Royal Mail: it is now glaringly obvious that if the word "guaranteed" doesn't figure anywhere, then paying a premium price to RM for delivery is a waste of time (literally) and may ultimately be a waste of money.

Royal Mail Signed For does not "guarantee" anything, because Signed For mail is not tracked through the RM system and RM has no control over what happens, or does not happen, at the point of delivery. Only Royal Mail's Special Delivery Guaranteed service is. . . guaranteed. And so it's only that which is worth paying for.

What has obviously happened in my case is that Royal Mail (a) failed to complete delivery of the Signed For letter; (b) took it back to the Dunstable sorting office and held it there whilst (c) telling me the letter was "progressing through the network" until (d) a Special Delivery Guaranteed letter arrived for delivery to that same British Gas address at which point (e) Royal Mail then bundled the two together for simultaneous delivery and both were signed by the same person.

Moral of the story? Don't trust British Gas. Don't trust Royal Mail.
But I guess many who read this will know that already.

Thanks again, everyone. I won't apologise for the length of this note because questions have been raised here about jpegs and pdfs and even, why email is best. It has therefore been necessary to point out that OH and I understand what we're doing with electronic correspondence even if, all too obviously, I've been too stupid to understand anything about its snail-mail counterpart.

takman

I think you have been very generous to British Gas!. I would have explained to them that I will not be sending the complaint by ground mail and there is no reason they cannot open a PDF document. I would then go on to ask them for an email address that I could send the PDF to so that they can read it.

I have had a similar situation where a company could not open a PDF and they asked me to send it again. I sent them the exact same file the next day and as if by magic they were able to open it!.