Royal Mail collect from home service problems

Yorkshire_Pud

So I bought some washing machine parts from a company with a return for full refund minus postage if they were not used. I wanted to send back two of the items and the company offer free Royal Mail returns from home. 

I repackaged using a much smaller box than the one used when I received the goods as the parts were small. I thought it made sense. However I phoned the company and they said no you must use the original box or they can’t process it!?
Id already filled in the online RM form with the weight and dimensions of the small box. The company said just put it in the big box and it will be OK.
Yesterday RM were due to collect, I waited in all day with no post collection and got a message at 8pm saying collection failed! Angry at that as they didn’t turn up.
I arranged another collection today and they did turn up. I mentioned about the box size being different than my order and he didn’t seem bothered just took the parcel away.

Now I just got a message saying exactly as yesterday, collection failed make another collection date or ask for refund.

Well they took the parcel away today so why the failed collection message?

1 The message is an error and it’s in transit.
2 The system doesn’t like the stated box size being much much smaller than the box actually is. The company said it doesn’t matter as RM get the same fee as when it was sent out in the same box using RM. In which case what happens? They return it to me? It goes in a skip? 
3 Something else?

Money_Grabber13579

It could well be a glitch in the system. I’ve had the collection failed message before, even though I’ve had an email confirming collection earlier in the day. Did you also get an email to confirm collection?

Yorkshire_Pud

Money_Grabber13579 said:

It could well be a glitch in the system. I’ve had the collection failed message before, even though I’ve had an email confirming collection earlier in the day. Did you also get an email to confirm collection?

No I didn’t get confirmation of sending just the failure one. Hopefully it’s in the system but it’s nigh on impossible to contact them so just leaves me wishing and hoping. Almost tempted to ask them to collect again as they offered and see what they say when (if) they turn up!

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If it's Tracked 24 or 48 it should get a mail centre scan within 24 hours, just keep an eye on the tracking on the RM Track & Trace.

The size shouldn't be an issue, either it will go through the system unnoticed or the company will get a card to say there is a fee to pay, if it's a fee to pay the parcel may be delay but that first scan should still be within 24 hours or so. 

Yorkshire_Pud

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If it's Tracked 24 or 48 it should get a mail centre scan within 24 hours, just keep an eye on the tracking on the RM Track & Trace.

The size shouldn't be an issue, either it will go through the system unnoticed or the company will get a card to say there is a fee to pay, if it's a fee to pay the parcel may be delay but that first scan should still be within 24 hours or so. 

I’m assuming the reference number given when I booked the service is the tracking number? I didn’t get anything from the postman when he collected and of course no email confirmation of collection as it ‘failed’ 😜 

Money_Grabber13579

Yorkshire_Pud said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If it's Tracked 24 or 48 it should get a mail centre scan within 24 hours, just keep an eye on the tracking on the RM Track & Trace.

The size shouldn't be an issue, either it will go through the system unnoticed or the company will get a card to say there is a fee to pay, if it's a fee to pay the parcel may be delay but that first scan should still be within 24 hours or so. 

I’m assuming the reference number given when I booked the service is the tracking number? I didn’t get anything from the postman when he collected and of course no email confirmation of collection as it ‘failed’ 😜 

Did you book the collection or was it the company that arranged the label booked it? It sounds like the postman hasn’t scanned it properly and so it believes there is a failed collection. It should still scan in the mail centre though so as mentioned, keep an eye on the tracking history.

Yorkshire_Pud

Money_Grabber13579 said:

Yorkshire_Pud said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If it's Tracked 24 or 48 it should get a mail centre scan within 24 hours, just keep an eye on the tracking on the RM Track & Trace.

The size shouldn't be an issue, either it will go through the system unnoticed or the company will get a card to say there is a fee to pay, if it's a fee to pay the parcel may be delay but that first scan should still be within 24 hours or so. 

I’m assuming the reference number given when I booked the service is the tracking number? I didn’t get anything from the postman when he collected and of course no email confirmation of collection as it ‘failed’ 😜 

Did you book the collection or was it the company that arranged the label booked it? It sounds like the postman hasn’t scanned it properly and so it believes there is a failed collection. It should still scan in the mail centre though so as mentioned, keep an eye on the tracking history.

I booked it using a link to RM from the company website. It recognised the company order number as it said it was free of charge.

Yorkshire_Pud

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If it's Tracked 24 or 48 it should get a mail centre scan within 24 hours, just keep an eye on the tracking on the RM Track & Trace.

The size shouldn't be an issue, either it will go through the system unnoticed or the company will get a card to say there is a fee to pay, if it's a fee to pay the parcel may be delay but that first scan should still be within 24 hours or so. 

Thanks for the tip. The Tracked 48 tracking shows In Transit and currently at Tyneside MC. Which is in the area it’s supposed to be luckily!

So all is well no thanks to Royal Mail service these days or aspects of it.