First Class Signed For letter issue

kuepper

I looked at the royal mail website and 1st class signed for £3.60 seemed to be the best bet for me to have peace of mind my letter would get delivered to the addressee asap. The PO counter staff asked me if the letter was important which seemed a strange thing to ask, and when I said 'well it is to me' the staff suggested I use some other postal service that cost £8+ that I'd never heard of and can't find anywhere on the website. £8+ to send a letter!

A week later it still hasn't been delivered and the tracking message says "Your item has been posted at a Post Office. As you've used our Royal Mail Signed For service, the next update you'll see is after we've attempted to deliver to the recipient."

So after a week they've not even tried to deliver it?! I tried phoning to get some sense of what was happening but there's a 30+ mins waiting, I'll probably end up having to go back to the Post Office  I used but can anyone suggest what's happening?

subjecttocontract

Yes.....sometimes the postal system in the UK is not fit for purpose and many believe it cannot be relied on. Shame really. We deserve better.

Spoonie_Turtle

£8 sounds like special delivery.  The Post Office did this to the person who posted my PIP form and they panicked and went with it, I was so cross (with the PO, not the person)!  But thankfully for me it was delivered the next day.

Which service did you use?  The tracking message sounds like it was the Signed For.  Are you able to confirm with the recipient whether it's arrived?

kuepper

Spoonie_Turtle said:

£8 sounds like special delivery.  The Post Office did this to the person who posted my PIP form and they panicked and went with it, I was so cross (with the PO, not the person)!  But thankfully for me it was delivered the next day.

Which service did you use?  The tracking message sounds like it was the Signed For.  Are you able to confirm with the recipient whether it's arrived?

Yes it was 1st class signed for. No I don't know any other way to contact them, that's why I sent it 'signed for' so I knew it had been received. I'd previously sent the same letter by 'normal post' and not heard anything that's why I used this service this time. I just googled 'special delivery' and that must have been what the staff said at the time, but the website says it's for 'when it has to get there on time or it's worth a mint' and neither of those applied, I just wanted to know it had been received.

elsien

It’s no use trying to phone them anyway. They won’t see any more than you can on the system. 

I think I’ve got a letter which is still showing as awaiting delivery when it was received months ago. It doesn’t always seem to update, which is no help when that’s what you paid for. if you’re going to complain, you need to wait longer.

molerat

Why do you want to know if it was delivered ?  Sending signed for can be used to prove the exact opposite if it is for legal purposes even if it is actually delivered whereas a simple proof of postage will deem it delivered.  If you really want something delivered then special delivery is the only suitable (pretty much) guaranteed service.

soolin

Signed for is a very poor service with no guarantee. Might as well just send it standard post unless you have some reason to be able to potentially prove it has arrived. Signed for is just standard 1st class with supposedly a signature being obtained, it is not quicker nor does it have any more compensation than a standard 1st class letter.

incidentally the last 1st class letter I sent too, 7 working days to arrive as letters are not always prioritised in some postal areas with priority being given to large letters or parcels.  

Murphybear

subjecttocontract said:

Yes.....sometimes the postal system in the UK is not fit for purpose and many believe it cannot be relied on. Shame really. We deserve better.

I worked for the Post Office for a few years, on the counters in London.  It was pretty good back then, we got few complaints.  Although the counters and deliveries sections were run as separate businesses we used to get the verbal complaints about anything as we were accessible.    There weren’t that many complaints, although we did get a few customers saying they had lived abroad and how much better the U.K. system was.

I don’t have problems with deliveries but we live in a small rural town.  

Lorian

I'd use tracked 24/48 at least you can see it's moving.

kuepper

molerat said:

Why do you want to know if it was delivered ? 

I wrote to the addressee about 6 weeks ago asking them for information and to simply contact me by text/whatsapp/email/phone even if they didn't have the information I requested. They haven't contacted me at all and I'm sure they would have if they'd received my letter. So I presume my 1st letter was lost so this time I wanted to be sure it was delivered. The fact that not only has it not been delivered but they haven't even attempted to deliver it after 8 days I find quite shocking

kuepper

Still no attempt to deliver it after 21 days. It seems like you can get up to £20 compensation for a lost letter, but how can i put a value on a personal letter?