Royal Mail - help needed quickly please!

db3333

Hi,

I'm an ebay business seller, selling over 100 items a week.

I always send my parcels, pre-paid and posting them in a Royal Mail parcel box.

Almost everything I send is tracked and I've never had a problem until now in around 2 years of posting this way.

On Tuesday this week, I dropped around 40 parcels to the parcel postbox.

Then on Wednesday I dropped another 30-odd to the same one.

Wednesdays parcels were showing in their system yesterday (usual timescale) and most of them have been delivered today already.

Tuesday's parcels however, are still showing as 'we're waiting for dispatch' which is what shows when postage has been bought but they are not scanned into the system.

This is the same for everything trackable that I posted Tuesday.

The box must have been emptied as everything I posted the next day is in the system or delivered.

I'm now very concnerned as it's been 3 days and in the next couple of days I'm going to be inundated with 'item not received' claims through ebay and will have to start issuing refunds. This is going to cost me hundreds!!

I can only guess that either the postman who collected the parcels has accidentally left a sack of them in his van and this hasn't been emptied yet, or something more sinister has happened.

I spent an hour on the phone to Royal Mail yesterday before I finally got through to a woman who practically laughed at me for being silly and impatient and said she'd look into it again today, but didn't even take my contact details!

I can find no other way of contacting anyone and as far as I know, because I used the parcel box instead of a post office, I have no claim as I have no proof of postage!!

Does anyone have details please for someone I can contact who can look into the collection?

Or anyone who knows where I stand with this if they have all vanished in the system??

I just would like someone to tell me they can track who emptied that postbox and investigate.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.

sheramber

Would the post go to your local sorting office?

Maybe a visit to them might help.

db3333

Thanks for replying.

Yeah I guess it would, there are at least 3 in the area so not sure which one.

I just managed to get through to a lady on their national helpline who was much more helpful and said she was emailing the delivery office manager (I forgot to ask which one!!) so hopefully they'll locate a missing bag of parcels in one of their vans and get them on their way.

Otherwise I'm going to be losing a lot of money right before Christmas in refunds!!

BethRobinson

"Bags of parcels" aren't just "left" in vans.

molerat

BethRobinson said:

"Bags of parcels" aren't just "left" in vans.

But they can be left in a roll cage in the yard

BethRobinson

molerat said:

BethRobinson said:

"Bags of parcels" aren't just "left" in vans.

But they can be left in a roll cage in the yard

What's that got to do with being left in a van?

elsien

The point, as I’m sure you are probably well aware, is the OPs concerns is that the bag has  somewhere during Royal mail processes,  and then overlooked. 

Being predantic about whether it’s a van or somewhere  else is not particularly helpful. 

savergrant

db3333 said:

Thanks for replying.

Yeah I guess it would, there are at least 3 in the area so not sure which one.

I just managed to get through to a lady on their national helpline who was much more helpful and said she was emailing the delivery office manager (I forgot to ask which one!!) so hopefully they'll locate a missing bag of parcels in one of their vans and get them on their way.

Otherwise I'm going to be losing a lot of money right before Christmas in refunds!!

The parcel postbox should have a code on it which partly comprises the postcode. It should then go to the sorting office (also known as mail centre) for that postcode. So for example if it starts with M16 it will go to manchester mail centre, if it starts NE1 it would go to Tyneside Mail Centre. However due to sorting offices being merged you do find a number of different postcode prefixes going to the same mail centre, i recently had a letter which was postmarked BA, BS, GL, TA mail centre, so replacing four previous sorting offices.

IOWJJBTM2025

The post office is extremely busy at the moment - lots of temp staff who are learning what to do.
Would suggest give them a couple of days to catch up.

noitsnotme

IOWJJBTM2025 said:

The post office is extremely busy at the moment - lots of temp staff who are learning what to do.
Would suggest give them a couple of days to catch up.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with the Post Office.  The OP put them in a Royal Mail parcel box that are emptied by RM staff I believe.

dnpark38

I buy a lot on Ebay and I'm finding that nearly all items these days are posted and usually say posted on 48  service which I thought meant delivery 2 days after posting. Rarely do they arrive in 2 days on complaining I'm told this 48 service is a 5 to 7 day service. Actual delivery given at time of buying is getting to be never met. Usually I'm given a tracking number but no tracking data is given until delivered.
There is something very wrong with the delivery arrangements that Ebay have with Royal Mail for items offered with free delivery.