Royal Mail complaints – I tried to get in touch but gave up

My advice would be not even to try.

If you do you will find yourself wading through a sea of corporate arrogance and dismissiveness designed to keep customers at arms length, waste their time and avoid any additional work on behalf of the organization. 

Consider the following case: An order was placed online for an item advertised in a publication.

The seller responded instantly, collecting payment, delivery address, etc and announcing that the package would be sent forthwith by “Royal Mail tracked 48hr” (no tracking reference was received).

One might assume that the package would then arrive about two days later. It did not. We waited.

After about three more days a message was received by gmail announcing that the package would be delivered that day within the next three hours.

Another gmail message was received within a few minutes announcing that an attempt had been made to deliver the package “but there was nobody in”. We have a video camera covering the front garden.

This showed the early morning newspaper delivery, a brief visit by the postman to deliver some unwanted brochures and two people working in the front garden throughout the period, but no sign of any attempt to deliver a parcel. 

Another message said a “redelivery” would be attempted next day.

This time the outer door was left ajar, and the bell checked. A later check of the video recording showed an individual wandering back down the path from the front door. We had missed him by about twenty minutes.

But there had been no attempt to ring the bell or communicate by any other means.

We telephoned the local Royal Mail office – but it had already closed at 10am that morning!

Royal Mail websites were consulted and telephone calls were made which resulted in the caller being taken through a “press this” or “press that” time-wasting exercise interspersed with phones which were simply not answered. 

Finally a tortuous online form was completed in an attempt to show the lie that claimed that a first delivery attempt had been made, whereas it had not, and that the second attempt to deliver had not involved any attempt to communicate with the occupants by checked serviceable bell or other means.

It is interesting that right at the end of the online form, there is a statement that “the manager would be informed but no response would be given to the complaint”. Finally, an attempt was made to go to the local sorting office to ask for advice, but this was rejected rudely by a gruff: ‘You can’t come in ‘ere’.

We have excellent deliveries of groceries, online orders from Amazon, florists and other couriers who all manage to use the bell, and without any of the corporate incompetence, frustration and nastiness received from Royal Mail.

In future, I will avoid using the non-service they preside over. Sadly I have given up any hope of receiving my package!

(While writing this I recalled a previous problem in London where bags of mail were being abandoned in the street rather than being delivered.

On that occasion my complaint did get through – I was offered the opportunity to send a member of my staff to the Victoria Sorting Office to collect our business’s mail rather than have it delivered (or dumped) – for a payment of only £2,000 per year. I declined.)

Anthony Holt 
Dorchester