Problems with Royal Mail at the moment?

[spruecutter96]

Hello, All. 

 

I was wondering if anyone is experiencing issues with Royal Mail delivering to them right now? 

 

I bought an item on E-Bay on the 22nd February and it was posted to me a couple of days later, from a UK seller. When I checked its progress, I was rather surprised that it's delivery date was forecast to be the 9th March! How can anything moving around this tiny island of ours take so long to arrive? I know that RM has been hit by COVID recently, but this seems a tad silly. 

 

Has anyone had any similar experiences recently?

 

Chris. 

[Nocoolname]

Nope! As fast and pretty reliable as it always has been where I live and I'm pretty rural. Bought an item on Sunday, posted Monday, delivered today. 

[spruecutter96]

Cheers for the reply, Nocoolname. 

 

Chris. 

[Troy Smith]

46 minutes ago, spruecutter96 said:

Hello, All. 

 

I was wondering if anyone is experiencing issues with Royal Mail delivering to them right now? 

 

I bought an item on E-Bay on the 22nd February and it was posted to me a couple of days later, from a UK seller. When I checked its progress, I was rather surprised that it's delivery date was forecast to be the 9th March! How can anything moving around this tiny island of ours take so long to arrive? I know that RM has been hit by COVID recently, but this seems a tad silly. 

 

Has anyone had any similar experiences recently?

 

Chris. 

 

I had a parcel that took a week to get from Lewes to London, it was sent 2nd class.  I think depends on where you are, and where it is coming from, you only need one of the  local office  to have Covid, and then others off isolating, and the backlog starts, but this could affect just one office, with everything else running fine. 

 

PS sorry, forgot to say,  thanks,  etch bits arrived fine BTW... cheers!

[Ray S]

No problem for me either. I ordered something from a little known store in Lowestoft at the weekend (well, Friday evening), and it arrived here today.

 

And the transfers were well worth waiting for!

 

Ray

[Black Knight]

1 hour ago, spruecutter96 said:

I bought an item on E-Bay on the 22nd February and it was posted to me a couple of days later, from a UK seller. When I checked its progress, I was rather surprised that it's delivery date was forecast to be the 9th March! How can anything moving around this tiny island of ours take so long to arrive? I know that RM has been hit by COVID recently, but this seems a tad silly. 

 

Has anyone had any similar experiences recently?

 

a. I bought some paint bottles from an ebay seller who said they were in Dungannon. 50 miles from me. The order took over two weeks to arrive. The address on the envelope was in London and there was Chinese on it.

Moral - not all ebay sellers are were they say they are

b. all other orders arriving on schedule and often sooner

[spruecutter96]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

PS sorry, forgot to say,  thanks,  etch bits arrived fine BTW... cheers!

No problem at all, Troy. 

 

Chris. 

[rayprit]

In my experience many sellers mention its posted, but they only post once per week, possibly a Friday.........another is if its a large company using a parcel carrier and have a trailer backed onto the deck which is left there and changed  once or twice per week, the shipper will mark it as posted, which to him, it is, but, its only gone out to be packed in the trailer.  That trailer may not be exchanged for a couple of days so, anything marked as "posted" is in effect "posted" but its only outside in the trailer in the yard.  I have had parcels arrive within 24 hours and others over 3 weeks...........hopefully it will eventually turn up

[spruecutter96]

Oh, I'm sure it will turn up, but in my experience - even in the last two months - Royal Mail and Parcelforce are usually MUCH more efficient than this. One thing I have noticed, the Royal Mail tracking-service is often very "behind-the-curve" and slow to update. I have had items delivered, then looked at the tracking-service which claimed the object is still "in transit". I guess that shows the fallibility of our "Age-of-Information". 

 

Chris.  

[Retired Bob]

I made an order from Hannants on Sunday, I received an email on Monday to say it had been posted, it arrived Tuesday morning.  This was RM parcel post, not a courier service.  Thanks all. 

[PhoenixII]

Chris @spruecutter96, from the pointy end of the stick. Most RM delivery offices are, at best, working at 50% staffing as if they don't they'll be in breach of covid legislation, (distancing rules). Add in time owed, holidays, sickness (to put a little personal perspective in here, one of the guys son is undergoing chemo and radio therapy for a brain tumour) etc. Christmas rush is over but as far as I'm aware the restrictions on letter post are still in play, to whit, 1st class, collected, sorted and delivered (as and where possible) next day. 2nd class, collected, sorted (Tuesday - Friday) for onward delivery. NO 2nd class mail will be sorted between Friday evening and Monday morning, this doesn't mean non will be delivered Friday, Saturday or Monday, IF it's in the system. Parcels and packets are the priority IF they are available to be sorted, i.e. in the hands of RM, and the ability exists to get them to where they are needed. Your parcel will be delivered, just don't know when.

 

[Des]

Can be a bit variable at the moment although a week or so seems to cover most items that have been sent Second Class at worst.

 

Sent three parcels out First Class  yesterday to family members in the same town 100 miles away , two arrived this morning while from past experience of the same the third was sent to a part of the town that seems habitually to get deliveries a day or two later than the rest.

 

Regards the comment by 'rayprit' noticed that before with Royal Mail and various couriers , seller says item has been posted and provides a tracking number which the carrier has as 'waiting for your parcel' for a day or few until they actually get possession of it also especially where eBay etc. are involved some sellers give a deliberately long delivery date to avoid negative feedback when the goods are delayed.

[GrahamS]

I ordered from Amazon on Wednesday with a stated delivery on Sunday by Royal Mail (bit surprised as didn’t realise they delivered on Sundays).

 

However, it arrived on Friday, so no problems from me.

 

Having said that, we post about 600 letters a day from work and I would suggest that about 5-10% goes AWOL.

 

Graham

[Stef N.]

45 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

I made an order from Hannants on Sunday, I received an email on Monday to say it had been posted, it arrived Tuesday morning.  This was RM parcel post, not a courier service.  Thanks all. 

I did the same and it was due to arrive today between 9 and 12. But got an email at about 10.30 that it had been sent to the wrong sorting office and is now in a van somewhere around the St.Albans area.🤬

 

To be fair that has been the first problem I have had with RM so I won't get too stroppy.

[RobL]

Can't say I've had many, if any, problems recently with Royal Fail.  I order stuff on ebay fairly regularly, and have recently also ordered directly from a company in Southend called Wayland Games - that order turned up next day or at least no more than 2 days after it was ordered!

 

And I'm in north Essex (kind of, can never work out if I'm mid or north), not far from Chelmsford that has apparently been hit by problems at Royal Mail.

 

But then I'm patient. 

 

I have noticed eBay's guestimates going up a little though.  As a seller on eBay I can tell you we don't set those delivery dates, unless that's a feature for a proper business account on eBay (my account isn't one of those), so I assume they come from eBay's info/guesswork.

 

You also need to be aware, if you aren't already, that some Royal Mail services, even if they have a "tracking number" don't actually provide any tracking information when an item is on route, just when it's delivered.

Edited March 4, 2021 by RobL

[Julien]

I think the best thing to say is its variable. Here our postman tells me they are massively busy, so much so that no one was covering his round on his day off. They used to share a van but cant do that now because of covid rules and the PO wont get anymore vans. 

 

The local guys seem to be doing there best against a system seeing a large rise in deliveries. Couriers under the same pressure. 

 

I posted two items last week for fairly local deliveries 2nd class, one got there the next day, one still has not been delivered?

 

Julien

[spruecutter96]

Thanks for all the replies, folks. As it turns out, the item I was asking about turned up this morning, all safe and sound.  I guess the RM tracking-service was playing it cool on this one, but it still seemed like a very long prediction. 

 

As one of the previous posters stated, E-Bay seem to have adjusted their delivery estimates by a long margin (which is fair enough in these troubling times). I hadn't considered the fact that RM employees can't ride in the same van as each other, but it makes a lot of sense. 

 

Chris. 

[JPuente54]

Nice to know that the USPS(United States Postal System) isn't the only one to have problems. Yes, we have the same complaints as you. Maybe they are being run by the same people?

Joe

[bentwaters81tfw]

12 hours ago, RobL said:

 

 

You also need to be aware, if you aren't already, that some Royal Mail services, even if they have a "tracking number" don't actually provide any tracking information when an item is on route, just when it's delivered.

I have this discussion with my postie. I can track stuff around the world, but when it comes to RM - to quote him - they are 'somewhat' useless.

But they haven't lost anything of mine yet.

[cherry268]

They also have to cope with Amazon overspill which becomes a priority.

Our postie is not happy, they are short staffed due to illness and "illness" and some days they do parcels only as that is all they can cope with 

[Duncan B]

On 3/4/2021 at 8:08 AM, RobL said:

 

I have noticed eBay's guestimates going up a little though.  As a seller on eBay I can tell you we don't set those delivery dates, unless that's a feature for a proper business account on eBay (my account isn't one of those), so I assume they come from eBay's info/guesswork.

 

You also need to be aware, if you aren't already, that some Royal Mail services, even if they have a "tracking number" don't actually provide any tracking information when an item is on route, just when it's delivered.

You are quite correct, even with an eBay Business Account the Seller does not set the delivery dates. All the Seller can do is select the dispatch action; 1 day, 3 days etc.

I have had eBay customers message me to complain and been given bad feedback about the estimated delivery date they have been given which I have no control over (only for their order to arrive much earlier than the estimate). I have also had customers take advantage of a failure of the "next day delivery" to complain when their order hasn't arrived during a "Beast from the East" weather event but they were quite clearly 'at it' as they demanded a refund for a lost item straight away from eBay without waiting for the item to arrive (as it did according to the RM tracking) once the weather cleared up. Yes there are some real chancers out there so now I have my account set to show dispatch within 3 days even though they normally go next working day at the latest.

 

To answer the OP's question, as others have said, generally Royal Mail are delivering reasonably on time in most cases, all be it without the 24 hr, 48 hr guarantees. There have been some exceptions which I have put down to local sorting office difficulties but everything does seem to be getting through eventually.

 

Duncan B

[alt-92]

12 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

Yes there are some real chancers out there

The NIRTS* crowd seem bent on making life difficult for anyone else.

I bet the Venn diagram with those demanding to speak to the manager is pretty much a circle as well

 

_{*NIRTS = need it right this second}

 

[bentwaters81tfw]

Well my shipment sent from USA 26.2.21 arrived today with no charges. RM advised me last night it was clear customs and arrived my local sorting office around 6am today.

[Julien]

5 hours ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

Well my shipment sent from USA 26.2.21 arrived today with no charges. RM advised me last night it was clear customs and arrived my local sorting office around 6am today.

Given our local post ATM dont hold out for a delivery soon, 1 parcel I sent to Rendlesham still not there in a week, and they tried to deliver me a parcel clearly marked for another town last week

[bentwaters81tfw]

3 minutes ago, Julien said:

Given our local post ATM dont hold out for a delivery soon, 1 parcel I sent to Rendlesham still not there in a week, and they tried to deliver me a parcel clearly marked for another town last week

Postie rocked up just after lunch with it.