Royal Mail, another "couldn't organise a p1ss up in a brewery" thread.
 

Last monday 22/08 i sent 2 seperate parcels to 2 different people in different parts of the country, both were sent by 1st class recorded delivery.

As yet neither has turned up, the tracking info on both basically says "being processed through our network". I rang the Royal Mail to see if they could shed any light on whats happening, that was a total waste of time.

They basically said that things sent by 1st class recorded delivery are classed as normal mail and they won't know where the parcels are until they reach the local delivery depot where they will be re-scanned, that updates the tracking info.

Great innit, you entrust them with your parcels and they don't have a clue where they are, i wouldn't be posting this if it was the first time that its happened, it aint as its happened a few times previously.

Losing track of one parcel is bad enough but to lose track of both is shear incompetence, i can't wait for the day that these jokers lose the contract to transport mail and small packages. Give it to someone like TNT or Fed Ex that know what their doing.

To be fair - They aren't going to attach satellite tracking to every parcel.
I can understand the model they have in place. You are ahead of your time right now. Realtime tracking (That is affordable) is 10 to 15 years away.

Have you worked in any part of the parcel industry, maybe with a courier firm or similar ?

I used to work as a courier driver for 10 years before i became a HGV driver, most days around 60 drops and 5 collections etc, as i said i then became a HGV driver and ive worked for Royal Mail, Parcel Force and a couple of other courier firms through an agency.

Ive seen all aspects of how parcels work from collection to delivering them to the customers, when a parcel is collected from a customer its scanned straight away, that parcel is now available to be tracked by the customer.

When the parcels get back to the depot they are unloaded off the vans and are scanned again, that info is directly linked to the customer tracking page so they are constantly updated. The parcels then go onto a 40ft trailor and they are scannedf again, when they arrive at the central hub they are then scanned yet again as they come off the trailor.

At the central hub they are then routed to the trailor for the local depot that deals with that parcels area, they are scanned again as they go on the trailor. When they arrive at the local delivery depot they are then scanned again as they leave the trailor, the parcels are then placed in cages so that the driver can put them in drop order. When the driver has sorted them out they are then scanned again onto his van.

Each time a parcel is scanned at any point the info is uploaded on the tracking page so that the customer can follow whats happening with their parcel.

Its not rocket science really, no need for satellite tracking. Its just a competent system that courier firms use so that the customer and their own company knows where the parcel is at all times.

If the Royal mail can't tell you where a parcel is within their network that was supposed to be delivered days ago then they shouldn't be delivering parcels, that to me says that their setup for delivering parcels isn't upto it.

They can fully track anything sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery so why not use the same system on all parcels ? If they can't handle parcels then they should stick to letters because they obviously can't handle parcels if they can manage to lose track of them within their own system.

It seems pretty simple why they don't do it, cost cutting. The documentary on TV showed the postmen due to cost cutting are now doing the work of 2 or 3 postmen and they have to cover a bigger area than they used to do, the postman round our area has to use his own car to get his mail and parcels over here.

Point 1.
I worked for a company delivering pianos many many years ago (based in Stockport) I earned some corn and then went back to do A Levels when they were worth something.

Point 2.
I call bull**** - I've sent shedloads of stuff thru Special Delivery and there was no mention of live GPS tracking.

Strange that, when i called Royal Mail customer services to ask them if they could locate the parcels that i had sent by 1st class recorded delivery the woman said "I'm sorry but 1st class parcels and packages are classed as mail and we don't continually track them".

She then said "The only items that we continually track and can locate within our system are items that are sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery".

It may not show up on your tracking page when you have sent items by RMSD as it sounds like its not live tracking but Royal Mail know where they are and can track them as thats what i was told by customer services.

Thats the point, they have the technology to track and locate items but they aint using it for all parcel services, just RMSD.

Isn't that the whole point of special delivery?

When you make the conscious decision to save money by using Recorded instead, aren't you explicitly stating that you don't need the extra traceability and aren't prepared to pay for it?

Prices have recently shot up too..

I sent a letter the other day via special delivery and it was £5.25 !!!

I have had real trouble with royal mail,things usually do get where there going too but the time frame if not sent by special delivery could be anything..

Over the christmas period,coupled with bad weather we waited nearly 6 weeks for a lot of parcels that should have been delivered..Most had to do less than 100 miles..

It was at the end of January when most turned up..:(

If I'm sending anything of value, then I always use interparcel now.. Cheaper than RM and full tracking.

Exactly. I would have expected it to be common knowledge by now that Recorded is nothing more than first class with a signature when it arrives at its intended target.

"recorded signed for" the way that royal mail staff work out which packages to steal! ( so i have heard ;) )

it does exactly what it says. if every letter and parcel was tracked it wouldnt be so cheap to send items out.

If thats the case then would you say that just obtaining a signature warrants between £3 - £4 extra ?

1st class recorded states "We aim to deliver your First Class Recorded item the next working day, or within three days if you use Second Class."

The reason people send by 1st class recorded isn't to save money on special delivery its for speed over standard 1st and 2nd class to get something important to another person quicker, if your sending valuable items where the cost warrants royal mail special delivery then you send it by RMSD like ive done many times in the past.

When you have sent 2 parcels 5 days ago that havn't turned up as yet and Royal Mail have no idea where they are then that isn't acceptable, to lose one would be bad luck but to lose both and have no idea where they are is comical lol .... Thats just shear incompetence.

You want TNT to take over the majority of delivery, have a look at other european countries where TNT employ casual staff to deliver the mail. See how many of your packets get 'lost' then ;)

Tracking is only available if the postman has access to a PDA, something only drivers use at present. The walkmen, which is possibly 75% of delivery don't use these, hence not being able to track most things.

Re cost cutting 100% agree but thats down to higher management not understanding what is entailed in actually delivering the items. They look at figures spat out of a computer rather what 'actually' happens in the real day to day job.
Recorded signed for is 77p on top of the normal cost of delivery ;)
It is just that, provides a signature on delivery of the item.

RM 'aim' to deliver within a certain time, not guarantee ;) (unless using SD)


Oh btw both my Recorded parcels sent on Thursday arrived the next day! :smug:

No doubt everyone has experiences of RM not doing the job.
I got a parcel the other day, it was sent recorded 1st class from Hull (42 miles away) and took 3 months to arrive.
My local postie delivers most of my parcels on his bike, the van driver for my area refuses to take anything heavier than 2kg on the grounds that it is too heavy for him to lift by himself.
Personally I never use 'em for anything other than letters and wouldn't use 'em at all if there was an alternative.

I didn't think they were doing recorded delivery any more :wonder:

As mentioned by blu, recorded is only available for checking once it has arrived at it's destination as it doesn't get scanned into the system when it's posted, special deliverys are scanned at every drop on their way through the system.

Recorded delivery isn't really much different form 1st class apart from about £40 worth of insurance on it, so is usefull for small parcels and important letters that you want to know have arrived at their destination.

Recorded delivery should only be used if you need confirmation that the recipient has recieved it. Some examples of this would be if you were sending something you sold on Ebay or if a company sent documents where they needed proof that the person recieved it such as a court summons etc. It should NOT be used for items of large value, Special delivery should be used for this purpose, SD does have better tracking facilities, if I sent an SD item from Hull to London it would be scanned in every depot it enters and also scanned out again, it is hen scanned to the postman and either confirmed as delivered or not delivered, as far as gps goes an SD item recieves a gps coordinate for every scan it recieves. An SD item does not have live gps tracking unfortnately.

I reckonb that if you pay for something to go first class and recorded delivery that they should be able to track it in their system. Why should first class be regarded as ordinary mail anyway.

Les

Well he's talking bush*t then. The max posties can carry on their own is 16kg.

First class just means it takes priority over 2nd class mailsort 3 downstream access mail etc...... nothing else. The delivery times stated on RMs site are just a guide, not a guarantee.

If you want tracking pay for Special delivery or if you're a business use RM tracked. (soon to be rolled out to the public)

Well i havn't even got a 2nd class service with the 2 parcels that i sent last monday by 1st class recorded, neither have arrived as yet.

Like i said at the start, its not the first time this has happened when sending parcels with the royal mail, ive also had parcels sent to me that have either never turned up at all or have taken a couple of weeks to arrive.

They were ebay items, one had a value of £34 and the value of the other was £30 hence i didn't need special delivery as your covered for around £40 with 1st class recorded.

Its just frustrating for the people that have bought them, its like the phrase "how long is a piece of string" in when they will turn up, if they will ever turn up. You know what some people are like on ebay as well, i could get negative feedback here for something that i'm not responsible for.

Yes they are both the correct address, at our local post office they always check the postcode on a machine when you hand them the parcel.

Both sent from Cheshire, one to Bradford and the other to Surrey.

On ebay when someone has paid and you log into paypal to check the payment it always has their address, i then send them a private message through ebay just to check the address is correct.

The thing that gets me is that the Royal Mail have no idea where the parcels are, i say this because when the parcels go to the central hub for sorting they go on a conveyor belt system, the parcels barcode will be read by a machine/laser so that it routes them to the right area of the country so that they end up on the right trailor.

Now surely when the label gets read at this point it can't be that difficult for it to be logged onto their system so they know where a parcel is, remember the barcode is being read anyway so that it gets routed to the right depot.

Hardly worth paying the extra for first class then, although I have heard that first class mail is a bit less likely to get lost than second class.

Whole thing sounds pretty unsatisfactory to me.

Les