Is the Royal Mail 'fit for purpose'?

Our postman sticks our post through the door folded in half, Christmas cards as well VERY annoying.

The monitoring system is how they know that x percentage of first class mail has been delivered the next day - they do have a target of over 90% (not sure what the exact figure is at the moment). I am also a member of the monitoring panel and we send items to other panellists, both business and residential, and then log items we receive ourselves from other panellists (they contain an electronic tracking device as well). As Ele19 said, there are few problems with the mail not arriving on time. Us panellists are spread all over the United Kingdom - I've sent items to people as little as a mile away and as far as the islands off the coast of Scotland

A few weeks ago we had a pile of ltters shoved through our letterbox addressed very clearly to numbers 1-19 in our street - we live at no 24. I could have gone and delivered them all, but couldn't be bothered, so just wrote on each that they had been delivered to us and then took them the next day and passed the nearest post box, dropping them in. But round us the problem is with packages too big for our letter box, mostly from Amazon. Surprise - we've given Amazon our safe place and if we're going out, we leave note for postie saying where to leave packages. Not once in 6 months has the postie bothered to know on our door and the've been left in our blue bin, taken back to sorting office, certainly never put in safe place!

I bet they wouldn't have me, or anyone else from this area on that panel. We'd put their stats right out!! Or then, perhaps not, as someone has already intimated they know she's a 'spy' so I'm wondering how accurate these figures can be as they're hardly on par with a double-blind test.

'Hey Pat, make sure you don't cock up the deliveries to 24 Acacia Avenue, she's One of Them!'

We however do have significant problems with mail being delivered to the wrong addresses, being delayed or not arriving at all. And I'm not going to back down on that. There are significant numbers on this thread alone to show that something is far from all right.

And my fish is an example of that which can be proved

Just had mail delivered here (N. Yorkshire) for someone in East Kilbride. The only thing we have in common is the number on the door. Did receive, better late than never, a card posted two weeks ago.

Can't really complain about our postman - used to have a regular one who knew our numbering system - 2 new ones are doing quite well, one even came back the other day & said I've just left the wrong post!!! Our numbers for example are 17,23,24,19,28,7 - rest are as confusing.

I posted all my Christmas Cards 2nd Class beginning of December, most arrived next day

Our Post Office is in our local General Store run by a lovely couple, dread to think what will happen if/when they retire, he also delivers groceries all over my small town for no extra charge

I know I keep posting on this threads but I feel very strongly about this.

Above we have two examples one of a system that is failing from Worlass(wrong town and late delivery) and the other where they have a good workable system from Legs55

This is literally a postcode lottery !!

One week during the summer I received no mail at all until the Saturday when a whole lot arrived at once. It included two items posted first class the previous week one of which was a hospital appointment. Fortunately the hospital had phoned me or I would have missed it. I wrote to Royal Mail complaining about the service and their reply was that I hadn't any mail that week.
Once upon a time when I was a child you could post a letter in the morning and it would arrive in the afternoon.
Postmen used to walk their round then they used bikes now it is a van even in the middle of the village near the post office.

I heard recently, on some consumer programme, that 1st class post is suspended, after a certain date in December, so even if you use 1st class stamps, they are not treated as 1st class. PO are ripping us off, again.

Our post lady walks her round, in all weathers. We have been receiving first class post as I would expect, not noticed any delays.

Like everything else, it surely depends on where you live and the people who work in these places. Our main post office is being moved for some unknown reason, and the staff there were always agreeable and helpful, two local post offices within shops and in different directions both of them offer a personal service and are always obliging. Our postie is a delight, and always has a bright word or wave. We are obviously among the lucky ones.

Royal Mail is rubbish and as far as I'm concerned full of crooks. I've had gift cards and parcels constantly going missing and I can only presume they were stolen. I never send gift cards through the post anymore and I'm not prepared to pay for registered, just because the Royal Mail don't employ honest staff.
I recently crocheted a baby blanket and embroidered two little vests for my little niece. It never arrived and when I complained, all they were bothered about was whether I was compensation and didn't seem at least concerned that it never arrived.. it hasn't always been like that as when my husband wa a postman, he used to go out of his way to give the best service.

Thanks Saetana for backing me up!
And Anya you misread me, if Glasgow had had your fish it would have been delivered efficiently!!
Ho ho ho...

Online orders often say they are dispatched when they clearly are not and goods that are ordered from the UK actually come from abroad, so next day is unlikely.
Some carriers rather than the Royal Mail are very poor, delivering parcels to the wrong address or just leavinh them on the doorstep in full sight. We so often get parcels for someone in the next lane (same house number) hat i now have his phone number so that he can collect it from me.
On the other hand our post lady knows everyone on her round personally and will always try to leave parcels with neighbours, never on the doorstep.
We must be lucky, as I consider all our posties to be 100% honest, pleasant and reliable.

Me too wobble Christmas boxes ready for them

I posted my sister's birthday card two weeks ago and it has not arrived, in that time I could gp and hand deliver the blinking thing

My post seems to arrive promptly and both my regular postmen are totally brilliant.

I take great exception to your sweeping generalisations Marianne 1953.My son works for Royal Mail and I can assure you he is as honest as the day is long .He works very hard up at 4.30 am and often doesn't get in until 6.30pm and going by the amount of Christmas cards he gets this time of the year thanking him for his work his customer's on his round seem to be very happy. I expect Royal Mail is like any other company some good people and some bad

Well said Tinaf1.

Thanks Wobblybits

Our solicitor recently wrote to us by recorded delivery, the postman delivered it with the rest of the post, no signature requested, he must have forged it. Probate papers were lost between the probate office and the solicitor. We have been aware of mis-delivered post in the past but knowing most of our neighbours we could sort it out quite easily and promptly but now that we are swamped by multiple occupied student houses that change every year we no longer know all our neighbours and so mis-delivered post to student houses is likely to disappear. We used to have the same postman. He was unkempt, long hair, never spoke to us, never smiled, headphones on, if we met him in the front garden he would thrust the post into our hands. Absolutely rude and no credit to the Post Office. Now we have a different postman every day. And yes, some of our post has taken far too long to reach its destination. Not impressed at all.

It's a typical chicken and egg situation. The profitable parts of the service were sold off to private companies. That reduced the budget for the remaining, more problemmatic services, so fewer staff so worse services etc etc etc. I also worked "on the Christmas post" 50 years ago and got warm-you-up cups of tea etc. Nowadays the rounds are much longer and timing much tighter. My husband worked at the local sorting office when he retired a few years ago, he worked with several international students sorting, most of whom didn't know what the major cities were, let alone where they were. No wonder things go astray.

ele19 I thought you were casting nasturtiums on my birth city! Of course Glasgow would nae have lost ma wee fishie.

Like Ele19 and Saetana, I am also a member of the Royal Mail Posting Panel and would recommend it to anyone who has a little free time. On average I spend 5 min/day entering data and get rewarded with enough first class stamps to do all the Christmas cards and plenty left over. The thing that bugs me is when I receive a postal entry for a competition that I posted several days before - they can't seem to differentiate between 'to' and 'from'! (Think someone else posted something similar had happened to them recently.)

I had a load of junk leaflets delivered (not even post) by the postman alongside a letter that quite clearly was for the same house number in the next road. As I was putting the junk in the recycling box I happened to see the postman next door. I told him it hadn't got my name, address or postcode on it and his response was 'anyone can make a mistake' I live at the bottom of a close so did it take him reaching all that way to realise that the post should have been delivered to the next road? The same door number in the next road is an upstairs flat, was just idle-itis his problem? I was so annoyed at his response I rung the sorting office who couldn't have been more helpful. I said I had an eyesight condition and could have just as easily opened it by mistake. They already had that noted. Presumably from large print previous mail I'd received so was wondering if the postman did it deliberately to save him walking back!