Half of customers say Royal Mail fails to deliver parcels

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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More than half of consumers claim they have been misled by their postman, who has left a "Sorry you were out" card when the customer was in fact at home.

According to a survey undertaken for the official postal watchdog, Consumer Focus, 55 per cent of Royal Mail customers believe they have been misled by these cards being posted incorrectly through their door.

Nearly a quarter, 23 per cent, believe it has happened to them on at least three occasions.

The problem of postmen misleading customers first came to light in October after a reader wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph, saying that not only did she receive many of the "Sorry, you were out" cards when she was working from home, but she also confronted her postman only to discover he had no parcels. If she wanted to receive the parcel, she needed to travel to her sorting office to collect it.

Her letter prompted more than 200 readers to come forward, most commenting they too had suffered from a similar problem.

It is understood that some postmen, in an attempt to cut down on the time it takes to complete their rounds, were leaving parcels and packets in their sorting office and instead taking out a bunch of "Sorry, you were out cards".

At first Royal Mail denied that postmen ever delivered the cards erroneously. After The Daily Telegraph passed on a number of the complaints, the company vowed to discipline any workers, but insisted it was just a few rogue postmen to blame.

The findings of the Consumer Focus survey are being broadcast in a BBC Panorama programme tonight.

The programme reveals an internal Royal Mail memo acknowledging that parcels are being left in the office “without any attempt to deliver the packet” – warning staff the practice must stop.

Consumer Focus admitted that some consumers may think they have been misled when in fact they had not heard their door bell ring. And some consumers may believe they have been duped by Royal Mail, when in fact a rival delivery company is to blame.

However, Panorama found many disgruntled customers, who said they knew Royal Mail was to blame.

One customer, Dr Andrew Curtis, a research scientist in Bristol, said: “I heard the letters drop through the postbox. I went to check immediately there was a card there saying ‘we tried to deliver a parcel to you but unfortunately you weren’t in’. Obviously, I had been in – I’d been sat next to the front door. I hadn’t heard the door bell ring hadn’t heard a knock so I followed the postman down the street.”

Royal Mail Operations Director Paul Tolhurst told the programme: “It shouldn't be happening … if customers tell us that it's happening, we will discuss that in the local office with the local postmen, and we will try and put that right. That is not what they should be doing, but of course it does happen, and I'm not saying that it doesn't.”

The scale of the problem has been revealed just a few days after the company admitted that, despite improving profits, it was losing business.

In the last six months, a third of all letters and parcels posted in Britain were handled by rival companies.

Royal Mail saw a four per cent rise in profits in the first half of this year, to £184million - equivalent to £1m a day - after shedding 5,000 workers and benefitting from a 3p rise in April in the price of first and second class stamps.

It predicts today will be the busiest of the Christmas postal deliveries, with 140million items due to enter the system instead of the usual 72m.

Over the Christmas period it expects to handle around 155 million items ordered online. Last year it delivered 750 million Christmas cards - 17 for every man, woman and child in the UK.

The recommended deadline for Christmas cards within the UK and the Channel Islands is Friday December 18 for second class and Monday December 21 for first class.

[Stormproof]

Everyone in my office takes their packets out, no writing p739's and leaving the packets behind, never heard of that practice until that newspaper article the other month. I reckon a lot of the customers are lying, they were either asleep, in the garden or shower, on the bog or out. They just complain for the sake of complaining and tell these researchers what they want to hear.

[piranha]

Faulty doorbells **** me off, when they come running with their cards it's me who is vexed with them for not answering the door. This seems to be a hot topic at the moment though

[not me]

one of the major issues and 'causes' of this is inner city tenements and flats
if you or your driver cant get an answer then a P739 is delivered the next day
so people get a card shoved through their door

ive had many an argument over this.best was just the other day relating to an SD where the guy was ranting and raving.
i said i know your buzzer was pushed as it was me that did it
his reply..............." the f***ing buzzer doesnt work"

[G O Root]

Oh, what a shock that this is to be on the Panorama program. I'm not condoning colleagues doing this practice, and i never have, but why doesn't the program focus on the real problems in Royal Mail, instead of easy targets - us. They say they have loads of evidence of this practice, but then admit , some customers may have not heard the doorbell, or it may be some other courier. Totally contradictory. So sick of the media and ' customers' having a pop at us all the time. Didn't see any of the 5 customers who had christmas cards just addressed to their street this morning complaining. Don't expect to read it in the papers either.Or indeed about the guy who had his TV so loud he wouldn't have heard a bomb going off. Is he one of the 55%.