Special Delivery signed for - then back in system 5 minutes later?

[ft247]

Would hugely appreciate an experienced opinion here.

Sent documents to the Hemel Passport Office (HP2 7HQ) on Saturday 26 November. In theory that should have been delivered on Monday 28th as it wasn't a strike day, but instead the tracking shows delivered at 0706 on Wednesday 30th November. Not really a massive concern to me so long as it got there.

After several weeks of chasing the passport office they are swearing blind that they don't have the envelope, which contains a valid foreign passport. I would tend to believe the RM tracker BUT a few things give me pause for thought...and I should also say that from other applications to the HMPO Hemel that I know about, their post-room delay is around 4-5 days at the moment, not three weeks.

The item shows 'delivered and signed' at 0706 on Wed 30th. However, four minutes later at 0710 there is an entry "Arrived at Home Counties North DO". Presumably for that entry to exist it must have been scanned at that time - four minutes after it was supposedly in the hands of the addressee? Which to me means it couldn't have been delivered at 0706 if RM were able to scan it again at 0710.

Does this make any sense or am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there any way a bag of SD could have been scanned as delivered at the DO or MC as that particular customer normally collects their own mail, but then that bag was left behind for some reason and is now stuck behind 2nd class by mistake?

Any advice most welcome. Hope all the RM staff here get a proper pay deal soon.

[SpacePhoenix]

The passport office probably gets a delivery direct from the MC. Most likely it had the arrive at MC scan done from the paperwork after the delivered scan. Probably all items had their scans from the paperwork at the end of shift, rather than as they arrive

[ft247]

Thanks SpacePhoenix.

I'm just wondering if there's any way it could have been marked as delivered when it was really just 'delivered' to a sack the passport office were expected to collect, but for some reason didn't.

The signature image shows DWS - does that mean anything in RM code?

[Snaggletooth]

The passport office only record an item as ‘delivered’ when someone in their post room has open the envelope and scanned everything in to their own system. This is entirely separate from RM’s tracking.

Was the address was a PO Box?

[ft247]

Hi Snaggletooth,

The address wasn't a PO Box - it was HMPO, Three Cherry Trees Lane, Hemel Hempstead HP2 7HQ. Google Maps resolves that postcode to a Sopra Steria building who operate that service.

Understand your point on passport office marking items as delivered when they open and scan it. What makes me concerned here is that their inbound 'queue' is about 5 days from RM marking delivered to HMPO opening and scanning. It was as high as 7-8 days a few weeks ago but no worse.

This one, and one more I know of are at 23 days and counting with HMPO saying they haven't received them.

[BenacreNick]

Ft247, DWS was the code we were allowed to use, to stop everyone from touching our scanner screens (protecting everyone from covid spreading like wildfire).
It simply means "delivered without signature".

It's finished now.

[ft247]

Thanks BenacreNick,

Interesting, from what I can see DWS stopped being a thing (for Signed For at least) on 1 May 2022. Presumably that means RM haven't taken the level of care paid for with Special Delivery.

I've sent an email to RM asking them to look into it, can imagine there's a bit of a backlog...

[BenacreNick]

We were given the choice to stop DWS in May or to extend it until each individual post-person was comfortable with customers touching the scanner.

If you needed 50 different delivery signatures in a day, I wouldn't have wanted to be person 48, 49 etc.

What I have noticed recently is that customer's actual signatures are really barely legible and there is no care taken when signing.

In the near future recorded signed for will become obsolete and no longer fit for purpose.
Just use tracking, it does everything you need, GPS location, date, time, photo etc.

[ft247]

Indeed, I'd be very interested to see the detailed scan log for this envelope, if there are GPS tags on the 0706 'delivered' scan.

If I had to guess I'd say it was scanned 'delivered' at the MC into a bag intended to go to the Passport Office but then for some reason that bag didn't go on the van.

Does anyone here know how Home Counties North MC is doing at the moment, is it possible that the item is at the bottom of a big backlog pile?

[BenacreNick]

One other thing, vans don't reach customers by 7:06 (duty start times are 7:00).

We are lucky to leave the office by 8:45 recently.