Special delivery disappeared ?

Si1975 · Post by **Si1975** » 26 Apr 2020, 22:34

Hi

I appreciate how crazy everything is right now and imagine the RM absolutely flat out but wondered if could get some advice please ?

Purchased a bunch of very hard to find components the other week from someone for a reasonable amount of money and he shipped the bulk parcelforce no problem, but the higher end bits he was worried so sent them special delivery last Friday .

The irony is of course the parcelforce boxes came and the more valuable special delivery box has literally ‘vanished’

Tracking shows entering post office and then nothing, and it’s been a week now. Both myself and supplier have spoke to RM customer service who mostly fobbed us off but finally now a more helpful lady said they’d ‘investigate’.

My wife’s online business sends everything signed for in some way and I’d say about one in every few hundred gets ‘lost’ and sometimes that’s a special delivery one, but they’re small jiffy type parcels usually and I can just about see how that happens - this one was a circa 15kg box which is on the larger side for this type of service I figure (he paid over £40 postage) .

So I guess my question is could the current situation just mean it’s stuck somewhere indefinately or more realistically has it likely been nicked ? Would a large special delivery parcel be maybe just too tempting for someone that way inclined ? Is that even easy to do at a mail centre or enroute to one from the PO?

He had a £1000 insurance on it which RM will obviously fight tooth and nail not to pay . but aside from our regular sales we currently supply certain obsolete components into medical equipment manufacturers and so the effects of this loss might massively outweigh the financial hit the supplier could take on this .
These are probably worth very little to joe bloggs but potentially invaluable to us and our clients, very worrying as we still need to use special delivery ourselves sometimes for time-critical deliveries that are even more pressured in current climate :(

Happy to supply the tracking if that maybe sheds any light

Thanks for your time

Simon

Post by **Snaggletooth** » 27 Apr 2020, 08:41

It’s hard to say without seeing the tracking information. But if you are sure that it stopped at the PO then I would call the Post Office helpline to see if the branch has shut.

Ultimately you need to claim from the seller.

Theft from the SD system is very rare.

Si1975 · Post by **Si1975** » 27 Apr 2020, 10:31

Hi

Thanks for your reply

Supplier visited PO last week it’s still open and they say everything collected that day to go to mail centre no problem .

Apparently he chased up RM customer service today as they hadn’t bothered getting back to him when agreed and they’ve gone back to fob off mode, supposedly the mail centre manager says ‘done nothing wrong and no stray parcels there’ so it’s case closed .

No one going to check cctv and no one going to speak to whoever took the parcels from PO to this Swindon mail centre to even ask if it was there, I’m a little blown away actually , they just don’t care about theft I guess.

I’ll waste my time this morning mailing RM CEO and also call customer service myself again, I can’t just let this lie, it’s a lot of money and a big headache for the firm.

The tracking is this - SE086372307GB

Thanks

Simon

Si1975 · Post by **Si1975** » 15 May 2020, 10:49

I don’t suppose anyone had any thoughts on this atall after I posted up the tracking please ?

Been 4 weeks today so I’m guessing likely nicked?

Thanks

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 15 May 2020, 13:17

Si1975 wrote:I don’t suppose anyone had any thoughts on this atall after I posted up the tracking please ?

Been 4 weeks today so I’m guessing likely nicked?

Thanks

Thats really weird. I don't think I have ever seen a special only being tracked in the Post Office.

Specials are tracked throughout their passage through Royal Mail so I would be putting a claim in pronto. I would also complain to both the Post Office (as in the firm not the place where it was scanned) and Royal Mail. If there was something valuable in there I would also consider getting Royal Mail security involved as well.

Si1975 · Post by **Si1975** » 17 May 2020, 00:06

Si1975 wrote:I don’t suppose anyone had any thoughts on this atall after I posted up the tracking please ?

Been 4 weeks today so I’m guessing likely nicked?

Thanks

Thanks for your reply.

I mailed the RM ceo's office the other week and they are still 'investigating ' as I insisted they revisit this after initially coming back and saying just to put a claim in as no one out of post office / Royal Mail / parcelforce has a single clue where it could of gone, no one remembers it and there's no cctv in this fairly large Swindon post office (that last bit surprised me and I'm not totally convinced it's true)

cards on the table , the components in that parcel have an original list price of circa 50k (we didn't pay that , neither did our supplier I'm guessing) , are obsolete and fairly hard too find, and sadly some were destined for a manufacturer making medical equipment - which right now is more critical than ever.

So a disaster of epic proportions that would take some small businesses down .

The one saving grace, I guess, is if they have been nicked whoever has them will never be able to sell them on, without getting into specifics I'd know within days if they turn up with any reseller or broker in the world - they literally are that rare and we have 100% traceability on all the parts.

So assuming they aren't in the NI lost mail centre waiting to be flogged on eBay for RM's nice little side earner then they'll end up in a bin somewhere I'm guessing, and a bunch of machines won't get built.

It goes without saying if anyone ever reads this and encounters this parcel somehow I'd pay good money to get it back obviously (!)

Couldn't make it up, honestly. 'Special delivery' is maybe not so special really..

Thanks