A really disappointed customer!

[Veloman]

Sorry, I'm frustrated, slightly angry and very disappointed.

I had cause to send an important letter by Royal Mail from Birmingham to Cheshire recently. Because of the importance of it being delivered rather than timescales I chose to send it by the 48hour Tracked Signed for service.

The letter contained an original vehicle log book along with some forms and photos. The log book was proof needed by the DVLA in order that I could obtain the original registration mark for a motorcycle I have restored.

The day following posting the tracking indicated that my letter had arrived at Heathrow International LC! And there it has stayed.

Contacting RM Customer Service was of no help at all although they were sympathetic. There appears to be no escalation or investigation procedure, no way of contacting Heathrow International, in fact nothing could be done apart from waiting 10 days and then claiming for loss.

If anyone reading this sad tale happens to work at London International LC please have a look under the table for a brown cardboard "Amazon" envelope and put it back in the system!

Should a letter destined for Cheshire and sent from Birmingham really need to go to Heathrow International LC as Customer Service intimated?

[yellowbelly]

................

If anyone reading this sad tale happens to work at London International LC please have a look under the table for a brown cardboard "Amazon" envelope and put it back in the system!

Should a letter destined for Cheshire and sent from Birmingham really need to go to Heathrow International LC as Customer Service intimated?

It didn't have any of the old Amazon labels on it did it?

The only small comfort you've got at the moment is that its been scanned so it's not totally lost,
hopefully someone will spot that it's at the wrong place.

[Snaggletooth]

Contacting RM Customer Service was of no help at all although they were sympathetic. There appears to be no escalation or investigation procedure, no way of contacting Heathrow International, in fact nothing could be done apart from waiting 10 days and then claiming for loss.

If anyone reading this sad tale happens to work at London International LC please have a look under the table for a brown cardboard "Amazon" envelope and put it back in the system!

There are literally millions of items pass through a mail centre each day. Searching for it would mean trying to hit a moving target. So no, they don’t do that kind of searching. If only 0.0001% of items were lost each day in a mail centre then the resulting stoppages to search for items would mean it was stopped more than it was running.

Ultimately you are going to need to apply for a replacement log book from DVLA. I realise that there is a fee for that (at £25 still exactly the same as when I worked in the Post Office 10 years ago!):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ertificate

[Veloman]

Thanks for the replies folks. I do realise the problems faced by RM having to deal with millions of items each day, its just frustrating when its my item that gets lost and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. This is the second item lost lost in the last 6 months and I don't send huge amounts of mail. I guess as stated I can only hope that with it being scanned it will come to light at some point. Just hope it hasn't been loaded onto a plane to some remote overseas destination! It didn't have any old Amazon stickers on it.

[Veloman]

Just to update and hopefully a conclusion to this stressful to me episode.

With my "large letter" well and truly stuck at Heathrow International from the 29th May I submitted a claim for loss on 9th June.

On the 21st June I received what I thought was an automated message saying that RM was continuing to investigate the loss On the same day the tracking information was updated indicating my large letter was now at Greenford MC. My letter was now back in the system, moved to Warrington MC then on to Northwich DO and was recorded as successfully delivered this morning just 4 days short of a month since posting.

I am obviously happy at what is hopefully the final outcome (I haven't had confirmation from the recipient yet that all is OK) but am puzzled at to what has happened. Did my claim for loss actually generate some sort of investigation as seems to be the case according to the 21st June message. Was it a coincidence that my letter appeared to have been mysteriously found and put back into the system on the very same day?

Did someone actually get in touch with Heathrow International and say "Hey, have you seen a recycled Amazon envelope that should have gone to Warrington knocking around the place for the last month?" I don't know but very relieved that it finally reached its destination and if someone did actually go to the trouble of investigating - thank you!

[Stinkycat22]

Back when RM was striking one day and the other too I had a tracked 24 item end up at the dreaded Heathrow International LC and it stayed there for 25 days before it finally got delivered to me! I think that mail centre is just super slow and I think it must have to do with it also processing international post.