Royal Mail may be under pressure to speed up deliveries in an ever-more-competitive market.
But, if the postmarks on some letters arriving at Leeds destinations are anything to go by, they haven't got much to worry about.
Two entries for our recent Yorkshire Evening Post Emmerdale competition appear to have arrived several days BEFORE they were even posted...
One which arrived in our offices in the middle of last week was dated-stamped for this Saturday, which would be an impressive result for a service battling competition from online technology and the growing number of courier firms - if the dates were accurate.
However, yesterday, red-faced Royal Mail bosses had to confirm, rather than acquiring a Tardis, the Leeds office had simply got a little ahead of itself.
"We've had a look into this and it seems it was a error by one of the franking machines," said a spokesman yesterday.
"We've completed random checks since and have found no repeat of the incorrect date marks so we're hoping whatever caused it has been corrected. Of course, we'd like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience which may have been caused," added the spokesman.
Its not been smooth sailing in the post rooms recently, in November a Royal Mail reorganisation led to a backlog of post in Leeds, labelled a "disaster" by postmen and customers.
New machines were introduced at sorting offices in Leeds and across the UK as Royal Mail battled to modernise to meet the demands of modern Britain.
One customer from Moortown claimed to have received no mail for a fortnight – and then all of it in one Sunday afternoon delivery.
Another resident from Chapel Allerton claimed to have been waiting for a fortnight for a camera bought on auction site eBay.
