Think the DO is retaining my mail

[somekindofnature]

Hello,

I haven't received any mail at all in over a fortnight, including a number of letters and parcels from friends and family.

We had a few weeks in January when the post was quite patchy, which I think was down to staff absence at the DO (completely understandable). But I saw our regular postie was back out and about on his normal rounds last week and had a chat with him - he reckons they'd gotten through the backlog and were back to normal.

I have a redirection from my old home address, so I went and checked with the new occupants in case any mail had been misdelivered to them - but they have nothing. (all my friends and family have my new address now anyway, but you never know)

And I visited the DO CSP at the weekend - they checked my address and said they had nothing for me too.

None of the items I'm expecting are tracked/signed for, but I tried on the offchance asking the senders for copies of the post office receipts. I typed the reference numbers into Track and Trace... and they're all being retained!

I see the message: " We're holding this item at Exeter DO. We’ve received a request not to deliver mail to the property your item is addressed to today. We'll attempt delivery as per the instructions we’ve received, which is usually on the next working day. "


Any idea what's happened? I hadn't asked for post to be held, there are no access issues with our address, I'm working from home so here all the time and haven't had any P739's. Is it worth going back to the DO? They didn't seem to think they had any items when I tried on Sunday!

Just at a bit of a loss to understand what's happened and how to get it sorted. I know it's been a very busy and difficult time lately - could this have been an admin error at the DO?

Many thanks!


Tl;Dr: Not received any mail for a fortnight. Tracking shows items as "Pending / Item retention". DO CSP say there's no items for me to collect.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Are you able to post a picture of the track and trace outputs as without them its difficult to say with any certainty what's happening. My best guess would be that there is still a backlog and they are scanning ones that they can't deliver as retained, but that's just a guess.

Apart from that, you could try contacting twitter @royalmailhelp, or the customer service hotline (long queues) that my give the local DO a push.

[somekindofnature]

Thanks for the reply!

I visited the DO again this morning and insisted they double check there were no items. They found all my retained post and handed it over! They seemed quite embarrassed.

It seems the post was being retained by accident. A few weeks ago, some post for my old address wasn't redirected and was delivered to the new occupants. I filled in a form on the RM website with details, and they passed it to the DO as a complaint. Apparently the DO misunderstood what had happened and started retaining all post for my new address... Without telling me.

Anyway, apparently post will be delivered normally now. I've escalated a complaint with RM customer services - hoping to get a refund on my redirection fee for the hassle.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Anyway, apparently post will be delivered normally now. I've escalated a complaint with RM customer services - hoping to get a refund on my redirection fee for the hassle.

As it was a failure at the DO they will probably offer you a refund, or an extension, but yes you should win a claim.