International tracked and signed for service

[DavidM00]

I needed to send a small parcel to Bulgaria. I went to my local post office, and asked what services were available. I was sold an international tracked and signed-for service, and told that
(a) it should take 3-5 days
(b) it would be tracked at every step of the way.

I could see from RMG’s tracker that it entered RMG's system on Aug 7th, the day I posted it. It then reached LHR on Aug 7th in the evening. All good. The next status update is Aug 11th, saying that it was on its way to GLS in Bulgaria. But nothing after that.

With no update to this as of Aug 18th, I spoke with RMG Customer Services, who told me it had been sent to Germany as that is where GLS has its hub. I spoke with GLS Germany, who told me that the package had arrived at their hub on Aug 14th, and that it was being sent to Bulgaria. They told me that it should take 4 working days to reach GLS Bulgaria from GLS Germany, and that this is normal.

1. The item has not been tracked, other than once ("on its way to GLS Bulgaria", which omitted to mention "via Germany first...", in the 7 working days since it arrived at LHR. And it took 5 working days to get from wherever the flight from LHR landed in Germany to the GLS hub there. 5 days!?

2. If GLS ships via its hub in Germany, and says it takes 4 working days by default to ship from GLS Germany to GLS Bulgaria, then RMG’s aim time of 3-5 business days from the UK to final delivery in Bulgaria is untenable.

I did write to customer services - the gist of their response was "An international item being sent via one of the above-mentioned services to Europe is only considered lost if it is not delivered within 20 working days of its delivery due date". So while the aim is 3-5 days, up to 23-25 days seems to be the acceptable limit.

Had I been told this as the counter, I wouldn't have used the service.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Just in case you haven't come across it - GLS has its own tracking site https://gls-group.eu/EU/en/parcel-tracking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;