Royal Mail.......lost items!!!!!

[dancestationdirect]

Hi, has anyone noticed an increase in UK Royal Mail packages going "missing" recently. In the last 2 days I have had 3 different buyers claiming item has not arrived. One looks genuine as it is Recorded Delivery which has not arrived. The other 2 are fairly low value First Class items and of course I have no way of knowing if  this is genuine or not.

Prior to this (I have "lost" a few international parcels) but only 1 UK parcel last year went astray and never turned up.

Anyone else having problems with this?

[transit6502]

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@zimbert69 wrote:

"99.99% of the time because the customer was out when delivery was attempted and missed the card or couldn't be bothered to check."

Well the fact that i am disabled and do not leave the house I am always at home 

I see the postman every day No card has ever been left 

And i can most definatley be botherd to find out where stuff i have bought has gone 

The problem is with Royal mail, that is loosing many items, some things can be tracked but most just vanishes into thin air 

as a Buyer and a Seller i can no longer trust the Royal mail to deliver items from ebay 

for larger items this is not a problem as i can use a currier but for small packages and envalopes it is a nightmare 

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All anyone can do is talk about their own experiences. As I say my experience of using Royal Mail for an average of 1,000 letters and parcels every week for the last six years is very, very different from your experience.

What categories do you sell in? Do you send items recorded? Some categories are terrible for buyer fraud. I'm fortunate that the majority of my customers buy from me several times a week and I sell in a category that doesn't attract many "dodgy" buyers. My wife has had no end of trouble selling items privately in the clothing category. So many buyers there are just after freebies and are always saying items haven't arrived when the stats would say they almost certainly have.

[oakleaffy]

What is strange, recently I have had three items arrive, I'd paid for 'signed for recorded', and the postman just posted the items without a signature.

All the stickers on the front of the envelope were intact.

Clearly the Royal Mail folk aren't doing their job properly. Ok, it saves me a trip to the sorting office,but does give a dishonest person a chance to say ''I didn't receive item''.

I wrap and send stuff for a family member,  and he sold an 'expensive' item [a book]- I didn't want to risk an 'item not received' case, so sent it tracked, and made a loss of £4.50 on the postage, as that was better than my relative losing £88.

It does seem to be certain categories that appear to be risky..electronics and trainers, and women's clothing.

[westcraigs]

I had noticed a gradual increase in lost items and yes I agree with comments about it being strange that it mainly seems to affect some items that I send which mysteriously vanish and not those that are being sent to me.

My thoughts are that I am pretty damn sure there are some buyers that are using ebay's policy which favours the buyer to exploit some sellers!!

The solution to me was very simple in that I now send much more via Inpost & MyHermes, which both have a tracker service included in the price rather than paying over a quid extra to get that via the Royal Mail.  I also find it much more handy to dispatch items at a local convenience stores drop off points or the Inpost locker cabinet system, rather than waiting in a queue at the Post Office (many sub-Post Offices have been closed as part of cut backs) and the price is often more competitive than Royal Mail.

I have been using Inpost & MyHermes very often now for about 18 months to 2 years and ("touch wood") I haven't had a single problem!!!!  :-))

[malcb2004]

Yes I orders an item about 2/3 weeks ago, should have been here on the 13/14 July. still have not seen it yet

[posterworld2015]

We claim for EVERYTHING that RM lose. Sometimes it can be a battle especially now that we have made a good number of claims. RM's policty on returns is to to frustrate and deter. They have an extensive repoitore of excuses of why they should not, cannot or will not honour various claims, some of them are astounding in their stupidity,  but if you stand firm and give them all the info, if not more, than they ask for they eventually pay.. or pay something at least.

Their customer service levels and treatment of claimants belongs in the 16th century, but we will persist with the "you lose it,  we will claim for it " and stuff how awkward they make it.

The more of us who persist and follow through the claims procedure, despite RM, the sooner they might do something positive about it.

[vblstitchcrafts]

Totally agree. I send all my complaints to the SEO directly as well as sending the claim form off. Royal Mail definitely make it as inconvenient as possible and only cover the cost of components if you manufacture & NOT the retail cost. DESPICABLE !!!    

SEO's need to know how poor they are as they are isolated from the real situation.

[samslocker]

I had a real nigthmare with their claims team last year they were truley awful, to the point I started self insuring. Am fed up of this now, it is always ebay and I sell from "several marketplaces".....I am sending down a big file (signed for also) with EVERY SINGLE ADDRESS claims not received, every email received   or eBay case opended, every proof of purchase and cost., and am not taking no for answer.

They are paid to deliver so it is up them to offer a secure network and stop asking small business to pay all the time. It is not good for genuine customers and honest traders who just want ot buy and sell in a secure environment.

[firkinspares]

Reading through this just makes me want to talk about setting up a union of ebay sellers to apply pressure to places like royal mail. Our knowledge of using their systems is surely the best way for them to improve..

I've always thought a system where an item leaving the hand/bag/van of a postie can be automatically scanned and be accepted as a 'legal' proof of delivery would solve many issues for business sellers.  

[samslocker]

I think they can, well they can for multi nationals anyway. 

They keep trying to get people off OBA and onto DMO, and I tried their New Click & Buy system at the weekend and linked my OBA account to it. Now this is only good for my eBay sales, my Amazon and all done FBA, you can use it is you are merchant. It is no good for my own site or the other markets I use.

Anyway it was horrible to use, uploaded all my eBay sales, I just got a ton of error messages (mind you half the eBay address's on here ARE wrong).  I was back on OBA Monday  morning, it is a time thing. There systems are just not "user friendly"

2D barcodes are for parcels only and I would not use RMG for parcels there are better options. I send 99% LL, putting signed for makes you over priced, they need to get something for small business in-between. Lost mail costs a fortune and getting anything out of RMG is like getting blood from a stone, there support as I say is shocking.

I have had 2 INR yest (Albania and Serbia) and 1 case opened today from England. Now Mr Albania GOT his today as he just emailed me, no offer to give my money back, just said he was "sorry for getting emotional".

Not being able to get the UK stuff correct is not good enough in 2016 (we all know most of that will be received), but they RMG need to step up the game with security. 

RMG would be up the creek without a paddle if it was not for marketplace sellers and small business.

[annemadealbums]

Hi

Yes can understand your frustration completely. We run an ebay business and quite a few of our parcels have been "mislaid". We have lost a lot of business as we now have to send many items signed for only and customers do not like paying the extra, and who can blame them when the ordinary post should be reliable but is not. Our international custom has been greatly reduced also with the difference in costs of £2.45 and £8.20 for European signed for options. It is very frustating and completing the compensation forms for claiming missing parcels with Royal Mail takes ages and add to the workload of contacting frustrated customers who's items have not arrived

[annemadealbums]

Yes it would be great if there was some sort ebay seller union to put pressure on RM. The system of claiming for lost parcels is so off putting another way of reporting losses to them would highlight the scale of the problem

[jozzie-k]

If they made it easier to claim then a lot more people would. It's more cost effective to RM to keep it as difficult and long winded as possible.

[kris5161]

i commented on here months ago. stating ( factually ) that i had no none zero undelivered signed for parcels.but plenty of unrecorded parcels go missing. this is still the case absoloubtly 100% sucess delivery rate on signed for parcels. i also send all my parcels to the ebay hub not recorded and have not had 1 not delivered since the global shipping programme started. now i am not saying they dont lose some parcels but in my eyes the facts speak for themselves

[vblstitchcrafts]

Just got £20 compensation (3 weeks ago) for a signed for package. Think you have just been lucky.

Just got a parcel returned as 'no such address' (twice) but when checked with customer it was correct. Post office sent it again themselves in thier own envelope to same address and it got there. They cannot explain what was going on and no post office worker put thier name to the return so simply said they can't trace the course it took. A very delayed parcel for no obvious reason.

It's not just isolated problems -it's the whole service in termoil. 

[vblstitchcrafts]

I cannot stress enough, send your complaint to RM's SEO. Its the only way they will get to know the true problems

[cristyle_clothing_uk]

I hate to say it BUT I strongly feel some not all buyers will try a non arrival claim if you simply send as a normal 1st class large letter etc, as soon as through the letterbox and no need to sign a very small number of customers will try and pull a farce one with the system, luckily a good 95% of customers are genuine.

Usually a non arrival message will come through almost ctly a month since item marked as despatched, yet as a customer would you wait a month before chasing it up?...I've only had half a dozen cases this year and 4 of them waited a month before contacting, 2 of these after investigation claimed partner pucked up the parcel and placed it in garage & a cupboard!

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@kris5161 wrote:
i commented on here months ago. stating ( factually ) that i had no none zero undelivered signed for parcels.but plenty of unrecorded parcels go missing. this is still the case absoloubtly 100% sucess delivery rate on signed for parcels. i also send all my parcels to the ebay hub not recorded and have not had 1 not delivered since the global shipping programme started. now i am not saying they dont lose some parcels but in my eyes the facts speak for themselves

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[patriciabclothes]

A lot depends on what you sell.  With low value smaller items it simply isn't worth sending them signed for. I offer free P+P (which of course isn't free for me), and if I was to add signed for I wouldn't be able to compete on price. I have worked out that its better to accept the INR than have all the hassle of claiming from Royal Mail - I simply haven't time to do it. I used to follow up on every case but as they will only give me cost price for the item I found myself losing money taking the time filling out the forms and collecting the relevant

receipte etc.. when I could have actually been doing something more productive.

I use a Pitney Bowes meter now and I don't get quite as many INR's as I used to. Although it is still Royal Mail I think the fraudsters think it is automatically tracked because of the different labels used.

[vblstitchcrafts]

Think I may put a label on that simply says  'TRACKED - not signed' for when sending low value items and not using the signed  for service. It will look like a label that the carrier / Royal Mail has applied and will perhaps stop the opertunist claiming  it has not arrived - obviously it wont be tracked but it may help for those that are thinking about claiming  non delivery.

[coolgirlsboutique]

vblstitchcrafts that happened to one of my parcels it came back as address unknown but buyer said was correct lol

[mailheat]

We have far too many and you cant even track the signed for ones, It just says 'its in our system'. The claims process is such hard work its better to forget and move on. If I ran my company like RM I would be bankrupt by now. Oh and after some theiving sod at the post office have 'lost' your item, the buyer negs you !!  Happy days