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?

[coronita_111]

The thing is, it doesn't matter that you did send the item to the correct address, as long as the buyer doesn't receive it, the seller is held responsible and the seller will have to eat the cost. Even though the buyer is being dishonest, there is just not much we can do. We really need some seller protection as well.

[grab-the-t-shirt]

http://www.royalmail.com/customer-service/service-updates

Seem they are on Dispute, hence why postage not getting through.. and us sellers are having to deal with the  unhappy customers ;-(

[100ljh]

Hi,

We had only 1 parcel lost for the whole of this year until December where we have had 6 in two weeks ?

We have refunded 5 of these and shipped a recorded replacement to the 6th ( got 2 neg's after asking them to check with neighbours ?? )..

I intend to add your feedback suggestion in the future " We are sorry your item was lost in the post" might at least make them think twice.

I agree that the increase is just people realising that they can claim there money back and the seller can't do anything about it.

If I had ordered an item and it had got lost in the post, I'd still need the item so would want another one sent ?

I'm also very cynical about customers who report it to ebay and ask for refund without even contacting us first .

As a seller we are re-evaluate what we send as recorded.

[the-online-shopping-arcade]

I have just gone over to courier for anything over 750 grms for same reason.  i have had to go back to 1st class post for last week of xmas though.

[georgina6618]

I was wondering the same thing! International signed for took just over a month to reach Ireland...in that time I had to post a replacement. Considering it is nearly £8 postage, terrible!

[merchandise4youreyes]

Oh my goodness, this happened to me 4 weeks ago. Fair enough I didn't put a track on the item but I was new to selling on eBay and I thought what are the chances of Royal Mail losing my parcel? It is their job to get parcels to its intended destination after all, but no I was so wrong.

The buyer claimed she never received the item after two weeks! So I downloaded a parcel loss claim form which is on the Royal Mail website, filled it in with all the evidence and receipts (they ask if the item was an eBay item, its value, proof of posting etc) and sent it off to them by RECORDED delivery, as it's a free post, I didn't want them saying anything about not receiving it!

Today I got a cheque in the post from Royal Mail for the value of the item and the postage cost and I sent in the claim about 3 weeks ago.

Put in your claims guys and get your money back if you haven't already. Do not lose out because of their incompetence.

[mepixin12]

Hmmm, I am thinking that busy periods are definately the fault of the Royal Mail, and losses in between are 'for freebies'. But then of course there could also be freebie attempts at busy times too! Who knows!!!! Will we ever??

Anyway, wanted to share a reply I posted for a missing item today, if you could share your feedback on this that would be great. Only time will tell if this is useful! Obviously politeness and professional communication at all times are our priority, so please tell me what you think of this - Any pointers or suggested modifications would be very welcome:

"Hi , your item should only have taken 3 to 5 working days and it was despatched the same day by us, HOWEVER the start of this week is where the most online purchases occur for the christmas period, so delays will ALWAYS happen at this time of the year. The Post Office will not allow me to submit a missing item investigation claim until after TEN working days.

So in short, if we give this until to see if it has arrived by then, hopefully you will see it before this time.

Please let me know if it does arrive in the meantime, otherwise please let me know on the

Many Thanks, ..."

Simon

I believe RM won't let you claim until 15 days have elapsed, and may keep parcel if found for around 18 days assuming you have your return details on parcel. Obviously buyer is not expected to wait until this is all completed.  Unless very patient, and you don't want to have neg FB if ou can avoid.  Looks very good.

[sijoaccessories]

Maybe it can be amended to suggest a refund before that time, but on the understanding that the item must either be sent back, or paid for if it does turn up after refunding??

I am also now wondering another theory ... just been looking over my latest losses, and they are all the same product!!!

This product is a very fashionable (low value) item at the moment - animal hats - and I am suspicious that royal mail workers also 'want one for their kids', so is it possible they are helping themselves? Just that these were slightly visible in the origional packing bags I used!!

Simon

[sijoaccessories]

p.s. yes my return address is VERY visible - a clear stamp that I purchase especially for it. Yet I have only ever had ONE returned this way!!

Simon

[victortardis]

Hello everyone,

Well, I am a buyer mostly but have sold a few bits.

In the last ten days Royal Mail has lost two of the five parcels I sent out, all sent via signed for recorded delivery.

Royal Mail has also lost four parcels sent out to me, all CD discs, by a friend.

A few years ago missing  post was not a frequent occurrance but lately I consider it a small victory when my mail gets to me.

Our postman, well they change too often to work out who he or she is, kept leaving parcels too big to fit through the letterbox on our doorstep, until we complained. We live in London, anything not screwed down is at risk, never mind an inviting looking parcel.

Our local Post Office in Finsbury Park was last week managed by a regional manager, I saw him and complained about my latest loss and he told me to come in next day with the receipt. They could investigate more deeply using their computers, he says. ' Come back tomorrow and the regular manager will be here', well I did and got the same guy but this time he wasn't as friendly and basically just gave me a claim form.

Investigations? He couldn't do any, he just fobbed me off the day before hoping he would be gone the next day!

Royal Mail are absolutely no  longer trustworthy, credit cards are forever going missing and I have heard  from someone who used to work for them that the staff in sorting offices used to open up "interesting" parcels to see if they contained something they wanted.

Royal Mail have a monopoly, for now at least, and as such they treat their customers any way they like.

Royal Mail should also make it clear that Recorded Deliveries are not trackable, even though their site asks you to enter the "tracking" number, and accepts the number provided on the receipt, when in reality it isn't

I am afraid that until a more sophisticated tracking system is devised mail will go missing inceasingly more. Standards and morals are a bit low on the ground these days so if the staff has a chance to nick something, they will.

My only idea is to make the parcels look like they contain something cheap, Tesco transports their cigarettes in crisp boxes!

Anyway, hope you all enjoy your festivities and hopefully 2013 will bring something other than another headache.

[mapletextiles1975]

Nine of our last 1000 items have gone astray with Royal Mail is this a usual percentage?

[bookwork-annie]

I'm so glad I read all this & now know i'm not the only one, not that it's any consolation but i've been just about tearing my hair out lately.

I send out only a few packets a day but over the last few weeks i'm getting a complaint of a 'lost item' almost every day - both UK & international.

I pack & label everything meticulously so there is no excuse for Royal Mail to 'lose' it. Who can afford for their items to go missing so often? Certainly not me!  I make a claim with Royal Mail for every one, regardless of the time it takes to get all the evidence together. So far i've not had a claim refused but it takes well over 4 weeks to get my money back.

It's a pity the Tracked Mail service isn't more readily available at a decent price for small businesses/lower volumes of mail.

Anyway, better go, got 2 claim forms to get on with!  😐

[hernes-cave]

This Xmas was my worst ever for loss. I have sent out about 230 packets and 7 have been lost. Some were to regular customers so I don't think the problem lies there. Normally my category is very low risk, I have 5 0r 6 losses in a whole year. There was no real pattern...a couple in the UK, a couple in the US, 1 to Canada, 1 to New Zealand. Several other packets were seriously delayed (a month to the US ) Another was taken back to the depot and no card was left; apparently the buyer DID phone and ask if anything of his was there and was told no. It ended up back with me.

I also had a dvd set sent to me that went missing. And since the snow no postman has been near our estate despite the fact is was fully passable today.

[smartel*2816]

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?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yes i have, and like you, you cant prove if they are genuine cases or not.

I made a compensation claim in december and i got a cheque this morning or should i call it an insult. I sold a blood pressure monitor value £9, i got the certificate of posting, original invoice for item, ebay paper work, so should of been £17 refund and they send me £7.20 and if it shows up we will send it back to you.   im really going to look round for another courier.

[northern_star_retail]

Hi, has anyone noticed an increase in UK Royal Mail packages going "missing" recently.

Yes there seem to be a lot more UK items getting lost and it's getting harder to claim for them. I think RM work on the principle that if they make it difficult enough we won't bother. I'm a small seller but last year I spent about £7000 on postage, that's a lot of money as far as I'm concerned and I don't see why I should take the hit for RM's incompetence. Some claims could be bogus but I'm sure most aren't.

For those who haven't yet had the joy of dealing with the RM claim department:

UK claims are dealt with by RM Customer Services in Plymouth, who seem to treat any claim for a lost Ebay, Amazon or Play item as a 'business claim', which is dealt with by the Ebay Business Section (regardless of selling platform, and regardless of whether the sender  an RM business customer.  They also have a tendency to make cheques payable to my Ebay id, which means I can't cash the cheque. Anyone else had this problem? I have to resort to putting a large Post-It on each claim saying 'cheque payable to xxxx'. It's interesting that they think we all have bank accounts with the same name as our Ebay id. Presumably if a seller has an id of 'slimygreenslug' or 'bigfriendlygiant' that's who the cheque would be made payable to, I've tried to discuss this with RM but they don't seem to understand the problem. 

International Claims are dealt with in Stoke-on-Trent and in comparison is wonderfully efficient, I nearly always get paid promptly, presumably because they don't check with the recipient whether the item has arrived. I send a lot of items overseas and the loss percentage is higher than for UK, which is not surprising. I suppose it's quite good that RM do pay out for these because I guess most get lost once they've left the UK, but presumably there is a reciprocal agreement for items coming here from overseas. 

If RM refuse to pay out, or pay less than you think they should have, you can complain to their 'Escalated Customer Resolution Team' and if that doesn't work you can refer the complaint to the Postal Review Panel. You can do this online. I found them very helpful and got money back plus compensation for my inconvenience. I found the Escalated Customer Resolution Team to be useless as they didn't reply to my letters, but to refer to the PRP you have to show that you've followed the correct procedure!

[pollyscrafts]

I have been selling cellophane products on eBay since May 2012.

I have about 3-4 a month INR, at worst 7 -8 in a month, I too buy off eBay and have always received my items so why do so many of mine go missing after they are sent out.

Now I know the odd one will go missing in the post but I have had to deal with at least 30 since may last year, I had one woman say that 2 separate parcels never turned up.

I am always giving refunds, sometimes the buyer wants a replacement but  they mainly ask for a refund.

My profit margins are very small as it is, I just do not know what to do.

[colinsfoto]

well, if I had more than 5to 10 items "lost" in every thousand sent worldwide, I'd be concerned. Luckily that is not the case with the items I sell. Maybe the difference is down to: the type of buyers I get, correcting all wrong buyers' addresses, packaging well, using waterproof labels or whatever.

[primegiftuk]

I have sold about 56 items so far and 2 have been lost, both ebayers have good feedback. However one went pretty crazy about it whilst the other was fine.

Not happy at all if I packages keep getting lost at this rate, not sure how likely I can get compensation.

I think it eBay should implement a feedback system where cancelled transactions or refunds should be shown on each users profile, I think that would be very helpful.

Also a package I ordered some time ago to my home address was left in my green house without the postman leaving a card telling us, so the package ended up in the greenhouse for several months without anyone in my family checking.

[sijoaccessories]

Royal Mail 'service' can be disgusting (although of course this comes down to a minority of individuals rather than across the board) ... One radio station interviewed a Royal Mail worker about lost post, who replied "People should not order things, if they are not going to be at home!!". Erm ... I think most of us have to go out and work for a living!!!! Shocking attitude on some of them.

And as for not leaving cards - since when did they start assuming that we were psychic and able to tell that an item had been left in a greenhouse/bin/with neighbour/given to a dog!?!?

And while the rant mode is switched on ... How many times have you heard a van driver moan about 'not having time' to write a card or leave somewhere ... as if it was your fault! Thats before the health and safety excuse of 'heavy' items and leaving them on the drive way of the 92 year old lady!!

Ah, feel much better now ... until the next round of deliveries 🙂

[suedesuk]

hi

well im an honest seller & buyer on ebay,  but in the last two months I've been unlucky enough to have not 1 but 4 parcels not arrive at my house that i bought!!! and only 1 that i sent to a buyer go missing but to eventually turn up 2 months later so here's hoping that my 4 items will eventually turn up oneday. I allways print my labels clearly and double check the address and postcode plus put my address aswell so maybe thats why my sold items have all arrived safely. As for my missing items who knows where they go but when you contact the sellers they are (some) not very helpfull and cynical and think your after a refund - I WANT MY ITEMS or i wouldnt of bid and paid :-[