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?

[colinsfoto]

Lee, you do wonder if it is a case of a whole bag going missing when you get a cluster like that.

[colinsfoto]

Of course that only explains it if they were all sent the same day.

[chas_tan]

Well Andy, if you really are a postie you must know that recorded delivery is  just thrown in the same bags as standard mail and a lot does not get signed for on delivery, let alone show delivery online.  Much of the time it is a serious waste of money for a non tracked service.

I have run Mail Order businesses for about 30 years, previous to ebay my experience of Royal Mail is that they provide quite a reliable service. Most of the items prior to ebay were £8-£30, very few were sent out recorded the non-arrivals were almost non-existent.

So what has happened in the last 10 years on ebay, well either Royal Mail has gone completely down the pan or buyers are falsely claiming the non receipt of purchases.

Someone earlier made the claim that Recorded Delivery items also fail to arrive, that is an experience I fortunately haven’t had, although I would more readily believe that Royal Mail failed to get a signature are the other end and it is just another buyer fraud.

Regarding Delays in Royal Mail, I had a set of very unfortunate delays a couple of years ago.

Royal Mail at that time ( not sure now ) operated what was called a "Failed Target" procedure.

If your mail fails to be sorted in the time of the promised delivery it becomes "Failed Target" at this point Royal Mail ignore this mail and sort later mail in preference, the delayed mail then gets "pecked at" when time allows.

During Snow before Christmas 2 years ago 3 separate day suffered delays of 11-14 days whilst mail both before and after was delivered normally. I found this very difficult to explain to customers.

I made a thread on these boards, most replies thought that this was the best practice which left me questioning my own judgement??

[colinsfoto]

Chas, don't get me going on "targets".

The RM "Failed Target" procedure makes sense to RM, because once they have missed the regulator's target, that's game over. No amount of expediting delivery, after that point is reached, will earn them any brownie points.  Indeed, it may lose them even more  points if dealing with any backlog results in further missed targets for mail entering the system after the backlog.

It is the same with other outfits like the NHS. If the Gov. sets a target of max wait in A&E at 45 minutes, then, at 44 minutes,  you move the walking wounded into another part of the hospital outside the defined limits of A&E. You can then park them there for as long as you like unless other targets come into play.

[julie70julie7093]

IV had 2 go missing in last week.

[candy-heaven]

I Send all international tracked and they still go astray i had 3 to the USA in feb posted within days of each other , one is still at heathrow the other 2 who knows, all 3 claimed their money back through ebay resolution

[colinsfoto]

Did you try tracking them on https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction!input.action ?

[beadsfindings2005]

god, in this month, i have got total 6 customers claimed parcels lost and ebay suspend me yesterday. they said they have to make sure that my business is still running and asked me to show them the invoice i have purchased for my business within 6 months, the proof of the delivery of parcels for last 4 days. god! i cannt believe that they suspect me! while i am preparing the information for them, they phoned me and said every thing is ok. they dont need any thing. but all my items were removed by ebay, total more 500 items. i really want to cry. 

[ats_diamond_tools]

First of all, why would you sign for a packet that was obviously opened and contents missing. Secondly, we emailed every seller on his feedback for the last 2 months and three other sellers replied to us stating the same thing happened to them. Now this buyer has got excellent feedback so do not take anyones feedback as if its a cast iron guarantee that they are honest. Hes going to make a claim for a refund anytime now, we contacted CS and lets see what happens

If the above has some substance, you should have a chat with the police about this. It is obtaining goods by deception.

[northern_star_retail]

'Now this buyer has got excellent feedback so do not take anyones feedback as if its a cast iron guarantee that they are honest.'

Buyers always have good feedback, we can't leave them negative feedback! So their feedback as a buyer is meaningless.

[norseway53]

god, in this month, i have got total 6 customers claimed parcels lost and ebay suspend me yesterday. they said they have to make sure that my business is still running and asked me to show them the invoice i have purchased for my business within 6 months, the proof of the delivery of parcels for last 4 days. god! i cannt believe that they suspect me! while i am preparing the information for them, they phoned me and said every thing is ok. they dont need any thing. but all my items were removed by ebay, total more 500 items. i really want to cry. 

That sounds as though you may have been one of the victims of the rogue software that deleted thousands and thousands of sellers' listings.

[randydave]

I very rarely use RM for posting anything - as 99% of the items I sell are too big and heavy for the PO to be competitive, however in the run up to xmas I sold off some computer games etc that I had lying around in the spare room, and sold them with the stipulated eBay sanctions of max p&p of £3, so had to use RM 1st class standard post instead of a courier service..

RM 'lost' 1 of these items and I filled in their claim form and sent it off (complete with original postage receipt, ebay listing, paypal transaction details, buyer details etc), got a letter back from them asking for my original postage receipt, as they couldn't give me any compensation without it !

 I had purchased this computer game about 15 years ago, for my own use, and therefore I didn't have the receipt - and now can't make a claim for RM losing the parcel because of this - in other words RM's 'postage insurance' isn't worth the paper it's not written on !

My claim was only for the item price of £5 and postage cost of £2.70 !!!!

I won't be using them in future !!

[embroidered-just-4-u]

I have had 5 over the last 3 weeks, before that 7 years without a blip which is why I came to the forum to check out any threads from others. All my packets have a return address so if buyer doesnt collect it should be returned to me.:-(

deedee

[jenna_1980]

Has anyone every tried UK Mail?  Ive emailed for a quote... wondering if it would be a good alternative.

[randydave]

I use Interparcel.com for everything now - had 2 problems (both quickly and easily sorted) in 5 years (damaged in transit), no losses & all signed for and fully tracked.....

Not as competitive on small, light items but the bigger stuff is good service & price - I personally use Interparcel standard , which is delivered by UPS, but you can use a range of companies and ship anywhere in the world - Highly recommended !!

[jenna_1980]

The majority of my sales are current small packet up to 750gms for £2.70. Due to the size of the parcels I'd have to move to medium parcel which makes a price increase too much for customers. Plus the compensation for lost first class items is now £20 down from £46. Meaning I really need tracked for around £3... My Hermes is the only place that offers this, but their reviews are awful. 

There are some great couriers for larger items, I just seem to fall into a bit of a black hole with mine 😕

[lee_bay_ltd]

Here's one for you guys. I have had 4 international post not received messages last week, before that nothing for quite a few months for both UK and international.

Anyway got 2 messages today saying, now turned up. That's approximately 1 month to get one to the USA and one to Russia. Both sent RM airmail on different days. Now either that is a coincidence or RM have caused me a bit of hassle due to something going wrong/poor service. So now I can expect worse service and to pay more in April!

[colinsfoto]

TBH, that will be down to US and Russian Customs. There are plenty of posts about that cause for delay.

[lee_bay_ltd]

Quite possibly, but I honestly don't lose a lot of post and send lot's internationally and for 4 international ones going missing to 4 different countries all posted within a week of each other, albeit on different days, just sound too much of a coincidence. But I may be wrong?

[lee_bay_ltd]

Sorry meant to say, that they always get there within a week or so.