Changes to Second Class and Economy Delivery Speeds

[qualitycardsandgifts]

I have a Royal Mail business account and received this email yesterday.     I hope eBay will be adjusting their delivery estimates accordingly. I have a Royal Mail business account and received this email yesterday. I hope eBay will be adjusting their delivery estimates.

[susapric-68]

Grab popcorn, this is going to be fun watching eBays estimated delivery system handle that

[custom-giftsuk]

We have it on good information, that all post goes into one bag now and sent to the sorting offices to sort automatically. Seen it done at my local RM Delivery Office

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Asked at my local sorting office when it was coming into effect.   They had no idea, the first they knew about it was when it was announced on the 7am news.     It’s going to be complete chaos.     In effect, only Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be classed as working days for second class.    So eBay will have to factor this in for all second class letter and LL deliveries.

[custom-giftsuk]

The question is... because RM wording is... suspect at best

So Changes to Second Class and Economy Speeds

Second Class, Economy Letters & Large Letters will be delivered 5 days per week on alternate weekdays.

and then goes on to say

Delivery of First Class Letters will remain unchanged.

So does this mean that second class, economy letters and large letters will be changed to alternate days or does it mean that only first class letters (and probably parcels) will be delivered 6 days a week.

There seems to be a gap in and around Large Letters. So does 1st class Large Letters get delivered 6 days a week or alternate weekdays, 5 days a week.

The language is ambigous at best

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I was actually told that it was by RM themselves.

So I know that they class LL as parcel, but I don't know how/if it will be affected by this change.

And just to clarify that.  I am NOT talking about standard second class post.

It is RM48 and tracked 48 LL's.

[mod81]

What about those who bought books of 2nd class stamps in advance, they were sold them as 2 to 3 day postal service delivered 6 days a week. And now they are reducing the service level of something people have already paid for. 

I've just looked at one of my books of stamps and no where on it does it say its subject to terms and conditions that can be changed by the Royal Mail after i have purchased them.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Well from what I have seen of this announcment, they are still offering a 3 day service for second class.

Maybe not for a Saturday delivery, but otherwise, the vast majority should still be within the window paid for.

As to t&c's on your book of stamps, I'm pretty certain that they simply wouldn't be able to include all of them on it and there will be a reference of some sort to the full conditions on the website.  

But really, what is the point of complaining about this particular point?   It's been approved by Ofcom, who are the watchdog for this service.  You can't really complain any higher than that.  If you had an issue with it, then you should have contacted them during the trial period, which has been ongoing for quite some time now.

[mod81]

That the point there is no reference to 'for T&Cs go to the Royal Mail website' or similar. There is no mention of the terms and conditions at all on the book of stamp and if you buy a sheet of stamps there is even less on there.

As for your statement that i should have contact them during the trial period, I like i assume most people found out about this today when it became an article in the news. I wasn't privvy that there was a 'trail period' to contact during. I found out this morning when looking on the BBC news site that is already been confirmed and is happening. 

Maybe the Royal Mail could have sent everyone in the country a letter to ask for feedback on it before they make the changes? After all they can't use the excuse that they don't have any way of contacting everybody.

[vinylscot]

Let me get this straight.....

You want terms and conditions on a book of stamps?

What if I only wanted one stamp?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Sorry, but then you haven't been paying attention.

This thread alone is from almost two months ago and you didn't know?

It's not Royal Mail making the changes, it's Ofcom.  And there has been a consultation period.

It's been in the news regularly over the last 12 months at least and probably a fair bit longer than that.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

They put them in a microdot!  🙂

@mod81 

And actually thinking about it more seriously.

If you buy a stamp, you are only buying the face value service of that stamp.

If the service changes, but it's called the same thing, there is no change.

Your certainly not buying something that is a fixed service.

And if indeed you don't accept that those changes can happen, then why are you not paying extra when the price goes up for the same stamp you are using?
As this goes both ways.  You can't have one without the other.

[susapric-68]

Don't think I have ever seen a post on here asking how they can pay the the extra money as they had brought loads of stamps just before the price increase. Never !!

[leadhills_scot]

I did fill in the consultation form letting them know how badly RM service will become. It's not just the change in delivery days which is the problem they are allowing them more leeway on amount delivered on time. For 1st class it's down to 90% for next day and only 95% within three working days for 2nd.  I pointed out that most of my hospital appointments are sent to me via 2nd class, so there is a good chance I will miss some. 

Think I will start considering sending parcels via Yodel through P2Go. Evri only comes to the village 3 days a week and if for any reason our driver is ill no one takes over which happened during the RM strikes and I'm not keen on using them.