Royal Mail - First Scan Delays

[alpr8027]

I have a Royal Mail business collection Monday to Friday and my packages are collected in sealed sacks and it is very rare to despatch an order late.

For the past few weeks I have been picking up a few late despatch defects for some of my Royal Mail packages and recently this has been getting more frequent and I am now concerned about the risk of loosing my TRS status.

It seems that a lot of my packages are not getting the first scan until the reach the closest hub to the delivery address (often hundreds of miles away from my despatch address) triggering the late despatch defects.

Is this happening to anyone else ?

[jlovie]

I'm now regularly getting the same thing happening with parcels posted in parcel postboxes.

They used to get scanned at the local depot early or late evening on the same day as posted.

Now they sometimes don't get a first scan until the national hub, often days later.

I've now got defects for 2 x T48 posted on Friday Nov 21st that didn't appear in tracking till Thursday 27th at a national hub, delivered Fri & Sat.

A 2nd LL posted on same day also didn't get delivered till Sat. so presumably took the same route.

One of the T48 was sent from Aberdeen to Inverness, and went via Atherstone.

The 2nd class stuff defects get automatically removed but the T48 don't, I have to phone and ask for removal.  Annoying, as I'd upgraded to T48 from 2nd thinking it was a better option.

[bravergrace]

I post everything at a post office, well before the last collection time.  

A few months ago, nearly everything got scanned at my local sorting office,  overnight, with an occasional sackful being scanned a day late.

Over the past few weeks, that occasional sack has become virtually ALL the post, except for tracked 24 or special delivery, which are pulled out, scanned, and delivered on time or one day late.

Tracked 48,  doesn't even get its  first scan until a day or two after it's been posted.  I've given up on 1st and 2nd class.

Medium parcels seem particularly prone to being left in a corner  at the sorting office - I posted one Tracked 48 medium parcel last Wednesday.  It took the sorting office till Friday to scan it as received, and it hasn't even had its first delivery attempt yet.

Fortunately, it isn't an eBay parcel, so I won't have to let the buyer keep it for free on the outrageous grounds that "the seller failed to dispatch on time".

[padanpcparts]

Royal Mail is falling to bits. I'm guessing that's part of the plan. 

[pentagon-heritage-centre]

We've been having this issue for a couple of years now. To a customer it looks like we're dispatching item out late when in fact Royal Mail are not scanning the item for a few days later. Really frustrating as we've lost our top rated seller status due to this a few times now and ebay blames us.

Here's one we had to deal with today. Collected Monday by Royal Mail and first scanned Thursday.

[actual_uk_seller*]

Royal Mail are obviously doing this to hide their own failings. They have an obligation to the government to maintain a minimum level of service and of course they can make more profit if they don't maintain that minimum level so they hide it like this. We should write to our MPs to make sure they know what RM are up to.

[bzmotman]

"Royal Mail is falling to bits. I'm guessing that's part of the plan." 

Completely agree. Getting Mail Supplies is nearly impossible at present. Delivered a mailbag with overseas post in to my Post Office yesterday but this morning the postie tried to deliver to me one of the untracked Hong Kong ones which I refused. Realised later RM will now probably hit me with a surcharge for an out of date label.

Not the first time. I've had it happen with Tracked letters as well.

Pretty obvious they want to ditch letters & just have parcels.

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Dropped my post off at our local sorting office yesterday.     The counter staff told me it’s chaos with sacks of mail sitting for days, and there doesn’t seem to be a plan to clear.   

[reynardnoirrailwayana2015]

Yes we have the exact same issue too. 

[just-got-personal]

I think that this is what is happening to me too.  Things that I have not managed to get to the PO until the last day of my handling time are showing up as 'Dispatched Late'  

I generally don't keep my PO receipts but I found a couple from last month in the bottom of my mail sack which threw up one case of this.  No doubt there would have been others. 

[cbennissupplies]

thats been a norm for a while, never do we get a first scan on day of dispatch it is at least 24hr later .

now ebays system being brain dead uses first scan as day of dispatch LOL those who use royal mail a lot know the truth 

[jlovie]

I pretty much proved it's happening by posting T48 & T24 packages at the same time, in a parcel postbox.

The T24 get scanned same day, the T48 usually have to wait till next day.

[truck-88]

Royal Mail have over the last year or so been holding up mail to deliver it in batches. We are seeing delays of two weeks and more with items from E bay sellers. The basic Royal Mail tracking when checked says the tracking will be updated when they try to deliver. We sell and buy on the E bay platform and we do not use Royal Mail for goods sent. I would prefer to pay a bit more to allow sellers to use other companies for both small and large parcel deliveries.