Interesting glitch with Royal Mail via eBay

[prudentia-sollertia]

A few weeks ago, I had all my parcels ready for collection via Royal Mail. I buy my labels through eBay. My postman was late, and then he just dropped off a parcel for me. I asked him if he was going to take my parcels and he said there was nothing on the system. So my parcels were not collected until the following day along with my new parcels that I needed to go out. I though it was strange, but thought I must have accidently selected 'Drop off' option.

Now today. Last evening, I bought my labels as usual. Checked the collection date was for today. Ensured it was collection not drop off. All good.  Nope....No collection again today. So now I KNOW there is something fishy. I go to my emails and sure enough, no royal mail email saying that eBay has arranged the collection for me. I go to my 'postage labels' tab, and I check if it was arranged as collection. Yes, the labels say 'collection'. But it also states 'Label purchased' today...when it was purchased yesterday. 

There is most certainly a glitch. And a harmful one actually, as dispatch times are very important. Thankfully I have a 3 day dispatch, so I have a buffer. But this is unacceptable as my RM depot is only open 8am-10am and I won't know if my parcels will be collected or not until 11am. Not good. Maybe eBay tch can look into this glitch?

Maybe someone else has experienced this themselves?

[prudentia-sollertia]

Here is a sample of what happened.... 

[june4760 · Accepted solution]

We have a similar problem with RM collections via eBay. They just don't get collected, so I end up dropping them off so we meet my delivery window.

We use tracked 48 so we know it is delivered and we get paid.

To test the problem, we sold 2 items in the afternoon, for one of them I purchased the collection through the RM site, for collection the following day and got the usual emails. For the other I purchased the collection through eBay, no emails.

They were both collected the following day, however the RM purchase shows the collection on the tracking, so I know it is in the system, the other collection so far shows nothing in the tracking, even though they were collected at the same time. I hope some tracking will show as it passes through the system so I might get paid.

Until I know this is fixed I will purchase all collections through RM and add the tracking number to the sale. It makes no sense to use the eBay label purchase if it does not work for collections

[prudentia-sollertia]

I spoke to ebay customer services today as my items were not collected again today. Even though all of them were definitely "Royal Mail collect" They seem to be aware of the glitch and "Tech is on it".

It would have been nice to have some sort of notice about this issue. I either have them collect tomorrow via the royal mail site, risking a late delivery. Or take them to the post office which has an extra fee (standing in line with a 3 year old, handlng giant parcels)... the latter just isn't an option. The RM depot is only open 8am/10am. It's just frustrating.

[wyntersemporium]

Wow, you’re lucky with your RM depot open for those hours mines usually 7.30pm and then it closes. 
a few days previous I have the postie collecting mine, even though it shows up on RM site when I bought the labels as waiting collection from door.

By the time the postie comes it says something entirely different on her PDA as nothing available to collect.
So my mail has to be collected the next day.

But she’s asked her boss and he’s told her just take my mail with her and they’ll sort it out at the depot for me.