Royal Mail Recorded Delivery, what a 'mare

[ryjayel]

What a 'mare

 

I have delivered all of my correspondance by recorded delivery and a word to the wise...

 

The recorded delivery method does not guarantee a delivery time and the call centre staff are decidedly unhelpful. I sent a letter on the 1st September, it is now the 7th and it has still not arrived. A letter is not considered lost until 15 days have passed so basically I have to sit tight and wait, despite my own 14 day deadline outlined in the letter!

 

Beware people!

 

Ryjayel

[norvernrob]

A recorded delivery is not guaranteed to arrive in any way over and above the standard postage, they go in with the rest of the mail and the only difference is that a signature is required upon delivery.

 

Has your recorded delivery actually been confirmed by the recipient as not having arrived? As I can almost guarantee it has been delivered, it just wont have been confirmed into the system due to one of several reasons - postie could be off sick/on holiday/failed to hand in the delivery card for scanning, person in the locker might have had the card back but hasn't scanned the barcode or has missed it, website hasn't received the conformation, etc etc.

 

It happens a lot, recorded deliveries actually going missing happens very very rarely - less than 1 in 50,000. Another thing to remember, you sent the letter, you have conformation it was sent, so stick to your timetable.Do you think the bank would listen if they said they'd sent you a letter and you said you'd never received it? Of course not.

[Guest NATTIE]

This is just a quick point. Where I work, obvious by my name, I have NEVER signed for recorded delivery and have seen them delivered to the branch and no signature has been made by branch staff, however with SPECIAL DELIVERY, the bank has ALWAYS signed for it.

[ryjayel]

Fair point to both of you, but they wonder why the Royal Mail comes under such scruitiny if they cant deliver a first class letter (regardless of its recorded nature) in eight days!

 

Frankly I think its shocking, and no, it hasn't arrived their end yet.

 

As for the signature, you can get an electronic copy of the signature of your recorded item online, so in your case Natweststaffmember, perhaps if no-one is signing it, the postie is?

[mrbulke]

Royal Mail recorded delivery is not a reliable service. It would be extremely interesting to see statistics from Royal Mail as to what percentage of recorded delivery items are actually signed for. In my experience it is extremely unusual to be asked to sign for a recorded delivery item. Indeed, I received one yesterday where someone (probably the postman) had removed the recorded lable before delivering it without obtaining a signature. Additionally many items are prohibited from being sent by recorded delivery.

[billsters]

You really might as well chuck things to the four winds.

 

I sent 2 items by recorded first class this time last week. One, arrived but signed for by person who doesn't exist. Stolen, but the RM don't accept responsibility as they "delivered" it. Postman didn't write the time as he's supposed to so it could be any time that day.

Two, hasn't arrived in "3 working days" but they "hope" it will arrive any day now.

 

Apparently there is no point in sending things recorded, in fact in the case of the stolen item, it probably just served to flag up the fact that this was something important and worth stealing.

 

Grrrr.

[RoadToRecovery]

It's a total sham.

 

A bulk load of letters is delivered somewhere, the organisation are meant to return the signed dockets at the end of each day.

 

Some organisations ie; Egg never do this.

 

Consequently it is not possible to prove the letter was delivered and you have to go through a long winded compensation saga.