Genealogy Forum UK

Don't know what they're like in the rest of europe, but lately I'm not impressed!!!!!

I do a fair bit of internet shopping, and there was a time when I prefered my parcels to be delivered by the postman - not anymore!
Take the last parcel I ordered. On monday, I was home all day, had some friends over for lunch, so we were sitting in the kitchen, close enough to the front door that I would definately hear if someone knocked on it. In the morning I'd checked the postbox (it's on our front path, next to the road), and after my friends had left I checked again. There were a couple of letters and a slip to say they'd tried to deliver a parcel!

Now parcels don't come with the normal postman - they come seperately, usually by van, but this was a small parcel so it could've been the normal postman who had it on his scouter. But he definately didn't knock on the door!
In the past we have suspected that they haven't tried to deliver parcels, and just send out the slip with the ordinary post (on one occaision the slip turned up three days after they say they've tried to deliver), so we complained. My husband sent a very polite e-mail outlining the problem as we saw it.

Today we got the reply. They say they've talked to the postman concerned, who now recons it was tuesday he tried to deliver the parcel, but had mistakenly written the wrong date on the slip! Strange that the slip turned up the day before he says he tried to deliver, and if they looked at the date and time that our complaint was sent then this explanation would have been illogical. it would mean that we'd complained before we'd checked the post box!!!

So at some point this evening when the steam has stopped coming out the top of my head, I'll be replying to their e-mail in no uncertain terms!

We had a duff postman when we lived in Surrey, we complained to him that some of our letters (including ones marked 'Do Not Bend') were being folded in half before being pushed through the letterbox which was positioned inside a porch with a door in it where other deliveries were left. He said that our letterbox was smaller than regulation and from the day that we complained all of our mail was folded in half regardless of size. When we put in a formal complaint things improved somewhat although the number of Christmas and Birthday cards we received seemed to reduce somewhat. When we moved we put in a re-direction notice and nothing was redirected for the first month (re-direction being the job of the rounds man), on ringing up to find out what had gone wrong the supervisor at the local sorting office confirmed that we were marked for re-direction and that he would personally check our mail, we had no further problems.

In Denmark, from next year all houses have to have an approved postbox next to the pavement or road! They have to face the road, can't be at 90degrees to it. We're okay as ours it by the road, and when we get round to building a structure to hide our wheelie bins, then the post box will be mounted on this. But we know lots of places where this will cause a problem - a house up the road will have to re-do their gates to conform to the rules. It used to be if your house was built before a certain date then you could have your post box attatched to the house (a letter box was okay too).
If you live in a flat then the postbox has to be on the outside of the building. If you're unable to collect your post from the box, because of old age or handicap, then you can apply for dispensation to have the post delivered to your door.

Our postlady is lovely and we have only had a couple of changes in the last 22 years and we have been lucky they have been lovely too!

The royal mail delivery man has been doing it for years too, he used to open the door shout it was him and leave the parcel in the hall, but now everything has to be signed for.

We have had a few problems with posting things to my husbands parents and them to us though. They had put money in a birthday card for my son that was taken.
We posted some M & S vouchers to my husbands father along with a card from the grand children, our card never arrived. We did report it but as we had no insurance to cover it we couldnt do anything but we did get a book of stamps!

Jo

It'll be interesting to see what they answer, it was a shame we didn't collect the parcel on tuesday, as this would have proved someone was lying! As you have to wait until the day after the parcel is deliverd to collect it so they have time to get it back to the depot and placed on the correct shelf!
Their original reply was laughable - they wrote that the postman had promised to check his smart phone in future before he wrote the date on the slip! I'd like to know where he bourght his time machine, because the slip was delivered before he says he tried to deliver the parcel!

I think the main problem is, that the postal service is losing money! They don't have many letters to deliver these days, but they have more parcels. A lot of rounds have been made larger, and I know from my brother in law(who's a postman), that they don't always have the time to deliver all the letters. It's up to the individual postman (or woman) to decide if they knock off on time (and the left over letters are added on to the next days delivery) or they finish there round and get time off in lieu! I don't know if they start their round where they left off the day before, this would be the fairest, but probably inpractical. So I can only see that some people must wait for several extra days before their post turns up!!!
I asked my brother in law if he actually got to take his lieu time, he said that was no problem, as they were more postman than they needed at his depot! In that case they could reorganise things so the rounds were a little shorter, and no-one had overtime!!!

We got their reply today - they're still claiming that they tried to deliver the day after they actually did, and state that the postman is a stable and reliable postman! That's almost the same as saying we're not stable and reliable!!!

My husband rang the post office today; the boss hadn't realised that it was a parcel we were talking about (strange as it was quite clear in all our mails) and the slip we were on about was one of the ones they use for undelivered parcels complete with bar code (the number of which we quoted in our mails!). And now realises that it must be the parcel postman (who's in a van) and not the letter postman (who's on a moped) who he needs to speak to!
So what letter/parcel that postman had tried to deliver to us on the tuesday remains a mystery.
Our patience is now totally used up - So we'll see what happens the next time a parcel needs delivering!!!!