Royal Mail's tracking information is always so vague. Particularly when you order something from the otherside of the world and you can track it's journey to the minute until it reaches this country. - Your parcel was packed by Chao, and loaded onto a lorry at 6.34am ready to be sent to the regional distribution centre. - At 8.14am your parcel was received at the regional distribution centre, and redirected to Shenhzen International Airport, where it was checked for drugs by an alsatian named Bo. - Your parcel boarded a plane, bound for the European distribution centre based in Leipzig, Germany at 13.53pm. - The plane touched down safely in Leipzig at 02:32am and will be held until the morning. - Your package was unloaded at 6:11am, checked once more by an alsatian for drugs; this one was called Gunter. Then loaded onto a lorry, bound for the UK, via Calais. - The lorry has left Leipzig (8.49am), is being driven by a mam named Johann, he likes Black Sabbath, and is en route to the ferry in Calais. - Johann has stopped for lunch at 11:30am, at a roadside cafe just outside of Frankfurt. He had a cheese burger, with bacon and lettuce, French fries, and an Americano. - Bienvenue, Johann has arrived in Calais at 17:03pm, and assisted in safely loading your package onto the Royal Mail lorry, destined for the UK. He swapped his RB Leipzig pin badge with an old acquaintance at the port in Calais, Pierre, for a Lille one. - ROYAL MAIL - WE HAVE YOUR PACKAGE - You will only be updated once we attempt delivery. ***2 weeks later*** - Thank you for filling out your lost package form, we will respond in the next 8 weeks.
Madness isn’t it, now most things are at the touch of a button we still can’t accurately predict when our parcels are going to arrive. Surely wouldn’t be difficult or expensive for them to fit a gps tracking chip to every parcel so you can watch it moving in real time.
Lol. That made me laugh. Cos it's so true Royal Mail tracking isn't worth anything. Your alternative scenario is they do deliver it. And take pride in telling you that it's delivered. Yes I know, it's in my hand. It would be nice to know when you are going to attempt to deliver it like, so I can be sure to be in
I ordered something a while back and as you say started in China,I tracked it to the UK Royal Mail went through customs a week later another message from Royal Mail we are sorry but your parcel was sent to Jersey by mistake we will turn it around and have it delivered. 4wks later no parcel got onto PayPal they reimbursed me straight away.
My favourite recent delayed parcel was with Evri. A parcel sent to us in Barnsley, by a company in Attercliffe - a full ten miles - was sent to the wrong depot. So, apparently not to the largest parcel depot in Europe, that you've built exactly half way between Attercliffe and Barnsley, then. Go figure.
I ordered something from a company at Dodworth for delivery by Royal Mail to Penistone (approx 6 miles), only a small package which easily fit through our letterbox, but it took 3 days as the tracking showed it went via Atherstone delivery office (near Coventry).
Could be a lack of concentration by someone. I was at the post office yesterday, and the lady serving me was placing a stock order on the phone at the same time. She stuck air mail stickers on the post I had given her. One was going to Matlock, and the other to North Wales.
all i can say is if the item wasn't sent t24/t48 or special delivery then it could be sat in a bag in your local delivery office we have sack fulls of small packets including overseas tracked (these don't count for RM priority) and boxes and boxes full of mail from several days back, don't believe them in the media when they say they don't prioritise parcels over mail and any delay is due to staff sickness, yes it maybe higher than usual but nobody allowed holidays from late november so should still be plenty plus agency workers, i'm off my regular duty for the month and that itself went 4 days without a single letter or standard small item posted, that alone is 2000 homes mail times by 5 days mail rammed in, it really is a postcode lottery just don't blame your postie!
To be clear mate, I wasn't criticising Postie's, more the Royal Mail's completely pointless tracking system which isn't fit for purpose at any time of year.
My partner sent a vinyl via Royal Mail that someone paid £450 for. Due to the price, she sent it “first class signed for”. However no signature was taken and the person has confirmed that they received it the vinyl. Because no signature was provided, the tracking isn’t able to be updated. This has resulted in PayPal holding the money until they get confirmation it’s been delivered. To say their the Royal Mail customer service hasn’t been great would be an understatement.
quite a lot including experienced posties will just hand it over for speed as most duties have had loads added to them, to say the service is "royal" is quite comical, funny thing is 2 of the main guys at the very top handed in their notice yesterday and the main ceo thanked them for their effort over the last 2 years in turning the company around, yes from making 100s of millions to losing 100s of millions! this company is run by morons with the sole intention of funding the shareholders, sod the customer, ofcom are even worse!
Indeed, definitely pressures being put on posties and delivery drivers to get as many as possible in. Always going to be hard to keep the level of customer service up doing that.
The only Royal Mail products that offer full end to end tracking are Royal Mail Tracked and Special Delivery. It’s fair enough assuming RM tracking is useless, but half the time senders/recipients are mistaking a reference number for a tracking number and giving recipients ‘tracking’ numbers that aren’t intended for tracking! International items are different. Royal Mail is only obliged to show a delivered scan and capture proof of delivery for a lot of international inbound items which is why they aren’t scanned on their journey around the network in the UK.
Atherstone is a hub where items are sent during busy periods to avoid overloading Mail Centres. An item from Dodworth to Penistone would typically go to Sheffield, then be sorted to Stocksbridge DO for delivery in Penistone.
The worse thing for me is when you buy summat off eBay and the give you a tracking number and all it says is "Tracking number supplied". I reckon the sellers buy a bunch of tracking numbers from Royal mail so they can pretend they've sent the item when in fact they are probably waiting several days for it to clear customs because it's actually coming from the EU. BREXIT the gift that keeps on giving.....
They typically use despatch software and Royal Mail allocates them a set range of tracking numbers. The sellers then upload shipping info (pre-advice) and tracking numbers are allocated. They’re not ‘buying’ tracking numbers!
