Mail to the UK; what the hell is going on?

I couldn’t disagree more with the general tone of this thread.

The Royal Mail does an outstanding job, I have sent and received many hundreds of items, from small parcels to large parcels all over the world using their services. Their competitors, DHL for example are often slow and have lost a number of my items.

I’ve only ever had two problems, both involving Parcel Force, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal Mail. First was a small parcel to Paris France, which was returned without any attempt to deliver it, that can hardly be blamed on the Royal Mail as their French partners were responsible for the delivery, I did thou receive an official apology and a full refund. The second time was a large parcel which contained an Atari and a monitor, the guy I sent it to was not it to take delivery of the item and didn’t go to his local depot to collect it. It was kept in storage for a month (giving him plenty of time to go and collect it, which he made no attempt to do) and then it was retuned, although damaged.

There have been a few sensationalist documentaries by Channel 4, which really have only dealt with problems with casual and very corrupt employees London. In Bristol and overwhelmingly other parts of the UK the service is outstanding.

I’m on first name terms with my Postmaster and my local Postman couldn’t be better, a few months ago, my dog decided to escape whilst I was signing for a parcel, I wasn’t dressed at the time so I couldn’t just run out and catch him. Anyway by the time I got dressed and left the house to go find him, the Postman had caught him and brought him back in his van!

Couldn’t be happier or ask for more.

 

I too must agree that in general Royal Mail are excellant. Friendly staff, great service, I've yet to have a problem with RM in over 4000 packages to and from me to all corners of the globe.

Parcel force though is a different matter and can be very hit and miss. On occasion they can be really helpful, on the flipside they can be completely useless.

Always get insurance though, always. Recently a chap I know sent a largish neo package via parcelforce, only to find the items on ebay a few weeks later

 

man canada is pretty slow though, i remember ordering a sega cd from this one guy on the sega xtreme forums and it took close to a month to get it, i remember pre order the 1st season of the simpsons dvd set and it took a month and half ot get it, yet strangely when i bought doa le for saturn sans the slip case and art book from this seller in canada, it only to 3 or 4 days which i found odd. As for stuff from japan and china comes to me within a week exactly from shipping day. As for U.K. and the rest of europe, i never knew it was so bad. I'm guessing if order anyting from the U.K. i best keep it to a low priced thing, since as you know US$ is worth shit capred to british pounds.

 

I am nervous too about a parcel from Japan has maybe been lost.... But ok that is maybe just my nerves. And my addiction to have a pc.

 

Wahey.. another package got lost, this time worth 70 euros. I starting to get REALLY pissed off. :angry :smt067

Seriously considering to stop dealing with people in the UK EVER, because of this %#&^*

 

I sent a parcel to France a few weeks back and as far as I know the buyer still hasn't got it. The UK and France are really shitty.

Yakumo

 

Myself and oldengineer (Canada and UK) did a trade, both packages were shipped air and took about a week and a bit to get to eachother.

No major slowdown eitherway.

 

From all the stuff i send to the UK at least 50% goes missing the second it arrives in the UK. I send card parcels etc all over the world and the only time stuff vanishes is from and to the UK.

Hell i can send a package faster to australia then to someone in the UK, they really need to sort their international mail, these days i only send sign for packages so that if it doesn't arrive at least i can pay back the buyer their money from the parcel insurrance.

 

Never had a problem with sending from the UK to anywhere. Our postal service is pretty good round here.

 

I've lost a parcel with a PCB for almost €2000 when I sent it to France from Sweden, dunno where it went. Tracking lost track of it as it left the country...

 

That sucks major, Since some greedy postman somwhere in the world has grabbed his hands on my DSthingy. But the only cool thing about it is gone, would be when the postman thinks "wow I got myself a DS he he" and then he finds out he has stolen a rippoff machine LOL.

Heck the good thing is that my payment went through to Yakumo-san