- Joined
- 11 Jan 2004
- Messages
- 47,034
- Reaction score
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- Country
I have been done up like one.
I needed to send something speedily for it to be returned equally speedily.
Paperwork in an A4 envelope.
I took it to my local PO and asked for Tracked 24 on the outward envelope and the same on the return.
No can do, I was told. You can have Tracked on the outgoing, but for the return, the next best thing is Signed For 1st Class. You take a picture of the label before sending it off, then you can track it.
£3.95 for the Tracked 24 and £5.30 for the Signed For 1st Class.
The outward envelope got there fine. Sent on Monday, arrived Tuesday. The 1st Class Signed For envelope was handed over a PO counter at 8.04 on Wednesday morning.
All well and good so far.
I allow two days. End of Friday, no letter. Saturday, no letter. I decide to ring the Royal Mail customer line.
"We are working as hard as we can to help you as fast as we can. We would like to thank you in advance for showing kindness and consideration to our team as they do their very best to help you. Your wait time is.............53 minutes."
Some "music" would play for around a minute, then the message would play again, with the number of minutes.
Often, the number of minutes would remain the same several times on the trot. And when I got to 5 minutes, the next time reminder jumped to 19 minutes...
Eventually, the phone got answered after 1 hour 21 minutes. I was hoping the guy could tell me where the letter was, but he had access to the same information as me. Signed For, unlike Tracked, only gives you two tracking points: when it is dropped off and when it is delivered.
He did tell me that my local sorting office had staffing shortages so the letter was probably there, waiting to be sifted out and delivered.
But the real kick in the rowlocks (two-fold) was that I could have had Tracked 24 on the return envelope by buying it online. Something the Post Mistress failed to tell me. The second kick was that apparently Tracked is prioritised over other parcels and packages.
So, a word of warning and advice.
Don't buy Signed For. It is inferior in every single way and to boot, far more expensive.
The only thing it offers that Tracked does not is a signature. If you don't need one, use Tracked.
Fuming. And Old Henry would have a few heads off, too.
I needed to send something speedily for it to be returned equally speedily.
Paperwork in an A4 envelope.
I took it to my local PO and asked for Tracked 24 on the outward envelope and the same on the return.
No can do, I was told. You can have Tracked on the outgoing, but for the return, the next best thing is Signed For 1st Class. You take a picture of the label before sending it off, then you can track it.
£3.95 for the Tracked 24 and £5.30 for the Signed For 1st Class.
The outward envelope got there fine. Sent on Monday, arrived Tuesday. The 1st Class Signed For envelope was handed over a PO counter at 8.04 on Wednesday morning.
All well and good so far.
I allow two days. End of Friday, no letter. Saturday, no letter. I decide to ring the Royal Mail customer line.
"We are working as hard as we can to help you as fast as we can. We would like to thank you in advance for showing kindness and consideration to our team as they do their very best to help you. Your wait time is.............53 minutes."
Some "music" would play for around a minute, then the message would play again, with the number of minutes.
Often, the number of minutes would remain the same several times on the trot. And when I got to 5 minutes, the next time reminder jumped to 19 minutes...
Eventually, the phone got answered after 1 hour 21 minutes. I was hoping the guy could tell me where the letter was, but he had access to the same information as me. Signed For, unlike Tracked, only gives you two tracking points: when it is dropped off and when it is delivered.
He did tell me that my local sorting office had staffing shortages so the letter was probably there, waiting to be sifted out and delivered.
But the real kick in the rowlocks (two-fold) was that I could have had Tracked 24 on the return envelope by buying it online. Something the Post Mistress failed to tell me. The second kick was that apparently Tracked is prioritised over other parcels and packages.
So, a word of warning and advice.
Don't buy Signed For. It is inferior in every single way and to boot, far more expensive.
The only thing it offers that Tracked does not is a signature. If you don't need one, use Tracked.
Fuming. And Old Henry would have a few heads off, too.
