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You might have thought that things couldn’t get much worse than my original Royal Fail post.  Well, think again.

On Saturday I arranged for the item to be redelivered today, knowing I was going to be off work.  I got up this morning nice and early and sat in the front room all morning just to make sure that I wouldn’t miss it this time.  Time passed with no sign of the package.  “It’s ok” I thought to myself “the post arrives late these days, it’ll be here”.

Then the postman walked past my house without posting anything.  “Maybe he’ll post it on the way back down the street” I thought.  But he didn’t.  “Maybe it’ll be coming in a van or something because it’s being redelivered rather than it being an original delivery”.

Just to put my mind at ease I decided to phone the Royal Mail.  That in itself is something of an ordeal; with a convoluted menu system, full of dead ends and false hopes.  After picking the wrong choice the first time around, I managed to get through to a real person on the second call.  This is where the fun starts.

I gave her my reference number and explained the situation.  This is when she drops the bombshell…

“Ok, I can see that the current status on this delivery is that the package did not make it back to the depot and so it has not made it to the delivery office.  We have your mobile number (she read it out to me) and the delivery office manager will contact you when the package has been found to arrange redelivery”.

To cut a long story short, I now have to wait 15 days to see if this package turns up.  And if it doesn’t then I can submit a claim.  No compensation for two missed delivery dates.  No compensation for having to cancel plans.  Nothing.

So I asked why I had to phone up to to chase the item to be told his, when the delivery office knew it was missing, updated the central system with the fact it was missing and even had my telephone number.  Why didn’t they contact me this morning to say “We’re really sorry, we’ve lost it; don’t bother waiting in today”?

Of course, I’ve submitted a complaint about that as well, but I won’t be holding my breath.

As I said last time, they really do deserve all the shit they get.

Just to maintain a level of impartiality and balance to the blog, I’ll now also post about the troubles I’ve had with City Link today:

I was expecting another package to arrive today, this one shipped by City Link rather than Royal Mail.  I tracked the package this morning and was told that it was in their system and would be with me today.  Only, it’s not with me.  And the chances of it getting here between now and Monday must now be slim to none.

Attempting to track the parcel on their site now throws up an error.  Apparently they can’t find my reference number and I should phone them up.  Only, they close their lines at midday on Saturday and don’t open them again until Monday morning.

Their website happily claims that you can submit a form to them to complain.  Only, it doesn’t work and throws back a 500 Error, which they claim they are working on rectifying.

So it would seem that if you want anything delivered in this country you’re fucked.

People who know me will know that there’s no love lost between me and the Royal Mail.  If they’re not losing my packages then they’re taking an inordinate amount of time to deliver them.  Today’s experience really takes the biscuit though.  Let me give you a run down…

• After waiting the required 72 hours, I went to my local delivery office this morning to pick up a package (I’ll touch on this a bit more later on).
• I got home and passed up on the chance to go out with family to wait in for another delivery.
• I sat upstairs, watching TV, with all the doors open so I could hear the bell when the postman got here.
• I heard the post drop on the mat, but didn’t get up to look as there was no bell.
• Ten minutes later I went to get a drink and lo and behold, a “Sorry, you were out” card was lying on the floor beneath the letterbox telling me I’d have to wait another 72 hours to get my package.
• I then phoned the redelivery line to be told “Sorry, we’re really busy. If you’re trying to arrange a redelivery then the quickest way is to go and pick it up yourself or do it online.”
• I logged on to the Royal Mail website and was told to enter my 13 digit Item Number, starting with 2 letters and ending with 2 letters.  Only the item number written on my card is 14 digits long and starts with numbers.

So now I have to wait 3 fucking days before I have to go down to the delivery office (which is only open between 6:30am and 12 noon) and pick my own package up.  All because someone couldn’t be arsed to press the doorbell (assuming they were even carrying the package in the first place) and couldn’t write down 13 digits correctly.

And I’d love to know why it takes 3 fucking days to take a package to an office a mile down the road.  A crippled tortoise would do it faster.  I’ve had to pick up packages from City Link recently and if you’re out when they call you can go and pick the package up THAT EVENING.  Not 3 evenings later.  THAT EVENING.

If Royal Mail’s idea of good customer service is to make the customer trek down to pick their own package up in 3 days then they deserve all the shit they get.