All posts in the topic Don't shoot the messenger (Short link)
Summary
- There are 29 posts — by 12 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Mike Ratcliffe at Dec 22 21:59 UTC
| From | File | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Ruth Wilkinson | is.jpg | Oct 23 21:50 UTC |
Apologies for starting a new thread but the information here could help anyone
needing to get delivery of a package from Royal Mail.
We received the "sorry you were out" card through the letterbox on Wednesday.
This card invites you to sort out re-delivery online. The first available date
is two days hence. The parcel was due today (Friday) but the postman had not
got it.
He suggested I phoned the Delivery Office at Ledgers Close - I did, but the
phone rang out after about 6 minutes.
I drove to the office to pick up the item and was told that applying on-line
does not work because they don't get the message for 2 or 3 days and they can't
tie up the item anyway because there isn't a reference number on the package.
If you don't do anything you get the item redelivered on Saturday from a card
put through the door on Wednesday. This happened to me last week.
One has to feel sorry for the lady on the desk who is subject to abuse from
customers for something outside her control.She also told me about an elderly
lady who walked with two sticks who had had to get a bus from Headington to
pick up her parcel.
Added to this, it appears that their office is short of 17 postmen - you have
probably seen postmen in central Headington delivering in the afternoon after
they have done a round in the morning. They are not recruiting new ones
because they are waiting to absorb the staff from the closing down of the
Sorting Office in Cowley.
What a sad state of affairs.
It is sad.
I'm not sure I believe their story that "there isn't a reference number on
the package" - if that were true, how on earth would they locate said
package if I turn up in person?
What's worse is that if the online redelivery mechanism is known to be not
working - why not fix it, or cross it out on the cards? Or maybe offer an
email address instead (after all, that doesn't require a person to pick up
the phone).
I have my suspicions that our postal delivery has reduced to every other day
- certainly if the 'feast or famine' nature of our doormat on coming home is
anything to judge by. That combined with systematic thefts of a friend's
credit cards from the post and the ability to loose a recorded delivery
letter traveling all of 3 miles leads me to the depressing conclusion that
nobody cares and the patient is beyond recovery.
The problem is they can't readily locate them .
I knew what the package was so, after waiting a while for them to search, had
to describe the size of it and it was eventually found.
Thanks for posting up this useful information, Liz. It's helpful for us because
David and I are trying to arrange a meeting with the Delivery Manager at
Littlemore and the regional customer services manager regarding (a) the level
of service at the Ledgers Close Delivery Office; (b) the quality of the postal
service generally in Headington; and (c) the possibility of reinstating a
parcel collection service in Headington. We have been keeping note of
residents' complaints and comments on the service which have come to our
attention through this forum, via our website, and directly from people who
have emailed or phoned us. Our next street surgery is in the Margaret Road/St
Anne's Road area on Thursday from 6.00-7.30 pm and we'll conduct a straw poll
then to see what local residents feel about the level of postal service they
experience. We'll post up details of the proposed meeting with Royal Mail as
soon as we agree on dates/times. I too had to go and pick up a recorded
delivery parcel from Ledgers' Close two weeks ago (keys for holiday flat) and
it took the guy on the counter about 15 minutes to track down the item (he was
simultaneously trying to show a visitor to an office location), by which time
there was a queue out of the door. I think a major problem with having the
Collection Point there is the lack of public transport in the area - I find the
only place you can park the car while collecting stuff is on yellow lines,
which is distinctly off-putting!
Ruth (City Councillor, Headington)
I sympathize with you, Liz, and if you think the problem is bad now just wait
until they close Ledger's Close.
I was unable to go the to the meeting mentioned by Ruth Wilkinson, but I would
be very interested to hear the outcome. I understood that the efforts of other
City Councillors had not been enough to persuade the Headington PO to act as a
collection point for Royal Mail parcels (unless the recipient pays 50p).
When I mentioned this matter at the PO myself, the manager told me that the
problem is that Royal Mail refuses to pay the PO for holding items. Parcel
Force pays. Royal Mail cannot afford to do so. If they had not been split up,
this problem could never have arisen.
Of course, to some people 50p is not much to pay to have your item sent to the
PO - but it brings us ever closer to the sort of society in which we have to
pay to get our mail, as well as to send it. When Ledger's Close is shut down,
we will all have to pay the 50p and it wouldn't surprise me if the fee goes up
dramatically.
How does all of this link to the very upbeat post about collecting parcels in
Headington that Dermot published a few days ago?
Dermot: did you have to pay to collect in Headington?
Lindsey asks:
>Dermot: did you have to pay to collect in Headington?
No, but my parcel came via ParcelForce and from what Julia says, the P.O. have
a different deal with them than with Royal Mail.
It was very convenient, however, and in future, I will certainly try and choose
mail-order suppliers that use ParcelForce over Royal Mail.
If nothing else, it looks as if the P.O. gets a little cash for each
transaction and supporting the financial sustainability of a local P.O. seems
like a good thing.
I know this is really bad practice, but this is just to let people know that I have received a lengthy email from Royal Mail about postal services and collection points in Headington, and I've posted it up on the Headington councillors' website http://ruthwilkinson.mycouncillor.org.uk/2008/08/30/postal-services-and-collections-of-parcels/. (not a cheap plug, honest! The post is too long for inclusion here). It mentions alternative ways of collecting parcels (by paying 50p and collecting them from Headington PO) etc, it addresses concerns about the resourcing of the Delivery Office in Ledgers Lane, and maintains that every house in Headington gets a postal delivery service every day. Julia - David and I haven't met this guy yet but he's offered to arrange this and bring along his Delivery Centre Manager and Delivery manager. I can ask him if they would be willing to come to a public meeting - I think that might be quite helpful. Alternatively David and I are happy to raise issues with them on behalf of residents, but we need to be clear about which points everyone wants us to address. I will pick up on comments here and on those made via the councillors' website, and I know that David Rundle is following this keenly too.
Good luck to you, Ruth, with your efforts.
I'll happily attend a meeting if I can get there.
David and I are going to have initial talks with two members of staff from
Royal Mail on Monday at the Town Hall, and we have noted these issues from
posts on the Forum:
1. the need for the reinstatement of an undelivered parcel collection point
in Headington
2. the inefficiency of the redelivery online service
3. the wait for telephone calls at the Delivery Centre to be answered
4. the seeming under-resourcing of the Delivery Centre in Littlemore
Other issues include misdelivery, the return of parcels and the physical state
of the pavement outside the post office in Headington.
If you want us to raise any other issues please let us know. I believe that
both the members of staff - the Regional Manager and the Delivery Centre
Manager - are fairly new in post, so we are trying to build up good
communication channels from the very start!
The following file was added to this topic:
Thanks very much for continuing to fight our case with Royal Mail.
I have cycled out to Littlemore twice in the past fortnight, and on both
occasions have been pleasantly surprised: Royal Mail found my package quickly,
and there was no queue. This is a huge improvement, as I am used to queuing
outside the door and waiting at least ten minutes for them to find my item (or,
in one case, not finding it).
The journey is however still gruesome, and the very elderly lady from Granville
Court who was collecting a parcel by bus when I was last there appeared rather
stressed.
There are two additional things you could suggest to the Royal Mail (although
they are trivial compared with the main request for a more convenient depot for
Headington):
(1) The postman leaves a card telling people to wait 24 hours before going to
collect their parcel, but this does not apply to a missed Saturday delivery.
If you go to the collection office on the way to work on the Monday, the item
will still be in transit after about 65 hours locked up in Headington Post
Office. I have heard of other people in Headington who have been caught out
this way, and having to cycle twice to Littlemore in one day is no joke. Cards
left on Saturday need to have "Monday after [whenever time]" stamped on them.
(2) Our postman only puts our surname on our card. It would be really helpful
if an initial could be included, as the two other members of my family always
deny that the item could possibly be for them, and I would like to be able to
gauge the likely importance and size of what I have to collect.
Residents have asked David and me to pursue some issues about the collection and delivery of parcels and about the service provision at Ledgers’ Close in Littlemore. I met two Royal Mail managers yesterday morning and this I what I learned. The delivery centre in Ledgers’ Close deals with parcels/packets with OX3 and OX4 postcodes. Anything for East Oxford without a postcode will go by default to the delivery centre for OX1 and OX2 in the City Centre. Royal Mail agree that there have been resourcing issues and there are still 13 vacancies. Processing the packets/parcels for delivery takes staff up until 09.30 each morning, so deliveries take place from 09.45-14.00. This of course means that those in full-time employment are unlikely to be in to accept deliveries. ****Requests for re-instatement of undelivered parcel collection point in Headington There are no plans to do this at present. There are however a range of options open to people who aren’t in when the postal worker calls, these include: request an alternative delivery day (but this will again be from 09.45-14.00) request redelivery c/o a neighbour request redelivery at a safe place (e.g. shed, garage) request redelivery to your place of work ask to collect it from Headington PO for 50p The 50p is to cover the cost of re-routing the parcel from Royal Mail to Post Office Counters Ltd or their franchisee. Delivery cannot be made to local newsagents as Royal Mail has to discharge its responsibility for the safety of parcels. ****Regarding the difficulty in parking in Ledgers’ Close, I am assured that Royal Mail employees are required to park their cars elsewhere (at the bowling club round the corner). They cannot see an easy way to resolve the parking issues nearby as this is outside their control ****Inefficiency of online redelivery service Emails are now cleared throughout the morning. If an email is received in the afternoon, it will be processed next morning. So if you email on Monday, the earliest you can be sure of getting the parcel redelivered will be Wednesday ****Delay in answering the phones at the Delivery Centre There are 4 people working in the Callers’ Office in the mornings and 2 in the afternoons. If staffing levels are down, they call people in to cover. There is no “The phone must be answered inside three rings” type procedure. They are installing an answerphone so that callers won’t have to hang on the line, this will happen very soon ****Under-resourcing of the Delivery Centre They have 13 vacancies currently. They are filling in with staff opting to do voluntary overtime, and with agency temps on a casual contract. They are desperate to recruit and would welcome applications from parents of school age children for delivery jobs, they offer 09.00-15.00 contracts but would consider offers of working from 09.30-14.30 if more appropriate. Their job vacancies page is at http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/erecjump2?catId=500185&mediaId=16000165 and we talked about more effective ways to advertise using local newsletters and local press. ****Suggestions to take forward They welcome the suggestions made by Headington residents to improve services. They will investigate: *Improvements to missed Saturday delivery service: at present items undelivered on Saturdays are stored at Headington PO over the weekend and transferred to the Delivery Centre on Mondays for re-processing - they hope they can solve this problem by January *Direction to postal staff that initials as well as surnames should be put on undelivered cards so that family members know who the parcel is for! This should be practicable fairly quickly David and I are contacting the Area Manager for Post Office Counters Ltd to explore other related issues and are continuing this liaison work with Royal Mail
As I understand it, the undelivered parcels are anyway taken to Headington PO,
from where they cannot be collected unless you pay 50p, and thence returned to
Ledgers Close. So the 50p is for the privilege of picking up your parcel from
where it is anyway, and not for the cost of re-routeing.
How much does anyone believe that calls collected on an ansaphone will be
returned?
The parking problem may well be out of Royal Mail's control, but it does flag
up the problem of bad planning when Lime Walk sorting office was closed.
Parking in such an out-of-the-way place should have been better thought out.
Another issue with the 'missed delivery' card is that one is told to turn up 24
hours later, but I've had two recently with no time on, and anyway the fact is
that even if the parcel is delivered in the morning, it won't be back at
Ledgers Close till after 14.30 the following day, more than 24 hours after
attempted delivery.
Happy to take up the issue about the times being missed off the non-delivery
cards and subsequent delays with the Delivery Centre Manager. But the idea of
an answerphone will at least cut down the time people spend waiting for the
phone to be answered - let's give them a chance to show us how well the system
could work!
Quote Ruth Wilkinson: "I am assured that Royal Mail employees are required to
park their cars elsewhere (at the bowling club round the corner)."
Hmmm. I suspect the Royal Mail managers that you met are not aware of what's
going on.
I've been there at 7.30am when the car park has been packed to overflowing with
cars all covered in dew/condensation - and no sign of a queue when I went into
the building!
I was there today at about 10.00. Car park was again full, and there was one
pedestrian customer waiting to be dealt with.
... and isn't it strange that someone with a W-reg black Fiat Multipla always
seems to be collecting something when I visit Ledger's Close? What other reason
could there be for the car being in the car-park - even if the car's there when
I arrive and still there when I depart?
Lindsey (not just fallen off a Christmas Tree!)
Ruth wrote
>
> Processing the packets/parcels for delivery takes staff up until 09.30
> each morning, so deliveries take place from 09.45-14.00. This of course
> means that those in full-time employment are unlikely to be in to accept
> deliveries.
>
This morning a Royal Mail large delivery van went through Mark Road at
7:21am.!
It is often around before 8am.
In view of Ruth's information I can only assume that the parcels it carries
were sorted the previous day.
Cor! Maybe the chat with the Royal Mail made a difference! Or maybe they
didn't get round to finishing the deliveries yesterday for some reason? Or
maybe they've started their Xmas delivery pattern early! Dare I say ..
(groan!)..keep me posted (!) on delivery van sightings early mornings - I shall
ask our friendly depot manager about it when we have some more evidence..
I have sometimes received Parcelforce deliveries before 7.30am - and once at
6.55am!
Maybe the man (always the same one) just likes seeing me in my nightie! :-)
Our postman couldn't get a package through our letterbox at 1.48pm today
(Thursday). So he left a card, asking me to leave a staggering 48 hours before
going to collect the package from Ledger's Close.
Why has the waiting time suddenly increased so much? How can it possibly take
two full days and nights for Royal Mail to return a parcel to a sorting office
a few miles away?
(And of course if I take the 48 hours literally, my earliest collection time
will be after the office is closed on Saturday, so there will be another
two-day wait.)
The postal service is really so bad it drives one crazy. Deliveries if they
come at all arrive at noon or later, and the number of things that just get
lost is unbelievable. Last month, I posted a cheque to an address in Oxford -
it never got there. I had to cancel it, which cost me ten pounds. Somebody
posted me an item from a pharmacy in London, only about the size of a floppy
disk. It never arrived. Not at all. No card, no explanation as to where it
went. Someone posted me a couple of small booklets from Germany and they were
deemed undeliverable and sent back to Germany, but no card was ever put through
the door.
When they posted them a second time, I tried putting them through the
letter-box and they went through without difficulty.
We know the PO is struggling with adverse conditions, but it is still very
irksome.
Maybe it is time that some enraged citizens stormed the PO like the Bastille,
reclaimed it and announced that this time we were going to decide whether we
can collect our own parcels from there or not.
I'll follow up the delay in making undelivered parcels available for collection
because Headington ward councillors were given an assurance that this would be
no longer than 24 hours, except for weekends. It might be that there is a
sickness problem - I'll post up their response here. Julia, did you go through
the Royal Mail complaints procedures?
Here is the response from Royal Mail as promised!
"I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you on this. It has
been extremely hectic at this end. I have had discussion with a couple of
my delivery officers and I think that they were being over cautious when
they put 48 hours on the card. We have had a few occasions when 24 hours
has been put on the card and for whatever reason the item has not been
ready for collection. I think on this occasion the postman concerned was
just trying to avoid the customer a wasted journey to the delivery office.
I will be telling the staff in Headington to ensure that they only place 24
hours onto the docket cards from here on in. I will also be reviewing the
process that we follow for the collection of "docket left" items in the
Headington section to ensure that we do not have any more instances of
packets taking longer than 24 hours to be ready for collection.
During the Christmas period we are going to be operating revised hours for
our callers office and I was hoping that you could also put this on the
forums.
Mon - Fri 06:30 - 19:30 (8/12 - 23/12)
Saturdays 06:30 - 17:30 (13/12 and 20/12)
Christmas Eve 06:30 - 14:00
The cards that we received from the printers have incorrect dates on them
and only show the additional hours from next week. However we will still be
open as advertised above.
We are also offering the Local Collect service for free over the festive
period. Local Collect is the facility to have items (not special Delivery
items or Royal Mail tracked items) delivered to a local post-office so that
customers can pick the items up from there."
I got home last night to find a 'snowflake infested' "out" card regarding an
undelivered parcel which the Royal Mail staff had been unable to deliver at
lunchtime. Interestingly it asked me to leave just five hours before calling
for collection, yet I know of at least two cases in Headington where the card
has specified 48 hours. I shall get back on to that delightful Delivery Centre
Manager again.... I happen to live about a mile away from Ledgers Lane but
that shouldn't mean that those living further away should have a lower level of
service than those living closer....
Ruth wrote:
> I shall get back on to that delightful Delivery Centre Manager again....
Ah! There's your answer Ruth! The "delightful Delivery Centre Manager" does
not want you to question him further, and I reckon he told his parcel
delivery man: "if this 'ere Ruth Wilkinson is out, mark the card twelve
hours ... that should keep her happy ... erm ... tell you what, make that
five hours to be on the safe side".
The same thing happened to me. A delivery card was left - while I was in the
house. This has happened to me countless times with Royal Mail. I don't
believe that the people who deliver the cards actually have our parcels with
them. Thet simply want us to treck over to Littlemore to collect them
ourselves.
Mary Clarkson
I had another "48-hour" card on Tuesday, and when I collected my parcel yesterday, there was a long queue curling around the small waiting area. I took the opportunity of asking other people what their cards said, and waiting times ranged between a paltry 2 hours to 24 hours. So I think that those who live the furthest from the sorting office (i.e. Headington and Marston) are definitely receiving inferior treatment. And now Oxford has just decided that it is definitely going to have a 24-hour strike next Friday, 19 December: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/3973593.POST_STRIKE__Walkout_going_ahead/ This isn't the place to discuss the strike, but make sure you get everything sent good and early.
Perhaps it's because the Royal Mail bosses are expecting them to run their
rounds at 4mph so they don't have time actually to deliver letters and parcels,
as per the BBC report the other day.
So, having had a '48 hour' card today, what's the group's thinking on whether
we should we take a chance turning up on Christmas Eve? Or just work on the
basis that the kids' Christmas will be just more fun if we get this gift on the
27th?