Royal Mail Signed For - warning!!!!

[Serendipity]

30 minutes ago, Melon said:

I don't really understand the "Signed for" concept. Anyone can put a squiggle in a box. It doesn't prove an item reached it's intended recipient at all. 

This is exactly what has been happening to me when I’ve ordered bullion coins from the Royal Mint Bullion. For some strange reason RMB uses DHL rather than the Royal Mail and DHL signs for the parcels themselves which they shouldn’t. They even stuck a 1oz gold Lion of England through my letterbox when nobody was in and signed for it with an illegible squiggle. I know this because I’ve checked the illegible squiggles on their website claiming to be my signature.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Serendipity

[sovereignsteve]

45 minutes ago, Serendipity said:

This is exactly what has been happening to me when I’ve ordered bullion coins from the Royal Mint Bullion. For some strange reason RMB uses DHL rather than the Royal Mail and DHL signs for the parcels themselves which they shouldn’t. They even stuck a 1oz gold Lion of England through my letterbox when nobody was in and signed for it with an illegible squiggle. I know this because I’ve checked the illegible squiggles on their website claiming to be my signature.

A dodgy practice for the driver and the company if the recipient claims it wasn't delivered. Even though they will have GPS tracking for the driver's PDA, this is only accurate to between 5 and 10 m.

I won a case against Parcelforce a few years ago when they claimed it was delivered with a simple squiggle signature. I was able to prove I was at work that day and I lived alone at the time.

Many people have CCTV coverage of their front doors also.

[richatthecroft]

I find the whole Signed For/ Special Delivery choice tiresome. 

Signed For- feels like you are essentially crossing your fingers and hope it gets there- which  is unacceptable- and it’s unforgivable that they wouldn’t compensate for say a £20 silver coin as they would for say, a book worth a similar value- essentially they are saying, we cannot be trusted.

Special Delivery- is far too expensive/ uneconomical for sending any precious metal/ collectible or banknote worth £100 or less- but i have to concede, it’s a marvellous service and I have confidence in it, although I have to acknowledge that I’ve never had to test out the compensation element of the service, thank goodness. 

I think the Royal Mail are missing a trick- they would surely attract custom by offering a product in between the two- a tracked and insured service that compensates whatever’s inside the parcel like the guaranteed next day Special Delivery- but one that gets to its destination in say, 4 days to a week- and priced accordingly, costing say a half, to two thirds of the current SD postage

For me, this would take a lot of the worry out of posting valuables- and then there would be a true choice of postage method and make crossing of fingers a thing of the past. 

 

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

2 hours ago, Melon said:

I don't really understand the "Signed for" concept. Anyone can put a squiggle in a box. It doesn't prove an item reached it's intended recipient at all. 

For parcels it is even more redundant since they now provide delivery confirmation for all parcels first or second class - not just signed for.

Edited December 18, 2019 by AppleZippoandMetronome
Remove duplicate post

[DarkChameleon]

In this day and age you could take a picture and add to a signiture...sort of put the thieves out there or indeed the neighbours if they take something in then say they didnt.

[Melon]

31 minutes ago, DarkChameleon said:

In this day and age you could take a picture and add to a signiture...sort of put the thieves out there or indeed the neighbours if they take something in then say they didnt.

I could see people being uncomfortable with being photographed on their front door step to be fair.
 

Personally I think a unique code should be generated for signed mail and electronically sent to the recipient either via SMS or email. OTP services are a dime a dozen, so all this really requires is a bit of integration and the collection of one additional item of information about the recipient. 
 

That code isn’t known to the postman and is unique to the individual parcel. That code gets entered on the device we typically sign today, as the recipients unique e-signature. If the code is wrong, the parcel isn’t delivered. It’s pretty much what we’re used to doing for banking already. If the recipient gives the code to a family member, friend, neighbour etc, that’s fine, but that’s at their own risk. 
 

The only downside I see to a solution like this would be the additional time to deliver the package. People would inevitably not be ready with the code, so it would maybe add 30 seconds on average to the drop off time on signed mail. That would add up when you consider the amount of signed mail that must be delivered daily. 

[Mcgrimes]

I find the signed for service very useful - there’s just a general bias here because it doesn’t cover PMs. 

Signed for is very useful when posting official letters of significance or combating general fraud. It’s just as useful as special delivery in 99% of the times as they are both tracked, first class is generally next day anyway and they both offer compensation. The only significant difference is the value of compensation offered and items covered, and you pay for this privilege.

[Cornishfarmer]

Up to this Christmas the Royal Mail have been brilliant,    Sold thousands of items with only loosing 2 items. One was signed for.         But in the last 2 weeks had 4 items disappear in the post.      I know they are busy but something must be different than normal

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Added 0 minutes later...

Up to this Christmas the Royal Mail have been brilliant,    Sold thousands of items with only loosing 2 items. One was signed for.         But in the last 2 weeks had 4 items disappear in the post.      I know they are busy but something must be different than normal

[Melon]

4 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

Up to this Christmas the Royal Mail have been brilliant,    Sold thousands of items with only loosing 2 items. One was signed for.         But in the last 2 weeks had 4 items disappear in the post.      I know they are busy but something must be different than normal

Must be sticky fingered temps I think, covering the Christmas rush. 

[Cornishfarmer]

26 minutes ago, Melon said:

Must be sticky fingered temps I think, covering the Christmas rush. 

One turned up today....... trouble is it was tickets for an event a couple days ago......... 1st class, arrived after 2 weeks 2 days

[Melon]

11 minutes ago, Cornishfarmer said:

One turned up today....... trouble is it was tickets for an event a couple days ago......... 1st class, arrived after 2 weeks 2 days

Oh that sucks 😭

I'm amending my initial prognosis... I think it's sticky fingered sneaky temps who are busy attending our Christmas events then popping the used tickets back in the post afterwards 😂

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

On 23/12/2019 at 11:11, Cornishfarmer said:

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Up to this Christmas the Royal Mail have been brilliant,    Sold thousands of items with only loosing 2 items. One was signed for.         But in the last 2 weeks had 4 items disappear in the post.      I know they are busy but something must be different than normal

You're lucky not to have experienced problems previous christmasses. I tend to shut my online shop down for the holidays in the weeks leading up to christmas just because I've found its the one time of year stuff gets lost or delayed and customers just have no clue/patience/common sense/civility, etc, etc. I do my best to ramp up sales in October/November to make up for the December shortfall and it saves a lot of worry/stress/loss when things just don't show up on time or at all.

[Murph]

I'm sure a number of the sellers on here mention that if you want them to use anything but s.d. you do so at your own risk so I'm not sure where conventional wisdom saying to use signed for comes from?

Not that s.d. is great as I have had an item from atkinson's not turn up, a late delivery with an item from arishimo and a few other mishaps.

Some delivery services started taking pictures of your door so I wouldn't be surprised if they started taking pictures of people or thumbprints in future.

 

[sovereignsteve]

17 minutes ago, Murph said:

I'm not sure where conventional wisdom saying to use signed for comes from?

Not wisdom in the sense that it's a better service, just that the sender almost always gets to know it's been delivered safely. Signed for is no better than ordinary 1st or 2nd class, it's just the delivery confirmation that's helpful. If you know and trust the recipient, signed for has no advantages over ordinary post.

It does confer better insurance but obviously that isn't relevant to coins, PMs etc

[Pete]

This is a grey area indeed.
When you buy postage and see there is a £50 cover for loss then surely sending a collectible item would be covered.
The small print excludes cash and coins which I would interpret as 'spendable money' or money in circulation that would buy stuff.
What would happen if you posted a rare copper coin of say £40 value or one of the Royal Mint commemorative £50 coins that are not accepted by banks and traders ?
The copper coin is not made of valuable metal.
What about a medal that is an alloy of silver and copper maybe 50% each ?
I would challenge the interpretation of the terms on the basis that your lost "coin" was not a monetary coin spendable in the shops.
However I feel you might be up against the mighty corporate force fields.
As for using SD this is definitely the best way but it is rather expensive for low value shipments.

[kimchi]

I've got to say that in my experience the Royal Mail did an exceptional job over Xmas.

25 minutes ago, Murph said:

Not that s.d. is great as I have had an item from atkinson's not turn up, a late delivery with an item from arishimo and a few other mishaps.

The Mail take SD missing very seriously indeed so I hope the missing item was followed up by them.

Anything that's late they refund the postage on iirc - depends on the value but for example when I had 5kg go 'missing' for a week once (the only time with SD) the seller on here and me agreed to split the compensation. It was £15 each and didn't really make up for the stress and worry but at least it was something.

30 minutes ago, Murph said:

Some delivery services started taking pictures of your door so I wouldn't be surprised if they started taking pictures of people or thumbprints in future.

Can definitely see this happening. At the moment I believe they can only take photos from 'public' property, so it could be from the van. For a block of flats they'd have to make you come to the main door. It'll probably change fairly soon though I expect the way things are going.

[Coolrico]

On 19/12/2019 at 00:41, Melon said:

I could see people being uncomfortable with being photographed on their front door step to be fair.
 

Personally I think a unique code should be generated for signed mail and electronically sent to the recipient either via SMS or email. OTP services are a dime a dozen, so all this really requires is a bit of integration and the collection of one additional item of information about the recipient. 
 

That code isn’t known to the postman and is unique to the individual parcel. That code gets entered on the device we typically sign today, as the recipients unique e-signature. If the code is wrong, the parcel isn’t delivered. It’s pretty much what we’re used to doing for banking already. If the recipient gives the code to a family member, friend, neighbour etc, that’s fine, but that’s at their own risk. 
 

The only downside I see to a solution like this would be the additional time to deliver the package. People would inevitably not be ready with the code, so it would maybe add 30 seconds on average to the drop off time on signed mail. That would add up when you consider the amount of signed mail that must be delivered daily. 

Great Idea, The only down side to this that i can think of is when delivering to business premises where you potentially have multiple people working in a goods in area, trying to track down the codes for each delivery would be an admin nightmare.

Would work perfectly for personal deliveries and shipments.

[Tattoedamat]

I've always used tracked insured option always over valuing stuff if high value goods. Peace of mind for both parties and only  few quid more

[Darr3nG]

Just found this on the Sharps Pixley: Shipping & Delivery FAQ:

Any order below £500 gets shipped 2nd Class Signed For, so would not be covered for loss / damage - although they do state you can upgrade delivery at checkout.

[pricha]

As an employee of Royal Mail my advice is don't not use the useless signed for to post anything of value.  There are so many short term staff around at the moment, signed for in my opinion is advertising something inside may be worth stealing. As the letter says singed for items are just processed as normal mail.  Special delivery is totally different as its kept apart from normal mail at all times in secure lockers. And of course is insured. 

[Solachesis]

Are most people sending/receiving lower value silver in signed for, opposed to Special delivery? Because that's what I've been doing.

Buying/selling gold, obviously id get special delivery, but if a Brit or krug is being sold for £25, if I'm going to pay 6-ish quid for special delivery, bringing it up to £31, I'd just get it from a dealer if the price was about the same. 

As much fun as buying on here is, you order from chards or another bullion dealer you know 100% it's genuine, and if your order doesn't arrive they'll put it right. 

I'm not saying that people on here are untrustworthy, far from it, but if I was going to pay essentially the same for something on here by getting SD than a big bullion dealer, I'd just get it from a big bullion dealer.

So far I've had nothing go missing, but I acknowledge if it does, It's on me and not the seller as I opted not to get special delivery 

[sovereignsteve]

IMO the only reason to use signed for is if you can't completely trust the recipient. Otherwise standard post if fine.

I would happily receive up to a half sovereign (sometimes a full if I'm feeling brave) with 1st class post.