Royal Fail

[BackyardBullion]

So, didn't want to publicly start a thread until this situation was resolved one way or another but now that it has I can say my piece publicly. 

I sent a package with approximately 6 Kilos of silver in it to The Edinburgh Assay Office in late November via Special Delivery. 

It only arrived 13 days later....

It was sent to The Isle Of Man instead of Edinburgh!

Apparently, this is what I was actually told, someONE (not a system malfunction, but someONE) missread the label and instead of EH for Edinburgh they thought it was IM for Isle of Man. 

Crazy, how does this happen?

The reason I want to share this is so that if anyone else notices funny business with their special deliveries they can know what to do that might help resolve a situation for the better. I honestly believe that not for my actions of hounding the Royal Mail investigations team nothing would have been done. 

Starting from the beginning, I was expecting the parcel to arrive on a NON strike day. Nothing happened with the tracking. So, I waited. I understand why the strikes are happening, I don't agree that they should be happening at all but alas thats not the topic of this conversation - I am prepared for some disruption to happen because of this. 2 days later, NOTHING had updated. 

So, what you need to do in this situation is go on hold for up to an hour (obviously lots of people moaning at Royal Mail, wonder why!) and you must INSIST on escalating this to the investigations team. Use the word escalation and if they say no just keep asking until they say yes. 

The reason for this is that the customer service agents on the regular number know about as much as you do. They will just tell you what the tracking says and when the cut off date for it being "officially lost". 

The investigations team should call you back within 4 hours or the next day if you ring on an afternoon. 

Later that day I got a call from the investigations team, they told me it had been sent to the wrong mail centre but not to worry, it was safe it was located and would be moved to the correct destination that day. 

Relieved I got on with my day.

Next day, NOTHING. 

Rang up again to ESCALATE AGAIN!! You cannot call the escalations team directly (totally stupid) and so you have to wait another 4 hours for the call. 

I was supposedly rung 2 minutes after escalating this call - but NOTHING came through on my phone. They decide one missed call is job done and don't try again all day. 

Next day (about 1 week since posting now) I ring again to get this sorted. The customer service person says it is now approaching the day that would be the cut off for it being lost....

UNACCEPTABLE. 

Escalate again.

Finally spoke with someone in a senior position within the escalations team who then told me it had gone to the Isle of Man and that a mistake had been made. Things would start moving again and to my surprise the tracking was updated to say received in Isle of Man. 

Spoke at length about how frustrating this whole situation was and its impact on my customers and by blood pressure!

Low and behold, NOTHING happened again for 4 more days over a weekend. I finally got an answer that the package had been placed in a "bag" with the other packages that the sorting office "didn't know what to do with". 

I firmly believe that without the intervention of this senior manager (the one good and shining light in this whole saga) This package would have been lost into the depths of Royal Mail and I would have had to make a claim.

So, lessons here. Don't take no for an answer. Push them to investigate and you get results. 

Regarding insurance 

It is worth noting this package was insured with up to £2500 cover. 

This cover is for replacement items only and would NOT cover retail value of items. I had close to £10,000 worth of retail value items in that package and consequently was quite concerned as you might expect!

Anyway, that was a long ranty post, anyone reading to this point....thanks, your obviously a BYB rambler and in the cool kids club.

 

[James32]

Very glad it got sorted. 

Takes some nerve though sending £10k of merchandise in one package with such little insurance ( relatively speaking )

 

[AndrewSL76]

I find these days that there is very little easy access to customer services that actually care or who have actual ability (as in they have a decision making power) to manage an issue. Every business will have someone or a team who have to and whose exact job it is, to deal with arising issues/complaints, but they are always well hidden or right at the end of the very line. Why is this?? I never understand it. 

Seriously, even just calling anywhere these days is impossible. Those AI answer machines that just lead you down a ten minute call of frustration only to then put you on hold for ten minutes only to then cut you off…….

[BackyardBullion]

28 minutes ago, AndrewSL76 said:

 

Seriously, even just calling anywhere these days is impossible. Those AI answer machines that just lead you down a ten minute call of frustration only to then put you on hold for ten minutes only to then cut you off…….

Every time I get these robot menus I just say out loud, "I want to speak to a real person" and 9 times out of 10 it puts me through to a call handler (or at least on hold for one)

[Faiz]

Thanks for sharing byb. I’m glad you got it sorted in the end. Will you be sending multiple smaller orders in future?  

[Zeuk]

3 hours ago, AndrewSL76 said:

I find these days that there is very little easy access to customer services that actually care or who have actual ability (as in they have a decision making power) to manage an issue. Every business will have someone or a team who have to and whose exact job it is, to deal with arising issues/complaints, but they are always well hidden or right at the end of the very line. Why is this?? I never understand it. 

Seriously, even just calling anywhere these days is impossible. Those AI answer machines that just lead you down a ten minute call of frustration only to then put you on hold for ten minutes only to then cut you off…….

It just comes down to money and scale, for large companies the objective is to drive as much traffic away from call centres as possible and into online/self-serve channels.  

[fiveshotdon]

20 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

This cover is for replacement items only and would NOT cover retail value of items.

What does that mean? I thought RM covered whatever you sold it for, you just provide proof of the sale.

[blackadder]

Almost as bad as the royal mint,25 days later and still no refund go right to the Customer Accounts Manager now.

How does a parcel end up on the Isle Of Man,it's not even remotely close Lucky they didn't thieve it all.

[BackyardBullion]

1 hour ago, fiveshotdon said:

What does that mean? I thought RM covered whatever you sold it for, you just provide proof of the sale.

No. They cover the cost it would be to replace the item, not what you sold it for. 

[Silverlocks]

21 hours ago, AndrewSL76 said:

I find these days that there is very little easy access to customer services that actually care or who have actual ability (as in they have a decision making power) to manage an issue. Every business will have someone or a team who have to and whose exact job it is, to deal with arising issues/complaints, but they are always well hidden or right at the end of the very line. Why is this?? I never understand it. 

It's obvious why it is.  

a. They have to do the investigation work so they don't have time to answer calls.

b. It's cheaper to make it harder to raise a complaint in the first place.  Put a layer of disempowered drones in the way and quite a large fraction of the complainants will give up there.

The correct way to get a complaint actioned is to find out the contact details for senior management and make their life hell.

[fiveshotdon]

5 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

No. They cover the cost it would be to replace the item, not what you sold it for. 

But surely if you are selling a handmade silver item the cost to replace the item would be how much it is for sale on your website.

[BackyardBullion]

52 minutes ago, fiveshotdon said:

But surely if you are selling a handmade silver item the cost to replace the item would be how much it is for sale on your website.

You would think, but no. 

[sovereignsteve]

3 hours ago, BackyardBullion said:

No. They cover the cost it would be to replace the item, not what you sold it for. 

No, they cover your actual loss, ie what you paid for it. It's a scam, as you probably paid half what it would cost to buy it now. I wish someone would take them to court about this unfair term in their T&Q

[PhilOdgny]

On 11/12/2022 at 18:47, BackyardBullion said:

So, didn't want to publicly start a thread until this situation was resolved one way or another but now that it has I can say my piece publicly. 

I sent a package with approximately 6 Kilos of silver in it to The Edinburgh Assay Office in late November via Special Delivery. 

It only arrived 13 days later....

It was sent to The Isle Of Man instead of Edinburgh!

Apparently, this is what I was actually told, someONE (not a system malfunction, but someONE) missread the label and instead of EH for Edinburgh they thought it was IM for Isle of Man. 

Crazy, how does this happen?

The reason I want to share this is so that if anyone else notices funny business with their special deliveries they can know what to do that might help resolve a situation for the better. I honestly believe that not for my actions of hounding the Royal Mail investigations team nothing would have been done. 

Starting from the beginning, I was expecting the parcel to arrive on a NON strike day. Nothing happened with the tracking. So, I waited. I understand why the strikes are happening, I don't agree that they should be happening at all but alas thats not the topic of this conversation - I am prepared for some disruption to happen because of this. 2 days later, NOTHING had updated. 

So, what you need to do in this situation is go on hold for up to an hour (obviously lots of people moaning at Royal Mail, wonder why!) and you must INSIST on escalating this to the investigations team. Use the word escalation and if they say no just keep asking until they say yes. 

The reason for this is that the customer service agents on the regular number know about as much as you do. They will just tell you what the tracking says and when the cut off date for it being "officially lost". 

The investigations team should call you back within 4 hours or the next day if you ring on an afternoon. 

Later that day I got a call from the investigations team, they told me it had been sent to the wrong mail centre but not to worry, it was safe it was located and would be moved to the correct destination that day. 

Relieved I got on with my day.

Next day, NOTHING. 

Rang up again to ESCALATE AGAIN!! You cannot call the escalations team directly (totally stupid) and so you have to wait another 4 hours for the call. 

I was supposedly rung 2 minutes after escalating this call - but NOTHING came through on my phone. They decide one missed call is job done and don't try again all day. 

Next day (about 1 week since posting now) I ring again to get this sorted. The customer service person says it is now approaching the day that would be the cut off for it being lost....

UNACCEPTABLE. 

Escalate again.

Finally spoke with someone in a senior position within the escalations team who then told me it had gone to the Isle of Man and that a mistake had been made. Things would start moving again and to my surprise the tracking was updated to say received in Isle of Man. 

Spoke at length about how frustrating this whole situation was and its impact on my customers and by blood pressure!

Low and behold, NOTHING happened again for 4 more days over a weekend. I finally got an answer that the package had been placed in a "bag" with the other packages that the sorting office "didn't know what to do with". 

I firmly believe that without the intervention of this senior manager (the one good and shining light in this whole saga) This package would have been lost into the depths of Royal Mail and I would have had to make a claim.

So, lessons here. Don't take no for an answer. Push them to investigate and you get results. 

Regarding insurance 

It is worth noting this package was insured with up to £2500 cover. 

This cover is for replacement items only and would NOT cover retail value of items. I had close to £10,000 worth of retail value items in that package and consequently was quite concerned as you might expect!

Anyway, that was a long ranty post, anyone reading to this point....thanks, your obviously a BYB rambler and in the cool kids club.

 

Are you going to post copies of emails or transcripts of phone calls?

[BackyardBullion]

6 hours ago, PhilOdgny said:

Are you going to post copies of emails or transcripts of phone calls?

There are none, I had no email communication, only phone calls and I dont have any transcripts of them 

[GBStacking]

On 11/12/2022 at 19:30, BackyardBullion said:

Every time I get these robot menus I just say out loud, "I want to speak to a real person" and 9 times out of 10 it puts me through to a call handler (or at least on hold for one)

Quote often with these robot menus, pressing the 0 key will also get you through to a person. A fair amount of the time companies don't bother removing this option when they set up the systems, they just take away (or don't include) any information to tell you the option exists.

[Fishface220]

About sums up my experience with RM SD right now! 

[bluffer]

On 11/12/2022 at 18:47, BackyardBullion said:

Low and behold, NOTHING happened again for 4 more days over a weekend. I finally got an answer that the package had been placed in a "bag" with the other packages that the sorting office "didn't know what to do with". 

 

 

this is the bit i dont understand.  the package will have an address it is to go to and an addresss it is to come from.  I fail to see how they dont know what to do with parcels.  send them or return them!

[HerefordBullyun]

Dont worry your all coins are being eaten now

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20750373/foxes-rats-parcels-royal-mail-depot-strikes-piling-up/ 

[BackyardBullion]

One thing I notice here on the forum and other selling sites is when sellers say that postage is at the buyers risk.

If you are just a private individual selling something that is perfectly acceptable. 

However, when I see registered business sellers or sellers clearly selling as a business saying things like, signed for at buyers risk, SD at sellers risk it looks really bad. 

Especially as most of the time signed for will have a very limited cover value and may not even pay out for precious metals. 

When you buy from a business (no matter how small the business) you have consumer rights. This includes not being liable for things in the post.

I would encourage all buyers to insist on business sellers being responsible for any losses and if the sellers are not willing to self insure to accommodate this then just don't offer the other postage types. 

[James32]

2 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

One thing I notice here on the forum and other selling sites is when sellers say that postage is at the buyers risk.

If you are just a private individual selling something that is perfectly acceptable. 

However, when I see registered business sellers or sellers clearly selling as a business saying things like, signed for at buyers risk, SD at sellers risk it looks really bad. 

Especially as most of the time signed for will have a very limited cover value and may not even pay out for precious metals. 

When you buy from a business (no matter how small the business) you have consumer rights. This includes not being liable for things in the post.

I would encourage all buyers to insist on business sellers being responsible for any losses and if the sellers are not willing to self insure to accommodate this then just don't offer the other postage types. 

Excellent point and often crossed my mind. I tend to buy everything in bulk and opt for special delivery to offset this fear. But thanks for bringing up a very valid point.

[BackyardBullion]

Just now, James32 said:

Excellent point and often crossed my mind. I tend to buy everything in bulk and opt for special delivery to offset this fear. But thanks for bringing up a very valid point.

No worries buddy. It's really a pet peeve of mine whenever I see it put up. 

Ignorance is no defence. It's well publicised too and if you are a business the responsibility is on YOU to do things right, not the customer. 

[PhilOdgny]

On 13/12/2022 at 07:59, BackyardBullion said:

There are none, I had no email communication, only phone calls and I dont have any transcripts of them 

Presumably you have proof of posting which will be dated and evidence of the date received by the assay office though?

[scotwasp]

I was speaking  to a chap from the Royal Mail today who was on the picket line (next door to my office). I think they could be in a fair bit of bother, a totally dispirited workforce who hate the company, an outdated business model which is bleeding cash, competition which is leaner and aggressively eating their market share and critically, a customer base which is losing/lost confidence in them.

Not a great position to be in. 

[PhilOdgny]

4 minutes ago, scotwasp said:

I was speaking  to a chap from the Royal Mail today who was on the picket line (next door to my office). I think they could be in a fair bit of bother, a totally dispirited workforce who hate the company, an outdated business model which is bleeding cash, competition which is leaner and aggressively eating their market share and critically, a customer base which is losing/lost confidence in them.

Not a great position to be in. 

Isn't that every single company in the world that is run by accountants rather that people who know how to actually run a business?

Oh, with the exception of companies run on woke/ESG rules which are the same but with a virtue-signalling veneer on the top to try to make tyranny more palatable.