For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By MachFlyer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1818953
Haven’t noticed many problems with Royal Mail to my house but I can agree that having ordered a lot of things online recently, due to having to mostly isolate, the private delivery services have been fantastic. Often delivering before the due date on occasions :shock:
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1818954
Interesting experience with Parcelforce. Sender incorrectly addressed a parcel to me (non-existant house number), they tried to deliver on Christmas Eve.
Rather than return to sender they sent a letter to the address listed (with number in question marks). Postie knew my name and I got the letter, allowing me to contact them with the correct address.
All would end well, but the first time they sent it out for redelivery they returned saying again they couldn't find the address again...
Third time they did get it to me.

I've never known other providers to go the extra mile, even if they did get one thing wrong.

PS - Brie was then too ripe to eat
Last edited by riverrock on Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By JAFO
#1818955
rikur_ wrote:I could have actually got a sofa quicker than stamps...


Unless, of course, they posted it.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1818977
I get even the smallest bag of screws, tube of sealant coffee pods etc from Amazon these days and am amazed at the speed of delivery .
I have Prime and prolly pay slightly over the odds but for the convenience in lockdown I’m happy
Lets me resume the list of lockdown projects I started last March .........

Yes I’ve seen the recent Amazon-critical telly progs but ATM they provide just what I want.

Yesterday my stuff was delivered by a lush east European totty in her Fiesta stuffed to the gunwales with Amazon stuff.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1818981
Amazon is always a last resort for me. Many others do on line ordering with delivery or click and collect.
By Colonel Panic
#1818993
True, but sadly few offer such an easy buying experience, next day delivery and an impeccable returns policy, along with (mostly) keen pricing.

I do use John Lewis where I can though as I very much appreciate their presence on the High Street & admire their values.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1818995
johnm wrote:Amazon is always a last resort for me. Many others do on line ordering with delivery or click and collect.

Agreed: but none can match Amazon's range and choice of products and effortless returns policy.

Tho' I will give shout for the Metal Tube company when I was installing an electric hoist in my garage 'loft' last summer and needed custom sized steel tube and mounting brackets.

Oh and John Lewis 'click and collect' to Waitrose which is just around the corner (1/2 mile) from us....., not to mention Waitrose's priority groceries home delivery slots for oldies........

I've only filled my car fuel up three times since last March.....................
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By kanga
#1818998
PeteSpencer wrote:.. none can match Amazon's range and choice of products and effortless returns policy.

..
I've only filled my car fuel up three times since last March.....................


<drift :oops: >

As I'm sure regular Amazon users are aware, but just in case: one can nominate a favoured charity to get a small percentage of your purchase as a donation, through the 'Amazon Smiles' facility. With enough supporters making even infrequent purchases this can be aggregated into quite a large sum, regularly passed to the charity. JAM has benefited considerably from kind supporters nominating us, but I expect most Forumites have their own, possibly small and local, cause </>

[filled both cars only once each since March :) ]
By Paultheparaglider
#1819001
Colonel Panic wrote:
Not that long ago when they wanted to stop the "2nd post" they half promised to get the first post delivered early. We never get ours until after 11, and more often than not it is after lunch. And I now see they want to ditch Saturday deliveries too.

And whilst I am in whinge mode, have you had the misfortune to need to go to a Post Office recently?

Ho Hum, #MrAngryFromTunbridgeWells


Consider yourself lucky.

About 4 years back, Royal Mail discontinued our delivery service entirely. Granted, we are a little out of the way as delivery takes them a mile up a lane and back so I might have accepted an argument based on economics. However, their excuse for avoiding their universal service obligation in our case was health and safety. They have to open a gate on the way down, and the hard track at one point crosses an open field. This was held to be too dangerous for the postmen even though no postman had ever had a problem accessing the property.

I'm sure such decisions help the chief executive's bonus.

By the way, for those who want to see RM lose the franchise, beware of what you wish for. We never order online using couriers. Too many experiences of items not delivered. We have even found items simply thrown in hedges at the top of the lane. At least RM still has the obligation to hold things for us for collection. Our own sad situation could become much more common for any slightly rural property under a truly commercial setup.

For info, the Royal Mail and the Post Office are entirely separate organisations these days.

Ho hum, #MrEvenMoreAngryFromUsk. :wink:
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By kanga
#1819012
Paultheparaglider wrote:..
I'm sure such decisions help the chief executive's bonus.

By the way, for those who want to see RM lose the franchise, beware of what you wish for. ..

For info, the Royal Mail and the Post Office are entirely separate organisations these days.

Ho hum, #MrEvenMoreAngryFromUsk. :wink:


the rebranding as Consignia and then reversal obviously needed paying for, and the costs of prosecutions of innocent subpostfolk let down by RM's 'infallible' IT ..

US and Canadian relatives and former colleagues are sometimes amazed that folk in rural areas of UK can expect doorstep deliveries of mail.

I have good memories of working with the technical professionals of GPO Telecoms, though. Some of them were as indignant as I was when the successor BT management wanted to sell the entire, serendipitously acquired as freehold, Bletchley Park site for housing, and the mansion and a small part of the estate was only narrowly saved.

:evil:
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By Propwash
#1819013
kanga wrote:
I have good memories of working with the technical professionals of GPO Telecoms, though. Some of them were as indignant as I was when the successor BT management wanted to sell the entire, serendipitously acquired as freehold, Bletchley Park site for housing, and the mansion and a small part of the estate was only narrowly saved.

:evil:

And I am very glad it was. My late uncle is on the Bletchley Park roll of honour board there. :salut:

PW
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1819014
The only problem we've ever had with couriers was just after we moved into our new house four years ago:

Despite the house being slap bang in the middle of one single postcode area (the same as our old house as our newbuild was in a development in our old back garden) and despite there being no duplicate house numbers (old house and surroundings numbers in the hundreds, our development nos 1-5), the powers that be refused to use the old postcode and issued a new postcode differing by one letter.

This took nearly a year to get into couriers' sat nav databases and a number of items were initially returned to sender as undeliverable.

I solved this temporarily by sneaking a mobile number into the delivery address below the postcode, and inserting the old postcode.(The old (demolished) house number had been erased from databases almost immediately).

So I either got a frantic phone call from delivery driver, or, while driving up and down the old postcode they spotted the new road name sign.

This lasted for a year but now everything is sweetness and light and stuff like Christmas cards to the old address comes to me as they recognise my name.....
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1819019
We still know our postman by name and he is a familiar part of the village and knows the villagers too. When the last one retired we held a retirement party for him in the church and gave him a handsome present :-)
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By Charles Hunt
#1819073
PtP

So what have you done? Can/do you have an American style Post Box at the end of your track?
By Paultheparaglider
#1819080
We collect the mail from our local delivery office, Charles.

We tried to resist at first by refusing to do this as we believed the health and safety case was total nonsense. And, in the interim tried to set up as many admin things as possible online. RM have to hold the mail for 18 days before returning to sender, and we hoped this would inconvenience them enough to make them have a rethink. No such luck, though. We ended up in the situation of receiving an awful lot of admin grief on all sorts of matters so realised eventually we were basically cutting off our noses to spite our face, so gave in.

We remain close friends with our local postman, who used to make us the last stop on his rounds and nearly always stopped by for a coffee. I've even taken his wife and daughter up in the microlight. The postie himself had more sense. :wink:
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