They Stole My Parcel

Until Proven Otherwise I Will Not Change My Mind

So, It’s been a few weeks since my last email and I still haven’t got an answer to what happened to my parcel.

Royal Mail. The biggest postal service in England have been around forever, since 1516, would you believe. As a department for the government. Today they continue to try to get your letter or parcel where it needs to go.

Now in general I wouldn’t batter an eyelid about losing a parcel. But customer service was… Well the customer service was fine. But the major problem I got was the communication. There was none. As in… What the hell happened to my parcel? This is a simple question that never gets answered.

How it all started: I ordered some DVDs from World Of Books. Who have helped me to no end. Even after a month of struggle and it wasn’t even their fault. Anyway I had missed the first delivery and it was sent back to Grays depot. I requested a redelivery and left it at that. The date arrived and went and it was a week after it was meant to be redelivered that I contacted Royal Mail to see what was going on.

The customer service were helpful and apologetic and said would contact Grays and see what is going on. And get my parcel out to me.

Another weeks goes by and still nothing. I contact them again and the same things were said, but this this it turns out that Grays hasn’t even read the email. So, they tried contacting them again. And suggested that I should go down there and see where my parcel is myself. I declined, asking them to try again to get it to me.

A few days later I decided I would go down and see if I could get my parcel. I enter the depot and after waiting I spoke to the assistant. I had printed out the email and the page from the website. As evidence that I hadn’t received anything.

Annnnnnnnd guess what? She couldn’t find it. It turns out that the parcel left the area to be redelivered and then it disappeared. Then she stated that she takes no responsibility as to what happens next. Well, that’s charming. And then was asked to get in touch with customer services again. So, disheveled I headed home.

I should have asked to speak the person who was responsible. But as person who thinks of things after the fact I was at home again talking to someone who also didn’t have a clue what was going on.

A week goes by and still nothing. So, I sent a little message.

“How much longer do I have to wait for my item to be delivered? I was promised some sort of communication. I have had no response from you. If you cannot find my item I will assume that it has been stolen. It should never take this long to find my item and redeliver it. If can not find my parcel then I want my items replaced. This is what I ordered:
High School of the Dead DVD Complete series
Afro Samurai – Complete Murder Sessions DVD Complete. I don’t want compensation. I want what I have ordered. This is Grays Depots fault and they should fix it out of there own pocket. I don’t want excuses or apologises. I just want the stuff I ordered. I am not asking a lot. If this is not sorted by the end of this week I will be taking this to the highest position possible.”

So, I was a little annoyed and of course I didn’t contacted anyone higher. Laziness on my part. Hence this blog. Their Response:

I’m sorry to learn that you’re dissatisfied with our previous response.

I’ve now had the opportunity to review the details of your case and I’m happy that our responses to you were appropriate. My colleague in telephone customer services had logged a complaint under reference 1-7645668523. I’m also confident that we’ve met our commitment to provide a consistent level of customer service, so I won’t be overturning our previous decision.

As our Royal Mail Tracked service is a business product which is provided via a business account, any enquiries or claims relating to the item would have to be initiated by the account holder who in this instance, would be the sender.  Where they are concerned, they would normally settle any loss directly with you and then claim from us themselves.  In the circumstances, I suggest you contact them to progress the matter and so they can consider sending you replacement goods or refunding any payment you have made.

If you’re unhappy with my response, you can contact the Escalated Customer Resolution Team. They’ll take a fresh look at your complaint and respond to you directly. They can be contacted at customerresolution@royalmail.com. Please quote reference 1-7645668523
at the start of your email.

So, Royal Mail investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. And I was to go back to World Of Books. To get them to replace items that were sold out. As I had bought the last ones. Hmmmm! (Strokes chin).

I then recieved this a little while later:

Thank you for your recent contact to Royal Mail.
I’m sorry to hear about the recent problem you’ve had to report to us regarding the redelivery of an item of mail.
To resolve this, I have recorded and reported the full details of your complaint. I have also passed these details to the manager of the Delivery Office concerned who will do all that is required to ensure you receive the quality of service you should expect in future. While I am hopeful you have now received your item if this is not the case then I would advise you to contact the sender. The sender can then submit a claim online at www.royalmail.com/claims Once again, please accept my sincere apologies on behalf of Royal Mail for the problem you’ve had and our thanks for taking the time to make us aware of this. Please be assured that we take letting our customers down seriously and will use this information to make further improvements.
If you experience further problems, please contact us.

Well that’s nice.

I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere and my answers were never going to come. All this over two items that cost less than a tenner. But it came down to principle. If the items were destroyed, in some manner. Lost. Stolen. Then tell me I would have been fine with an actual answer. I didn’t really care about the DVDs. I just wanted to know what happened. As always with most things in life now. It’s all about reputation and the face the world sees. At the moment Royal Mail has a lot to answer for with those employees they majorly screwed over, years ago. So a little honesty would go a long, long way. But Royal Mail and other businesses just can’t go without covering something up.

Grays Depot. You stole my parcel! Prove me wrong!

In the end I did contact World of Books. And they were amazing. They fixed what they could by giving me credit to purchase some new DVDs. And within a few days they had sent me what I had ordered.

I Know this blog maybe a bit pointless. But it was stuck in my head and this seemed the best place to get rid of it. Well, that’s moan No.1 done. On to the next…