Christmas postal chaos 'worst in decades' as Royal Mail staff reveal delivery service is struggling with festive demand after being hit with record £10million fine

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -fine.html

The Royal Mail is struggling with festive demand as workers claim it prioritises Amazon Prime over cards and hospital scans.

Posties say sorting offices are the 'worst in decades' with letters piling up as the service is hit with a record £10million fine for missing delivery targets.

Staff blame the chaos on managers ordering them to ship lucrative 'premium products' at the expense of NHS letters and seasonal greetings.

Royal Mail previously denied that this was policy but admitted this week they do so 'at exceptionally busy periods'. A spokesman claimed this was because packages 'take up far more space than letters' but insiders say it is because of lucrative contracts.

Ofcom yesterday announced the biggest ever penalty for missing delivery targets after more than a quarter of first-class mail was not delivered on time.

With tens of millions of cards due for delivery this month, one postman in the South East said the situation is 'soul destroying'.

He said: 'With hand on heart, if you're going to want a card to get somewhere for Christmas send it tracked... otherwise it will get there when it gets there.'

Another in the South West said his depot is 'overflowing' with undelivered mail. 'It's a shambles – all they care about is parcels and tracked delivery,' he said. 'Amazon get priority over first class, second class and NHS letters.'

One on the south coast said: 'The powers that be are destroying the business from within – it seems they really don't care about the letter.'

The Mail revealed last year how depot managers are telling staff to prioritise money-spinning tracked deliveries over post.

Royal Mail denied it was policy at the time. It now says both items 'are treated with equal importance' but that it 'may be logistically necessary' to prioritise packages 'at exceptionally busy times like Christmas'. Whistleblowers have claimed the move is down to money after the service was privatised in 2013.

The price of a second-class letter starts at 85p and £1.65 for first class. But the Royal Mail can charge businesses between £3.25 and £13.70 for a parcel, depending on weight, size and delivery window. Ofcom has fined Royal Mail four times – including £5.6million last year and £1.5million in 2020 for missing delivery targets. In 2018 it was fined £50million penalty for breaking competition law.

Yesterday it was hit with a £10.5million fine after just 74.7 per cent of first-class mail and 92.7 per cent of second class was delivered on time – well short of the respective targets of 93 per cent and 98.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, courier firm Yodel has paused all door-to-door deliveries due to surges in orders over Black Friday and Cyber Monday and said it had temporarily adjusted some collection schedules to maintain smooth operations.

And Evri customers have complained their Christmas presents have gone missing after couriers lied that they had been delivered.

James Pearson, 44, bought his 13-year-old stepson Harley a watch for Christmas which the driver said he had left. But the delivery picture showed the item still in the worker's car.

Only weeks before, another package delivered by the firm was allegedly stuffed half in his letterbox and was stolen.

An Evri spokesman said: 'Every parcel matters to us and we work hard to understand what has happened when our usual standards are not met.'

A Royal Mail spokesman said: 'There is no new contract or policy. Amazon products, including Prime deliveries, have been delivered via our network for many years.'

'Our posties are working extremely hard to deliver everyone's presents and cards in time for Christmas and we plan to build on last year's success where we delivered 99 per cent of items before Christmas Day.' They added: 'We are not experiencing any current network-wide delays.'

[Mr Rush]

They added: 'We are not experiencing any current network-wide delays.'

"Hello, Customer Service. My internet isn't working!"
"We have no network-wide outages."
*street cabinet is on fire*

[scotchy1962]

They already lied twice to parliament so whats it matter about lying to the press, it's a s**t show of the highest order and if it continues something will have to give, xmas cards in january will be the order.

[Dorset Plodder]

I'm ''helping'' them to get their next fine by bringing back a lot of 1st and 2nd class post most days now. Don't worry I'm doing my best to deliver those pesky Tracked parcels.

I'm sure RM will use this fine as a shitty stick to beat their employees with come next payrise, ''We'd have liked to give a bigger pay rise but we've been hit by these massive fines and can't affort them''

A few customers have mentioned it to me, I just reply, ''It's above my pay grade ... It's just Incompetence and Greed at the highest level''!

[baldrick]

xmas cards in january will be the order.

January? That's optimistic! RM will be telling us to post our Xmas cards in October next year to have some chance of them being delivered before 25 December.

[Dorset Plodder]

xmas cards in january will be the order.

January? That's optimistic! RM will be telling us to post our Xmas cards in October next year to have some chance of them being delivered before 25 December.

Haven't you heard Baldrick..... ''Nobody sends Christmas Cards anymore''..... ''The stamps are too expensive I don't sent cards nowadays''

All these CHRISTMAS CARDS I'm collecting, Sorting & Delivering must be a figure of my imagination. RM would love everyone to believe their BS as then they could really could just concentrate on PARCELS. I've taken a photo of the ammount of cards to show customers when they repeat this myth.

[clashcityrocker]

If you have got masses of work don't complain.
This is by far the quietest Christmas I have ever known.
Cards are massively down and they are 90% second class stamps.
Small parcels are down as well.
I can't tell with large parcels as I don't handle them but the DO isn't bursting with undelivered yorks.

I am happy if you are all overworked because from what I can see there will be dire warnings on profits and threats of redundancies in the New Year.

[Londonsburning]

If you have got masses of work don't complain.
This is by far the quietest Christmas I have ever known.
Cards are massively down and they are 90% second class stamps.
Small parcels are down as well.
I can't tell with large parcels as I don't handle them but the DO isn't bursting with undelivered yorks.

I am happy if you are all overworked because from what I can see there will be dire warnings on profits and threats of redundancies in the New Year.

What an odd thing to say. Sounds like manager speak to me

[pieoftheday]

If you have got masses of work don't complain.
This is by far the quietest Christmas I have ever known.
Cards are massively down and they are 90% second class stamps.
Small parcels are down as well.
I can't tell with large parcels as I don't handle them but the DO isn't bursting with undelivered yorks.

I am happy if you are all overworked because from what I can see there will be dire warnings on profits and threats of redundancies in the New Year.

Wow really? This is my 37th xmas at RM and the most bonkers amount of mail, xmas cards included I've ever known. At the the same time it's one of the most relaxed I've known. New duties are so stupidly big they're impossible to complete so theres no effort to try

[clashcityrocker]

What an odd thing to say. Sounds like manager speak to me

Why is it odd?
It is my experience of this xmas.
I haven't had to work one minute of extended to complete.
Loops which often require a trolley have been done with a bag.
Apart from last Monday the 5 boxes I empty have been below average for this time of year.
How does any of that make me a manager?

[Londonsburning]

What an odd thing to say. Sounds like manager speak to me

Why is it odd?
It is my experience of this xmas.
I haven't had to work one minute of extended to complete.
Loops which often require a trolley have been done with a bag.
Apart from last Monday the 5 boxes I empty have been below average for this time of year.
How does any of that make me a manager?

I am happy if you are all overworked

That is why

[clashcityrocker]

I am happy if you are all overworked

That is why

Like the little prick you are you have taken the quote out of context.
Like the little prick you are you have resorted to calling someone a manager because they have dared to offer a different view to the echo chamber you want to live in.

Here is a little bit of advice:
For your New Year's resolution try to give up being a little prick for a bit.

[scotchy1962]

If you have got masses of work don't complain.
This is by far the quietest Christmas I have ever known.
Cards are massively down and they are 90% second class stamps.
Small parcels are down as well.
I can't tell with large parcels as I don't handle them but the DO isn't bursting with undelivered yorks.

I am happy if you are all overworked because from what I can see there will be dire warnings on profits and threats of redundancies in the New Year.

Don't know where you work Clash but can i get a transfer.
Our small sub office with 7 duties has people working Sunday to clear some mail, my van share had three on it on Saturday and only one of the duties mail was delivered, the other half has 3 days mail in it at the moment and i don't work Sunday. On my day off they where out until 10pm just to clear the tracked as they had 440+ tracked and didn't get out until 12pm. I wouldn't have been.
We have 2 extra workers and can't even nearly cope, i just don't worry and finish mostly on time.
Like i said can i transfer?

[postslippete]

If you have got masses of work don't complain.
This is by far the quietest Christmas I have ever known.
Cards are massively down and they are 90% second class stamps.
Small parcels are down as well.
I can't tell with large parcels as I don't handle them but the DO isn't bursting with undelivered yorks.

I am happy if you are all overworked because from what I can see there will be dire warnings on profits and threats of redundancies in the New Year.

That is unusual as Xmas is our busiest time of year and we normally get double the volume of letters and parcels being processed. If your office has extra staff employed delivering the parcels then that would certainly help with workloads. We also have large parcel drivers but we are still expected to take most of the medium/smaller parcels. From what I've seen those parcel volumes are similar to last year but I have noticed loads of Evri parcels left on doorsteps.

[Londonsburning]

I am happy if you are all overworked

That is why

Like the little prick you are you have taken the quote out of context.
Like the little prick you are you have resorted to calling someone a manager because they have dared to offer a different view to the echo chamber you want to live in.

Here is a little bit of advice:
For your New Year's resolution try to give up being a little prick for a bit.

What's with the verbal abuse? That is massively uncalled-for I simply quoted exactly what you said