APPROXIMATELY 70 LETTERS/PACKAGES LEFT OUTSIDE

[plutus1947]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum but unfortunately as is often the case my first post is a complaint.

I am wondering if anyone has ever experienced what happened to us last Saturday (26 Feb 11).

My wife & I live in a block of 29 sheltered dwelling flats.

We were leaving the building via the main entrance and noticed that all the Saturday delivery mail for all the residents was just pushed into a metal mail bin outside the main entrance. This bin is in place in order for callers to leave notes etc, for residents who may be out when they call.

There was approximately 70 letters, magazines & a package which looked like a CD or DVD.

Rather than simply leave them there for anyone to pick up & walk away with my wife & I sorted the mail out and delivered it to our fellow residents. Each flat had a delivery of mail that day. The actual task took about an hour.

The postie delivering the mail is given a key in order to enter the building in order to delivery the mail. Even if he/she forgot to take the key there is always a resident available to let them in (my wife & I were in). In the unlikely event that there was no resident available to let the postie in the mail should not have been simply left outside the flats where anyone seeing it could have taken it, it should have be returned to the sorting office via the postie for delivery on the next working day.

Leaving this amount of mail in the open for anyone to see & possibly steal is in my view a blatant breach of the rules, if not the law, & the postie responsible should be disciplined severely for doing so.

Some of the mail was also 'official' & could easily have been bank statements etc, containing personal information which could have been used for ID theft.

I made a complaint to the RM about this and they appear to have attempted to 'fob' me off with one of their non-committal replies & did not appear to really address the issue at all.

I am sure there must be stringent rules regarding the delivery of RM but although I have searched for them I cannot find them anywhere on the Internet, but I am sure that blatantly leaving the Queen’s Mail for no apparent reason where anyone could steal it could be grounds for instant dismissal.

I would like to have your views and/or suggestions on what took place please, especially posties who may read this topic.

Also if anyone knows where I can view the RM regulations concerning the delivery of domestic mail I would greatly appreciate it.

Regards

John
(plutus1947)
(Newbie)

[Stormproof]

The mail was probably delivered by someone covering that delivery on overtime. He/she no doubt was unaware of a key and to be honest if I saw a mailbox outside of the flats thats where I would've delivered the items aswell.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I agree wth stormproof, I think its was a case of not being briefed or trained on that duty and they probably don't think they did anything wrong, and without your input if I was faced with the same scenario I would do the same. In fact I have one address that has 12 residential flats but only 1 delivery point.

I think its best to see what happens this weekend and if it happens again then write to the Delivery Office Manager and he should address your concerns. It might be worth putting a sign on the box stating "Box is not for Mail" or something along those lines.

As to the regulations. As far as I know there is nothing specific covering this situation but security of the post would possibly fall under the Postal Act 2000 - about to be replaced with a new one which also opens us up to privatisation.

I really hope this is a one off and that you don't have the same problem again. Good luck and thank you for being the good neighbour, I am certain they appreciated it.

[hans solo]

an hour to deliver it though
performance issue me thinks

[noggin1969]

Sound

[IloveMYredTROLLEY!]

As someone who often completes the bits of rounds on overtime that were unable to be deliveried inside contract hours by fellow colleagues, I have seen some shocking delivery points, with no security for the delivered mail at all (eg. letterboxes at flats with no holding cage and/or security lock, with the block door permanently open and shop staff from the shops below wandering past everybody's mail al day long). The first time I saw this I rang my line manager, as I was genuinely concerned about mail security, but apparently our responsibility for the mail stops once we post it through the delivery delivery point (letterbox, mail box etc.).

If I was delivering to your block, the chances are I would have used the "metal mail bin outside the main entrance" too. Perhaps my depot is an exception, but I never get a briefing about addresses on overtime, we are left to do the best we can out on the street.

[not me]

As someone who often completes the bits of rounds on overtime that were unable to be deliveried inside contract hours by fellow colleagues, I have seen some shocking delivery points, with no security for the delivered mail at all (eg. letterboxes at flats with no holding cage and/or security lock, with the block door permanently open and shop staff from the shops below wandering past everybody's mail al day long). The first time I saw this I rang my line manager, as I was genuinely concerned about mail security, but apparently our responsibility for the mail stops once we post it through the delivery delivery point (letterbox, mail box etc.).

If I was delivering to your block, the chances are I would have used the "metal mail bin outside the main entrance" too. Perhaps my depot is an exception, but I never get a briefing about addresses on overtime, we are left to do the best we can out on the street.

in our DO,its only if you are lucky and theres a postie on nearby who knows the duty.
as with yours,staff are just chucked out on the street