Several questions regarding delivery and lost items

[delboy1]

Hi all

I live in a block of 30 flats in London with individual postboxes. There is also a postbox at the main entrance. The postman comes at around noon.

If I go downstairs at noon all the letters are in the basket behind the main entrance mail slot. By 3pm someone has put everything in our indivdual postboxes. The property manager may be doing this but she doesn't come every day. Sometimes I do it.

The building has a unique postcode and the "house number" is the flat number.

Q1. Recorded and specials come in a van with a different postman. (For large items without signature, I buzz him in and he leaves them in the lobby.) Last year, they always took the lift up to our door for me to sign. Last week, a different postie said I had to go down to the main entrance to sign. We then had a discussion. He said nobody should be coming up to our door due to "health and safety". Is this correct?

Q2. The driver postman also said the regular postie should be putting post into individual postboxes because they are the final delivery point. He said the regular postie has a fob to enter the building. I decided to sit downstairs with a book one day. I observed the postman entering the building and he just dumped all the letters in the basket. (I previously thought he shoved them through the mail slot, as I didn't know he could enter the building.) Should he be putting mail into our individual postboxes?

Q3. I buy and sell old foreign coins and notes on eBay as well as other places. Sometimes they are posted to me by standard services. I have been told that RM will pay compensation for money which is no longer legal tender. Is this correct? Current money should obviously be sent by SD.

Q4. I never had any lost items before Feb 2013. Since then, I have had 6 out of 20 of my coin purchases not arrive. I don't know if it has something to do with the weather. Anyway, these were sent by standard 1st/2nd and were all low value, less than £5. Recorded and specials have always arrived or I pick them up. The thing is that some people do not package coins well and they make lots of clanging noises inside jiffy bags so it is obvious what is inside. But I also get £60+ worth of banknotes in just 1st class letters and these have never gone missing.

I have had several proper scammers recently on eBay and eBay refunded me. The problem is now that I have 6 sellers who are not scammers, but some of them say that postage is at buyer's risk. eBay will normally force them to refund if they have no proof of delivery, but I am afraid that eBay may suspect me of being a scammer if I report so many items not received. Also if all of them file claims with RM, won't RM suspect that something is up?

The sorting office is no help as they just say they have nothing for my address. What is the best way to get RM to investigate?

Q5. I have ordered 2 books from the US with tracking and these departed the US on 25 and 28 Feb. Both RM sites and parcelforce do not recognise the tracking numbers. The purchase price was about $3 each so no customs duty. I have already been refunded by ebay for these but is there a way to investigate where they are?

[PhilthyPhil]

I would advise you call customer services on 08457 740 740 and tell them your mail is not being delivered to your individual box and some of it has gone missing. I'm not really sure what the rules on what we should do are but personally I would deliver to the individual boxes and go to the door for any signatures or items too large for the box. If you buzz the flat there is no way of knowing for sure the person who comes down first is from that flat.

If you look at the prohibited goods list for standard mail http://www.royalmail.com/personal/help- ... cted-Goods" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; it says "Restricted to copies of old denominations or pre decimalisation postage stamps which are now obsolete and worthless except for collectable value and cannot be passed as tender." which implies you can't send originals, I would check this with customer services though.

As for your items from the US, there have been a lot of problems with HWDC (this is the distribution centre that handles all international mail) recently with a lot of posts on here about it, so your items could be delayed there. It is not that unusual for foreign items not to be tracked once they arrive here.

[UnhappyGremlin]

Hi all

I live in a block of 30 flats in London with individual postboxes. There is also a postbox at the main entrance. The postman comes at around noon.

If I go downstairs at noon all the letters are in the basket behind the main entrance mail slot. By 3pm someone has put everything in our indivdual postboxes. The property manager may be doing this but she doesn't come every day. Sometimes I do it.

The building has a unique postcode and the "house number" is the flat number.

Q1. Recorded and specials come in a van with a different postman. (For large items without signature, I buzz him in and he leaves them in the lobby.) Last year, they always took the lift up to our door for me to sign. Last week, a different postie said I had to go down to the main entrance to sign. We then had a discussion. He said nobody should be coming up to our door due to "health and safety". Is this correct?It appears this instruction has now been given for H&S reasons, though I suspect it is to save time so RM can give the postie more to do.

Q2. The driver postman also said the regular postie should be putting post into individual postboxes because they are the final delivery point. He said the regular postie has a fob to enter the building. I decided to sit downstairs with a book one day. I observed the postman entering the building and he just dumped all the letters in the basket. (I previously thought he shoved them through the mail slot, as I didn't know he could enter the building.) Should he be putting mail into our individual postboxes?
In a word yes. It's not like it's difficult.

Q3. I buy and sell old foreign coins and notes on eBay as well as other places. Sometimes they are posted to me by standard services. I have been told that RM will pay compensation for money which is no longer legal tender. Is this correct? Current money should obviously be sent by SD.
Technically yes. But first class items are only insured up to a maximum of about £50, so if the coin is worth more you will lose out.

Q4. I never had any lost items before Feb 2013. Since then, I have had 6 out of 20 of my coin purchases not arrive. I don't know if it has something to do with the weather. Anyway, these were sent by standard 1st/2nd and were all low value, less than £5. Recorded and specials have always arrived or I pick them up. The thing is that some people do not package coins well and they make lots of clanging noises inside jiffy bags so it is obvious what is inside. But I also get £60+ worth of banknotes in just 1st class letters and these have never gone missing.

I have had several proper scammers recently on eBay and eBay refunded me. The problem is now that I have 6 sellers who are not scammers, but some of them say that postage is at buyer's risk. eBay will normally force them to refund if they have no proof of delivery, but I am afraid that eBay may suspect me of being a scammer if I report so many items not received. Also if all of them file claims with RM, won't RM suspect that something is up?

The sorting office is no help as they just say they have nothing for my address. What is the best way to get RM to investigate?
You can't. You have to claim the only way you can, via eBay and the seller. It is up to them to file claims with RM, as they are the customer officially, not you.

Q5. I have ordered 2 books from the US with tracking and these departed the US on 25 and 28 Feb. Both RM sites and parcelforce do not recognise the tracking numbers. The purchase price was about $3 each so no customs duty. I have already been refunded by ebay for these but is there a way to investigate where they are?

First you need to know they are coming through RM. It is possible they are with another company, as tracked items should be scanned in at the first point of arrival in the country. There is also the possibility that they were sent surface mail, which can take 6 to 8 weeks.

[wallop]

The USPS don't do surface mail anymore.