Does Royal Mail ever fail to card the recipient?

[TooNice]

I've ordered two things recently, one was meant to be dispatched last Friday, and the other Saturday. The one on Saturday was definitely sent by RM 1st Class, and I presume the other one too. Being in central London at the moment, I would have expected the parcels by now, but nothing so far. Things were never that slow even in 2nd Class back in Aberdeen. I've triple-checked the address I am staying at, and there was no card or postman as far as I know (I am usually in until mid-afternoon).

[directhex]

i failed to get carded once

more common IME is carding without knocking or ringing the doorbell

[TooNice]

Thanks. What happened then?

I don't suppose I can just walk to my local branch (where I am usually asked to pick up from) and ask if they've seen anything without a card?

(The one posted on Saturday just got delivered. Time to make a phone call to check verify the delivery service used for the other item)

[ACiD303]

Royal Mail are hugely reliable in my area... never failed to be carded....whereas I share your sentiments with City Link even though some people say they're great in their area...number of times Ive had to get things resent to me because they didn't card me.

[Mike Fishcake]

Yep - they certainly do. I've had it a few times; luckily I was expecting them all so when I asked the sender where they were, I contacted the sorting office and they did have them there. I didn't need a card, just took down ID and proof of address.

[Merlin4458]

been waiting for a parcel too. Im in kingston so kinda london. Was meant to be here on the 18th.... No card, bought from amazon seller

[C-Bag7]

been waiting for a parcel too. Im in kingston so kinda london. Was meant to be here on the 18th.... No card, bought from amazon seller

City link are terrible at carding me, they always say they have carded but never do. The post office however are usually pretty good but i have had several instances where i was receiving sign for deliveries which have been left in an out house with no signature being taken. This happened with a special delivery which the sum of £5.70 was paid and it was supposed to get to me before 1pm and was dumped in my shed at 3.30pm.

[DDY]

Some time ago the normal postman took a few weeks off and a rude little sod replaced him. I heard the front gate and saw the replacement postie through the front window, I knew I had a parcel that day... As soon as he got to the front door he wrote the card and shoved it through the letter box and left! I was at the door in 2 secs and asked "Where's my parcel?", he grunted and pulled it out his bag. I had a few more packages due in a few days and unsurprisingly they never turned up, no card either. It wasn't the first time I didn't get a card so went down the sorting office a week later and there they were.

[TooNice]

RM was great in Aberdeen. But I am putting a question mark where I am staying in London. Recorded/Special Delivery definitely work fine, and it's a big plus that I am only walking distance away from where I would need to pick up something that's delivered when no one's home.

There is one item I ordered on Ebay that was never received, but I was too busy to chase it up at the time, and it was a very low value item (USB cable). I kinda gave the seller the benefit of doubt even though he never replied to the one email I sent asking about the item because he had a perfect record, left me a positive for paying promptly, and it would just seem odd that someone would risk their perfect record over 2-3 quid.

I was a bit more worried this time since the items were of bigger value, but I am not dealing with Ebay/personal sellers this time. Still, I wonder what's happening to DV247 in North London. They usually pick up calls, but no one seem to be picking up today and when I called on Tuesday.

[Agent]

Check your neighbours just in case its been left there

[TooNice]

Ah, so I found out the item dispatched on Friday was done via UPS (and not RM as I thought they might) and UPS couldn't find my address. From the sound of it, DV247 might have missed a line when they passed my information over (not sure how that happened, the address was fine on the invoice).

[PeterStoba]

Both royal mail and citylink are excellent in my area.

Although once they left it next door and didn't tell me

[Fatboy40]

Yes.

Their service has plummeted to my house so far this year, I've wasted so much time trying to collect parcels from them that they can't find, and then I'm on the virge or writing letters of complain etc and then they magicaly turn up !.

[Whiternoise]

I recently had an interesting one with RM.

Got a couple of Special Delivery letters for my Birthday, since the post naturally arrived around midday i wasn't around to get it. Got the cards and popped online to sort out redelivery. So, i got it sent to the nearest post office, waited the 48 hours and went down. Only to be told rather curtly that "there are no redeliveries here", after a bit of wrangling it turns out that they've had a lot of people asking for redelivered parcels only to find that RM's system is completely up the creek and they're all still at the sorting office.

This is of course the sorting office where they all sod off home at 2 in the afternoon so you have to be up at 6 to collect anything to fit in with a vaguely normal working lifestyle.

CityLink however has been excellent in my area, they card pretty much every time and we just call up the automated service and collect on the same day. Open till 10 or something like that which is nice

[staker]

i have found the royal mail to be quite bad in recent years losing many of my ebay parcels etc... I will only use recorded now.

[TooNice]

Well, I take it back. RM seems okay for me. But UPS is hopeless!

07/23/2008 3:49 P.M. THE RECEIVER IS NOT LISTED ON THE BUILDING DIRECTORY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THE INFORMATION AND COMPLETE DELIVERY.

7/24/2008 10:11 A.M. THE RECEIVER'S ADDRESS IS INCOMPLETE. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THE ENTIRE ADDRESS AND COMPLETE THE DELIVERY. / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED

07/25/2008 1:19 P.M. A CORRECT STREET NUMBER IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION

And what happens when I put my post code on RM's website? Every comes out fine. And I just called them yesterday to say that there is no 'street number', the whole street is just one bloc of flats and they just need to go to the end of the street to find the right flat number!