Just had to complain to the Royal Mail about the late delivery of a letter sent by Guaranteed Next Day Delivery.
Said item was posted by me at 3.40pm on Wednesday (4th). This was an ISA application for a client so HAD to get to the Plan managers by midnight the next day (5th). It was only going to Chelmsford. I was informed by the Plan managers that they only got it today - signed for at 2.06 AM. Checking the Royal Mail tracking service it appears that it got to the Medway sorting office at 6.30pm on the 4th but delivered to Chelmsford at 10.48 PM on the 5th. I have put in a refund request (£6.50) but it is much more about my client missing the end of the tax year so rang the complaints line. I was told that the recipient company address is a BOX Number so post is held there ALL DAY for someone there to collect it, and so its the Plan mangers fault for not picking it up until this morning. I admit that I have not yet spoken to them to see if this is true, but seeing as it was the end of the tax year & they had staff working all night I doubt very much that they didn't go there at least once during the 5th. All the person I complained to at RM could say that the Chelmsford sorting office tracked the item in at 10.48Pm as
" they know the receiving company always pick up their post once a day, late at night" ...........wtf ????
The best bit is they logged my complaint, but are not going to do anything AT ALL as they have not broken their rules & it is the fault of the receiving company for daring to have a PO Box & (in her words) only collecting their post the next day.
WTAF
So GUARANTEED NEXT DAY DELIVERY is really GUARANTEE TO DELIVER IT TO THE LOCAL SORTING OFFICE ONLY.
f**kers !!!!
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I rang the client mid March suggesting that we meet to review his ISA & to discuss the tax year's allowance. He said that he would get back to me - not hearing back I e-mailed him a week later giving dates I was available & he finally rang me last Thursday (day before the Bank Holiday) & I agreed to meet him on Tuesday. I posted his application the next day.
Plan mangers don't accept emails & need a "wet" signature on paper applications. Can do it online but client would need to send funds electronically but client didn't want t do it that way.
Yes, it was signed for at 2 in the morning. Staff were working all night to make sure they had everything dealt with by 11.59pm on the 5th. It appears they collect their post from a PO Box so no idea when they went but they were making sure they had everything for that day before the deadline.
However, once it's in the postal system, Royal Mail is not at fault - they've taken it as far as they can. The plan manager is to blame for having the PO Box. If they used their own address, it would have arrived on time.
"I was told that the recipient company address is a BOX Number so post is held there ALL DAY for someone there to collect it, and so its the Plan mangers fault for not picking it up until this morning."
I don't understand your logic. The PO delivered it to the address. The address is a PO Box.
If the company don't collect their mail from their PO Box surely it is down to them ?
If it had sat in the box uncollected for a week, would you still blame the PO ?
Was there a guaranteed time?
In the first instance Royal Mail do NOT deliver mail that has to be signed for to PO Boxes, for obvious reasons......namely that there will be no one present to sign for it.
I believe I'm right in saying guaranteed next day items need to be signed for....therefore how could they deliver the item.
In fact I'm at a loss as to know who at Post Office Counters accepted the item knowing it was destined for a PO Box requiring a signature!
I've spoken to the client & informed him that he missed last years ISA but he realisrs that he did leave it a bit late & wasn't probably going to maximise this years allowance in any case - so I can breathe a sigh of relief & know now for the future.
The thing is, with a PO Box number, the box holder gets a choice as to whether to have mail delivered in the normal way or to have it retained by Royal Mail pending collection. In the light of the likely volumes, I'd be very surprised if said company usually pick up their own mail - why would you?
But with the significance of the date they should have had a special set up in place to collect mail before the deadline. You may wish to take this up with the company themselves as it seems that their systems & controls are a bit lacking and see what they say. (This from the ombudsman: ...the consumer was unable to use their ISA allowance (or part of it) for that particular tax year - and could be disadvantaged as a result. Where we are satisfied that this situation arose because of an error by the financial business, we will consider whether compensation is appropriate. Our usual approach is to tell the financial business to compensate the consumer for any financial loss they are likely to incur - as well as for any distress and inconvenience that may have been caused.) On the one hand it seems that the business should have collected said item before midnight, so they are at fault. But on the other, I seem to recall that the HMRC rules re the ISA deadline means the application must be actually PROCESSED before midnight on 5th.
So you really were not playing safe. If it didn't get to the Chelmsford sorting office until 10:48pm then you were probably already stuffed.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/24089/victorian-mail-delivery-12-times-each-day