Ok, need to let of a bit of steam.

I know it's Christmas, I know they are busy etc...

But what the hell is going on at the Post Office at the moment ???

I am not sure what the postal service is like in the rest of the world, but here in the UK 1st class used to mean pretty much next day. I have sent several things over the past few weeks, all of which have seen massive delays...

Sent a letter 1st class 10 days ago, still not there!
Sent an order 1st class to local supplier about 15 miles away from me 3 days ago, still not there!
Was sent a 1st class parcel 4 days ago from Ripon, about 25 miles away from me, still not here!
Going by the feedback I am getting from Amazon customers, a Standard Parcel is taking between 8 and 10 days to deliver!

It's now just after 14:00 and we haven't had our delivery for today yet, yesterday we had 2 deliveries before 11. Is it just me or does the Royal Mail suck big time at the moment?

Also on a side rant, did you know the cheapest you can now send a parcel is £4.20 and there is only 10p different between 1st and 2nd class.

Is this just me? Rant over (for now!)

Cheers

Cris.

I've actually been surprised at the efficiency of the USPS this Christmas season. No slowdowns that I've noticed at all.

I'll confirm what Bitt said for the most part. My orders sent to the US have been getting there more quickly than in past years given the typical holiday rush. However, there have been a couple which have taken weeks. One of which has already necessitated sending out a replacement package.

Mail delivery varies wildly around the world and there are more variables than I care to imagine. It's an insanely complex logistics problem and it's amazing things actually get anywhere.

As a reminder, I'm shipping from Canada. I've had some packages in the past couple of weeks reach UK addresses in 5 days. A recent one hit an address in the Netherlands in 4 days. 4 to 7 business days is my quoted "typical" time, but now and then I also see a curve-ball and 3 or 4 week delay.

In the past few years I've seen some problem countries. They include Italy, Spain and Russia. I would say that I've also had more problems with US deliveries than anywhere else, but that's not fair because the US accounts for so much more of my volume (and it's such a large country with seemingly varying mail standards from coast to coast).

Cris

http://www.interparcel.com/

Yeah, what is happening to the mail? I generally get very good service because I am in London but recently things have definitely been rubbish here too. I ordered something first class mail which was despatched on Monday, and only got it today (Friday). Really useless.

For parcels I sometimes use http://www.parcel2go.com/ which looks similar to Interparcel. Convenient and reliable.

Actually, the US Mail is one of the few local services that is pretty standard coast to coast. Were you thinking of anything in particular?

Mail to the USA generally takes longer for stuff that I send, than mail to any other country on the planet that I mail to. Including the UK, Italy, France, Norway, and Australia.

Ditto for the incoming direction.

Cheers

I was referring to Bruno's comment:

I know the USPS is supposed to be standardized, but the level of service just isn't the same across the whole country. Mail in general is hit or miss, but I've often found wild discrepancy with seemingly random US destinations.

Package to up-state New York ends up taking 3 weeks while another to California sent on the same day takes 4 days.

Some of it is going to be due to routing and I have absolutely no idea how mail is routed out of Canada. I can add it to the few other things I don't get. Like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Will a parcel being shipped by USPS get delivered by Royal Mail in the UK?

I'm awaiting the delivery of my Saleae Logic. But looking at the tracking they attempted to deliver it to my work today, but for some reason they were unable to deliver. Nobody on reception seems to know anything about it, so I'm thinking they couldn't actually find the address (think big glass building in the middle of the city centre with it's own post code!).

I'm concerned that the fscktards at the Royal Mail will end up sending the bloody thing back to San Francisco.

What's the best way to get in touch with them? Preferably in the UK?

EDIT: Interestingly, from reading the dev blog it appears that Saleae have had loads of trouble with USPS especially overseas deliveries.

Yes, a parcel sent by USPS will be delivered by either the Royal Mail or Parcel Force. Royal Mail do an online redelivery service now, maybe it's worth giving that a try?

I do use Parcel2go.com to send large parcels, but I think their cheapest rate is around the £8 mark. You also have to be in for them to collect it, which is not always possible.

I can understand why there would be a delay in parcels sometimes, but for a letter to get to the next city seems to be pretty simple to me, and in the past if I posted at 17:00 in Leeds it would be on the mat in time for opening the next day in Bradford.

After I posted this, my postman rang my bell. He had something else I had ordered and was sent on Monday, basically taking 5 days door to door 1st class. Still no sign of my item from Ripon sent on the same day. He did comment that the sorting office was clear, and the delays were happening further back in the chain in the central sorting office. I just don't understand how we have let the Royal Mail get so bad. To me this seems to be yet another thing we invented and we are now rubbish at, like Cricket, Football and Rugby. He did comment that everyone is saying the same thing to him, so it's not just me.

Cheers

Cris.

I expect this is the part where the Royalmail(?) send you a postcard with details on how to pay import duty before they finally deliver the goods. There's a nifty (but legitimate) admin fee to be earned in doing this.

The English invented mail? I think not.

Wikipedia credits Iran (Persia) on having the first (credible) recorded postal system around 500BC.

However, I think he probably means the General Post Office (GPO) circa 1600's. It's rather sad to see the GPO site nowadays merely as a shopping portal http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po.

Its Christmas and they're overwhelmed by the deluge of cards and packages. Happens every year to a certain extent. I guess its especially bad this year.

Did they not invent chain mail? Or chain letters?

I think we did invent the stamp, and therefore the modern way of sending mail ??? That is what I was going for, not the fact that we were the first nation to send a written message to another human.

Cheers

Cris.

Maybe the Royal Mail does need to consult the USPS on how to deliver mail faster.

I love the internet

Cheers

Cris.

Can someone tell my why companies like the royal mail have to hide seemingly useful human beings behind automated call handling systems?

I took me longer to traverse the options list than it did to actually speak to someone and get the complete UK tracking info including the Royal Mail tracking number, along with the phone number of the depot that is currently holding the package.

I often wonder that myself.

I have recently been impressed by O2's customer service, some basic options (ie sales or technical) and you are straight through to a real life person who knows what they are doing. Brilliant.

Another thing that annoys me about delivery companies is that you need the tracking number, there are a few out there that only need your postcode and house number to find your package, why can't they all do that?

Cheers

Cris.

Exchange of key material. I wouldn't want a system where anybody who happened to know that I was expecting a package, could get it delivered to an arbitrary alternative address.

Peter

I can only add that I went to school with Rowland Hill's Great, Great Grandsons!
I'm doing my family tree at the moment, and I've made the discovery that I'm 1/4 Welsh and that one of my ancestors was given as a train driver in the 1861 census - this explains much!

I think that explains a little more

Cheers

Cris.

PS - I'm 1/4 Irish so I'm a fine one to talk

If it seemed slow, then perhaps it's because of the recent triple undersea cable cut that is impacting telecomms to/from India.

I'm 1/8th a McCarthy, so I'm not too far behind you!

Well, the only thing that the stamp did was allow for mail prepaid by the sender. Certainly turned out to be significant (it created the ability for there to be junk mail, for one), but people certainly sent letters before there were stamps. Think of the mass of epistolary novels that were written in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

I was actually pleasantly surprised when I spoke to an English lady. Although she did sound like she was from Leeds so the language barrier was still an issue.....

The one thing that caused me more bother than anything else, apart from Tetley's, when I first came from the idyllic southlands was that, in Leeds, "while" is used instead of "until", don't ask me why, as in "He won't be in WHILE after lunch.
"Do not cross the road WHILE the lights are red" must have murdered millions, on its inception.

...in much the same way, presumably, that email created spam!

Nobody credits Rowland Hill with the inception of mail, just its feasibility and popularity, it was the province of the rich, in much the same way that couriers would be if you took away a door-to-door postal service now.

We had a decent amount of snow fall yesterday afternoon, and I was scheduled to get a few packages delivered. I decided to go skiing and enjoy the foot of powder, and when I returned home nothing was delivered. Then I checked the tracking page and noticed UPS was in a state of emergency.