Saturday 14 January 2012

Gotta get this one off my chest..............................



I am absolutely seething with the latest reply received from Royal Mail.................a good number of you saw my post last weekend here and kindly left me your thoughts which were very helpful.

On Monday I wrote a concise letter to Royal Mail outlining my areas of complaint, provided copies of the receipts from the PO and also gave them the link to my post so they could read the various comments. They replied on Wednesday stating their system could not gain access to my blog so could I mail them the comments and also provide them with full details of the packages and recipients addresses which had been subjected to surcharges.

This I did the same day and yesterday received this answer.......................

I'm sorry to hear that you feel you've been incorrectly surcharged for a number of items - and for the further distress this caused you. I would therefore like to inspect the items to determine whether or not they have been correctly surcharged, and to identify why you may be experiencing repeat problems. Please could you send the surcharged items, together with a copy of this email, to the FreepostT address below, and I'll be in touch again once my enquiries are concluded.

Clearly the conduct their business on a Parallel Universe....................how on earth do they think I can obtain and return the packages some of which were sent several weeks ago to various recipients in the UK. I'm absolutely sure they realise that and their crazy suggestion gives them the perfect cop out.

They also suggest that a certain degree of "customer education is necessary"..................the steam just turned to thick smoke at this point. Not a mention of the Post Office making any mistakes in their weighing at either end of the postal process, or of course the package of cards they lost in October.

I'm not bothering with any more minions, my next letter goes to the top and by luck a good friend just happens to be the Consumer Editor for on the the National newspapers. So you can guess what activity my weekend holds.

OK, got that out of my system a bit so onto some craft and a Celebration of Nations which is the theme Nicola has chosen for us at Allsorts this week and what a perfect one with the Olympics on the horizon.

My card is pretty simple, but I had visualised it in my head weeks ago and I wanted to make the Olympic symbol the focal point along with the Tennyson verse which has been selected as the London motto for the event.

I cut the five circles in the appropriate colours on the Cricut and interlinked them, mounting them onto a piece of white card embossed with a cuttlebug folder. I printed the verse on the computer and cut with a Nestie. As I said a very simple card but which I hope makes a statement. 

Enjoy the weekend.

27 comments:

Janice said...

What a nightmare! Don't give up though, that's clearly what they want. As you say, you must take it higher until you get satisfaction. Good luck, Jx

Janice said...

...forgot to say how much I love your Olympic flag card - very current. Jx

Francesca said...

Fab card Brenda , Hope you finally get through to someone who knows a bit of common sense at royal mail

Hugs
Francesca

cheryl said...

this,is just brilliant Hun just love this hugs Cheryl xx

Marja's Stamp Addiction en Marja's Creativity said...

What a nightmare Brenda. But don't give up and i hope you get your satisfaction.
Your card is super with the olympic flag.
Lovely greet
Marja

Faye said...

Hiya Brenda. Oh here's a girl after my own heart, you go girl! I find this new weighing system very time consuming and frustrating (as do the counter staff I think, which is why they refuse individual receipts). And I have suffered with underpayment charges twice in as many weeks. Grrr!
Anyway, I just popped over to thank you for picking my card in your Top 5 at Allsorts, you've made my day. :)
Fabby card by the way. Loving the Olympic theme. Have a great weekend. xxx

Fliss said...

A great clean and simple card Brenda and just perfect for this Olympic year too.
Really sorry you've had Royal Mail issues and I know just how you feel as I had to pay a surcharge a while back and the person who sent it said the PO her end had said it was fine but the one here said it wasn't! I don't know about customer education but I think PO staff education is necessary!
That's even before the never ending saga of my daughter's pillow which they said was delivered (was not!), refused me compensation for and it then turned up back here 3 months later and it was clear from what was written on the parcel that a member of PO staff had been less then honest!
Rant over now!
Fliss xx

Unknown said...

Great card Brenda. I agree with the earlier comment about not giving up, as clearly this is their aim. If ever you need peeps to send emails or even letters of support for this issue then please get in touch because I, and I am sure others will support you wholeheartedly on this one. So back to crafting now!
Hugs
Dawn xxx

Crafty Loops said...

Terrific card Brenda. It seems to me that they didnt read your letter correctly and they think it was you that received the parcels incurring the surcharge. Keep at them Brenda, they get away with far too much. And as for their "customer education is necessary" comment, maybe if they educated their employees first there wouldnt be any problems to report in the first place. Flippin' uneducated twit cant even read a complaint letter properly!!! Opps, sorry Im fuming for you, lol. Hope you get things sorted.....keep us advised. Im very interested to see where this leads. Lee x

Crafty Loops said...

Ps....meant to say, Im glad the glossy accents worked on your stickpins. Its great stuff and doesnt take awful long to dry. Glad you got a satisfactory result. Lee x

Paula (PEP) said...

Speechless about the Post Office!! HOW??
Love the card & your striking presentation.
Paula (PEP)

Zoechaos said...

Not in the least surprised by the response you got from the RM it is keeping with my experience referred to previously. Of course they know they are asking the impossible their whole policy is to shift the blame away from them.

The sad fact is we all know we are being cheated by RM but they have a monopoly that is extremely hard to break, the investment needed to start a rival service is prohibitive and really would just be replacing one monster with another. It is sickening and demonstrates that we the consumer are lower than the lowest we are simply walking wallets feeding the empires of the great and ?good? With the postal service we have seen the decline of customer service and steep decline of standards and are powerless. Similar attitudes are common place Murdock, Maxwell and Suger spring to mind along with Branson. XOXO Zoe

pickle said...

I received a very similar letter when I complained about our postman crumpling everything up through my letterbox, breaking my gate over and over, not delivery the mail for over a week and never on a friday and saturday. Then try to shove 20 letters through the letter box at the same time, never knocked when there was a package just either lobbed it on the doorstep or pushed the note through the door,damaged parcels, lots of mail delivered to the incorrect addresses etc etc. I could go on all day but they basically asked me to provide the crumpled up letters( yes because I have just left them there all scrumpled up....obviously I don't need to straighten them out to open them and read because none will be important or anything! )Could I also provide a list of specific times and dates when all these things occurred (yes because I have nothing better to do with my time that sit in front of the letterbox waiting for the postman to annoy me). I got so fed up of going backwards and forwards in the end I just gave up. All I really was someone at the local sorting office to have a word with my postman!!

I wish you luck in taking in further and hope you do manage to get someone to take notice of your complaints.

Oh and you card is lovely xkerry x

Brenda Brown said...

Sounds like you have had some real problems to deal with Brenda, but like others have said, they want you to give up. An email of waffle from them is easier than trying to really sort it out - so glad you aren't letting them off the hook.
Great Olympic card you have made, love the cas look.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a lovely comment, I so appreciate it.
luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Crafting Queen said...

Can understand how angry you must be. Glad you are not giving up. Your card is really elegant, love it. Have a good weekend. Hugs Anesha

Jennifer said...

The mail system is often a very frustrating one! One would think that they would treat their customers better! I hope it all works out quickly for you and that you don't have to deal with this for much longer! Hugs

Lisa Jane said...

oh the reply doesn't surprise me ..they will string it out and cause you as much inconvenience as possible -hoping you will give up!
Love the idea of your card ..
Lisa x

Scrumplescrunch said...

OMG what a nightmare dealing with bureaucracy Brenda. You know what they are going to do; drag it out until you get fed-up and give in, all you Brits need to join together and send off a petition to your local MP and make a real ruckus, I know if it was here in NZ, some person would write to FAIR-GO which is a programme on TV that sorts out these complaints and problems for the complainant and it is soon sorted once they know it will be aired. I do hope you will have the patience to stick this out, as I feel it is going to be awhile!
Great card by the way.
Smiles:)

Merry said...

OMG....what a ridiculous reply you received Brenda....so glad to hear that you are going higher and hopefully find someone that can do something fix these problems.

A lovely card too.

lisa said...

I read your last post about the RM and read it to my Hubby and we were so busy talking about it I forgot to leave a comment!!! Senior moment!!
It sounds like you have a real jobsworth in your branch and have also managed to deal with another at the complaints office. Do they really read what they write... I think not. You really need to take this to the highest level and get the One show or Watchdog on the case!!
Good Luck with it all and I love your Olympic card btw!!!
Hugs Lisax

Lindsay Craftymonster81 said...

Fab elegant card and I am really sorry to hear that you are still getting problems from royal mail, those reply's are such a cop out, you would think it would make them look better as a company if they would just hold their hands up apologize and at the very least say they would investigate it. It is certainly not realistic for them to expect you to retrieve the parcels weeks later. I hope you manage to find an actual human being at royal mail who will understand how bad this is and try to do something about it, I wish you the best of luck with it.
Lindsay xx

Debs said...

What a fab idea Brenda and so perfectly executed :o)
Hope you get it sorted with RM :o(
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Debs xx

Shaz in Oz.CalligraphyCards said...

Hi B., Great to see you are all revved up for the 2012 Olympics ~ Quite frankly down here all the talk is to beat the socks off the Poms; but I am not sure. Usually the hosting team has extra kudos in moral boosting support...
Mm hope you beat the socks off the Royal mail with your endeavours - every blessing on it all and may it be resolved ie may the little man have some clout over the big guy - Royal mail! and so say all of us! love, Shaz in oz.x

Nannieflash said...

Hi Sweetheart yes I also had to pay extra postage on my Xmas card, I think they put the small stamps on your cards instead of the large card postage one, it was probably the person in the PO.
Love your Olymipic card its gorgeous. hugs Shirleyxxx

Hanneke said...

What a great card, love the theme. How rude are those people from the mail, rediculous that they expect you to send your sent packages :s. Good luck with this whole buisines. Hugs, Hanneke

Mummylade said...

your postal service really is the utter nightmare... how horribly rude they are, it's just incomprehensible!

MA-MI said...

I love simple cards and yours is so pretty! I'm sory to read about your p.o. problems, I hope that them are solved for the future.