Royal Mail fined for failing to deliver: Are you happy with the service you receive?

  • last year
A wake up call for Royal Mail from Ofcom. The postal service has been hit by a five point six million pound fine for failing to meet first and second class delivery targets by what the regulator os calling "a significant and unexplained margin". Have you had any bad experiences with sending or receiving post? We're finding out.
Transcript
00:00 On the topic of Royal Mail, I would say it's down to them not looking after the staff when
00:07 they've had good staff. It's run by bad management, greedy management and should be abolished.
00:15 I've not got a bad word to say about the Royal Mail, for me anyway, but maybe other people
00:24 have a problem that I don't know about.
00:26 Are you happy with the service you're receiving?
00:29 I am, yeah. My postman's lovely and we always get our mail on time.
00:34 Under Ofcom's rules, Royal Mail is tasked with delivering at least 93% of first class
00:40 post within one working day and at least 98.5% of second class post within three working
00:46 days. But the latest data shows only 73.7% of first class and 98.7% of second class mail
00:53 was delivered on time.
00:56 To me, it's a 50/50. If it's severe, then yes. If it's not, then I think they should
01:03 just get their hands slapped and I'd say, "Right, don't do it again."
01:13 We've all been there, we've all paid an extortionate price for something that's sat in a sorting
01:21 room forever. If you're lucky, it gets delivered. Or you can try the private courier firms,
01:28 which are nearly as bad. Worst thing they ever did was sell Royal Mail off. I don't
01:35 think again there the service is going to get much better. But everyone needs to deliver
01:39 something and you have to pay the price.
01:43 When you get letters three and a half, four months later, you get postmen that don't put
01:50 the letters through the letter boxes. They've got keys for the blocks, but they're so lazy
01:53 you just put it outside the door and your letters go missing. It was back in the day
01:57 when Gyros were there, it'd be murder. But no.
02:02 I don't think Royal Mail's any Royal Mail anymore, is it? It's a company. We're under
02:07 the guise of Royal Mail. So yes, I think they probably are frightened because they aren't
02:14 reaching targets because that's what businesses are like. But to be honest, I wish they would
02:18 go back to being Royal Mail.
02:19 It was a much more reliable service than what it is now.
02:22 Because companies don't like paying the last mile, do they? Because that's the cost where
02:27 they've got postmen who deliver. Our postmen are second to none, but they're obviously
02:31 running around like lunatics because they've got to meet targets.
02:36 Regulator Ofcom said that Royal Mail has breached their obligations to customers, causing considerable
02:42 harm by failing to meet targets for delivery. The postal service has been slapped by a ÂŁ5.6
02:47 billion fine for the failures, which the regulator say Royal Mail did not take sufficient action
02:52 to prevent. Royal Mail bosses say the last year has been uniquely challenging after dealing
02:58 with weeks of strike action by staff, but that they are very disappointed by their performance.
03:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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