2 Months to receive a 1st class letter (Royal Mail)

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Product:	Royal Mail
Date:	25/06/02 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: some post gets there on time

Disadvantages: can take upto 2 months to deliver a 1st class letter, blind postmen, stamps getting dearer every year

Up until i started selling on www.ebay.co.uk, I had always found the post office extremely helpful! I had loads of penpals from all over the globe and my letters used to take the average time for letters depending on what service used. But now i am sending letters and packages maybe upto 20 a month or so, and i cant honestly believe the service of Royal Mail or Parcel Force. I know they have lots of letters etc to post and some things ususally get lost - but surely they can find these lost things and as for the Royal Mail - if i was given £1 for everytime Royal Mail has cocked up my mail - I'd be richer than Bill Gates!!! Someone sent me a letter on the 23rd April 2002, the letter was clearly addressed with my full postal address and a 1st class stamp, but i received it on the 23rd June (2 months late). It had been to many parts of the UK, and had many stamps on it. I mean is it really that hard for the post men to find Peterborough if it is clearly marked in Cambridgeshire?
That is the first time something has taken so long to arrive. Its not like we were both out of the UK!!!
I had to send a cheque off to someone 3 times a couple of months ago as the person hadn't received any of them even though i'd sent something to this person a while before and it arrived there promptly!
Also, next door we have new neighbours moving in and for some reason (we've had no problemos with this before) all our mail (important or not very) is being put into next doors letterbox and their's is going into ours!!! Our neighbours are only there about once a week so it means i have to wait a week before i can even so much as look at my mail and by then i have probally got a negative feedback on ebay for not sending the item out when in fact i cant get the letter! I think im going to have to buy myself a fishing rod and fish for my post through their letterbox :). I cant understand why this is happening anyway - maybe we have a lazy post man. Its not like
the numbers aren't visible on the letters or the door as they are! Besides this has never happened to us before apart from a week ago!
Also if you'd like some advice - when sending letters through the post office, make sure you put the stamps on yourself as i have negatives from people saying there's less postage stamps when its not me who puts the stamps on - its the post office! Even if there's only 2p less stamps on they charge a handling fee of 50p so you have to pay 52p to them! I think they are money grabbers!
I think the Royal Mail is starting to slide downhill. They need workers who know where to put mail (e.g. the correct letterbox) and they need to find all the letters etc that are lost. Did you ever read the stories in the Sun paper where postcards sent hundreds of years ago are only just received? is that what will happen to the lost letters? But most of the time they do a good service - its just half of the time they dont! Are most of the post men blind enough to not see the numbers on the doors?

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