YOU HAVE YOUR SAY ON BRITAIN'S MAIL MISERY

THERE has been an extraordinary response to last week's Sunday Express
revelations on the woefully poor service offered by the Post Office.
Hundreds of readers contacted us with accounts of lost or delayed letters and costs incurred due to chaos within the postal system. Every week, a million
letters go missing and the number of first class letters that arrive late is
also increasing fast. Here are some of the letters that did manage to reach
us. RECENTLY I have sent several recorded delivery letters. About half have
not reached their destination. When I complain, I am told that there is no
guarantee of delivery. So is the Post Office capable of offering a
recorded service? It seems very bad that I have to pay extra to prove that they can neither deliver a letter nor record the delivery at a letter's
destination. Patricia Carter, Luton, Bedfordshire I MADE a complaint last
Tuesday regarding non-delivery or late delivery of my mail. This was being delivered around 2.30pm during the last three weeks.I was told that delivery of mail should be between 7.30am and 9.30am. I was also informed that first class mail was not guaranteed to arrive the next day – the delay may be two to three days. Could somebody please clarify this? Jill Harrel, Royston, Hertfordshire I USED to work part time in a Royal Mail sorting office. There are two reasons
why letters vanish: they are chewed up by automatic sorting machines (I
once found half of a £12,000 cheque in the bottom of a sorting machine) or very
small envelopes just get lost because they fall through holes in bags and
end up on the floor then get kicked around. The Royal Mail must educate the
public to stop sending cards in envelopes with the flap tucked in as smaller letters often end up inside and get delayed. This is especially true around Christmas. If you want to send something "important" by post, put it in an A4 envelope or padded packet bag because these are either too big or bulky to go into the mechanical system and have to be sorted by hand. This is common knowledge among Royal Mail employees but it is not made public. Name and address supplied
ALL those people who currently pay credit card and utility bills by post
obviously have bank accounts, so why not do it the easy and safe way by
setting up a direct debit? I pay all my bills this way, and no longer have
the tiresome job of writing out cheques, buying stamps and posting, and I know
that my bills will always be paid on time. It's much less hassle. Edgar
Salamon, Cardiff I USED to enter competitions by postcard but after having
several returned to me instead of being sent to the competiton address, I have stopped.
Complaints were fobbed off as "mistakes" made by sorting office staff. John C. Kent,London SW6 IN defence of the mail sorting system, as far as I was aware
when working for the Post Office, 93 per cent of first class mail was delivered the next day.
Of the seven per cent shortfall, in many cases the senders were the
authors of their own misfortune by writing illegible addresses, ambiguous and/or no addresses at all. In particular, I saw many postcards with flowing stories about the holiday on the left hand side of the card but which left the
right hand side blank. I've often wondered how many of the failed deliveries are
due to the system or down to the sender. I've never had any trouble. Roger Church, Exeter, Devon ONE million letters a week disappear? If the number is known, why do we not know where they are? Does the sorting machine eat them? Are they put into empty properties? Delivered to the wrong address? Are they eaten by the dog? Wake up, Post Office. E-mail is already eating into your work. Private deliveries will make it worse, and what will happen to your job security then? Mrs A Brooks, Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset I AM a counter clerk in a
village sub post office situated inside a convenience store, and that is who pays me – not the Post Office. I receive an hourly rate of £3.95, less than I'd get cleaning. The office I work in has been short-staffed for more than a year – is it any wonder? If the problem of staffing was rectified, at least the queues would go down. Name and address
NEWSEXPRESS ON SUNDAY, 01st April 2001