Tag: Postwatch

Complaints about lost, damaged and late post have rocketed by more than 300 per cent in two years and are likely to reach 40,000 by the end of the financial year, according to new figures from the independent postal service watchdog.
Postwatch, the organisation set up to monitor Royal Mail, handled 28,000 complaints last year, up from just 6,300 in 2002, and says complaints this year are already on course to reach 40,000 by April. Of the 28,000 complaints handled by the watchdog last year, only 88 were about companies other than Royal Mail. Officials said the failure of Royal Mail to hit any of its 15 performance targets was fuelling increases in complaints ranging from lost letters and parcels to problems with redirection. The number of complaints, contained in a National Audit Office report about the postal and energy watchdogs, will reignite anger about the standard of postal services after figures published this year suggested that 14.5 million letters are lost each year, with 60 per cent delivered to the wrong address.

Public dissatisfaction with the nation’s postal service is running at an all-time high – with a hotline set up to take complaints about wrongly delivered mail receiving more than 6,000 calls in four days, The Scotsman has learned.
Postwatch, the consumer watchdog that represents the interests of Royal Mail customers, was overwhelmed with calls after the launch of its “Stamp Out Misdelivered Mail” campaign. Angry customers complained about receiving letters addressed to strangers, having their post go missing and only receiving important items, such as bank statements and credit cards, because strangers forwarded them on. Postwatch had been expecting about 1,000 calls in the first week and was shocked by the scale of public response.