After Christmas, I used Royal Mail's Special Delivery Service to send cash to help someone out who needed the help urgently.
Special Delivery is recommended as the best way to send cash and the guarantee is midday, the following day from posting.
Although the recipient waited at home for the Jiffy envelope to be delivered, he rang me to say that it hadn't arrived.
Following this, we each made many phone-calls asking what could have happened. The track and trace system showed that the item had reached the Delivery Office in the main town near it's destination, and said it was processing through the system.
Each phone-call to customer services met with no luck, except to say that I should wait for about 2 weeks and then I could complain if it hadn't arrived by then. I asked that surely, if it should have been delivered by midday the following day from posting, it should be regarded as lost from then. I was told that if I sent in a form before the approx. 2 weeks had passed, the form would just be sent back to me.
I was very worried and had sleepless nights wondering what could have happened and felt I had been robbed when trying to help someone out.
Eventually the time came when I could fill out a form to send in to say that the Special Delivery hadn't been delivered in the time guaranteed.
After sending it, I received a phone-call saying the item had finally been delivered.
In subsequent communications, I received written apologies and £10 compensation plus postage paid which was £5.
Because the item was eventually delivered, I cannot claim that it was lost, although it did seem to be lost or missing when it wasn't delivered at the guaranteed time.
Last time I sent a Special Delivery item, delivering to the recipient was unsuccessful because delivery was attempted at about 5 a.m.
When speaking to someone at Royal Mail Customer Services about the latest problem, I mentioned about the very early attempted delivery, (so early in the morning,) when I had sent something else on another occasion. It was confirmed that it was wrong, which I, myself, had thought at the time, but I didn't send in a complaint.
I always thought that Special Delivery must be reliable because, in the past, I had found that Registered Post was always reliable and Special Delivery took the place of that service.
It looks as though I have to accept what has happened as I am tired of it all now. I had written to say that £10 didn't seem to be adequate for the inconvenience and stress caused to two people. (Even the envelope containing the reply from Royal Mail arrived completely opened across the top and the date stamp broken.)
I hope that, by writing this here, I am helping others to be aware that the next day guarantee for Special Delivery, sadly,
doesn't really mean very much.
I can't give any rating for the after-care service, as the system of having to wait so long to get Royal Mail to look for the item seemed to be too long. I felt that, once Royal Mail was informed the item hadn't been delivered by the guaranteed time, that should have been the time to start investigating.
Rating for using Special Delivery ..I'm sorry to have to say that I can't give it any points either. How can I when the system failed?