Royal Fail's idea of fragile handling

[rab]

Received this Ebay order through Royal Fail this morning.

 

Either the postie can't read or they have a different idea of fragile from mine.

 

Thankfully the sender had packed it well so the contents were not damaged.

 

[Sprintex]

You think they have time to read those labels? 

 

It's up to the sender to protect it adequately in the first place, most sorting is either done by machine, or by staff who don't have the time to stand around reading labels apart from the one telling them where it needs to go.

 

 

Paul

[John M Upton]

My very good local Postmaster told me that whilst the human taking the parcel from you at the point of posting and the human at the other end delivering it to its destination can easily read and heed fragile warnings, the automated sorting equipment can't read and just treats every item the same, fragile or not.

 

Whilst on the subject, I launched a claim with ParcelForce last week for compensation for a damaged item.  Filled in their badly designed and long winded online form and have not heard a dickie bird from them since.

 

How long does it usually take for them to cough up?

[kevinlms]

12 hours ago, John M Upton said:

 

 

Whilst on the subject, I launched a claim with ParcelForce last week for compensation for a damaged item.  Filled in their badly designed and long winded online form and have not heard a dickie bird from them since.

 

How long does it usually take for them to cough up?

Depends on how good the machine is at reading your form!

[jonny777]

Surely, if the item is fragile - packing it in a Jiffy bag with some bubble-wrap is not the best way to send it? 

 

Adding a 'Fragile' label is hardly going to help its process through a couple of mail centres.

 

Fragile items should be in a box, or surrounded by layers of stout cardboard.  

 

 

[John M Upton]

Some padded bags are just paper envelopes with a bubble wrap inner.  Whilst I will always try and reuse padded bags wherever possible, at end of life I strip these down, paper can then be recycled and bubble wrap part used for packing filler.

 

Those polystyrene quavers are a pain in the proverbial but not as bad as a densely packed parcel full of shredded paper which explodes all over the place on opening!

 

As an aside, still not heard a dickie bird from Parcelforce about my claim. I presume they have just chucked it in the shredder...

[Fat Controller]

2 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Some padded bags are just paper envelopes with a bubble wrap inner.  Whilst I will always try and reuse padded bags wherever possible, at end of life I strip these down, paper can then be recycled and bubble wrap part used for packing filler.

 

Those polystyrene quavers are a pain in the proverbial but not as bad as a densely packed parcel full of shredded paper which explodes all over the place on opening!

 

As an aside, still not heard a dickie bird from Parcelforce about my claim. I presume they have just chucked it in the shredder...

I don't re-use many envelopes myself, but advertised once in our village newsletter that I had plenty of bags and boxes available; I now  have someone who picks them up on a regular basis. In the past, when 'Jiffy Bags' were rare and expensive, the Rev. Lewis and myself had some 'circuit-working' ones, with labels in a plastic cover, allowing them to be slid out and turned over. One of these lasted over two years, on a fortnightly Bristol- Swansea flow.

[hayfield]

On 30/05/2019 at 15:26, rab said:

Received this Ebay order through Royal Fail this morning.

 

Either the postie can't read or they have a different idea of fragile from mine.

 

Thankfully the sender had packed it well so the contents were not damaged.

 

 

I would imagine that if the item was damaged the Royal Mail would pay up. In the past it would have had a sticker on saying damaged in transit. Any form of transit (forget Royal Mail and other couriers) will have a percentage of the goods damaged in transit, nothing is risk free

 

All carriers have their issues and the trouble is most model railway items are both small enough and heavy enough to be thrown from one side of the room to the other, or in a large bag which is either thrown about or have equally heavy bags thrown on it. Then there is the rotary sorting machines

 

May or may not have been the case with this packet in that sticky tape on this packet or one next to it got attached, or a fold in the tape getting caught, causing the damage. I always try to ensure all tape is stuck down properly and folds in tape are covered over with a second piece of tape

 

 

[Jonboy]

With the polystyrene chips try dropping one in a glass of water, if it dissolves it is wheat based and can be got rid of either by soaking or composting(many warehouses now use it). If it doesn’t it is polystyrene and needs to go into normal waste streams.

[petethemole]

2 hours ago, Jonboy said:

With the polystyrene chips try dropping one in a glass of water, if it dissolves it is wheat based and can be got rid of either by soaking or composting(many warehouses now use it).

Or put them in a bag and leave them in an area known to be frequented by mice.

Edited June 15, 2019 by petethemole

[lightengine]

My wife showed me a photo yesterday of a Singer sewing machine, manual type, sent by courier not fail mail.

On its arrival the handle, wheel and the 4/5 piece wheel support structure had been totally smashed.

[choo1choo]

 

 

On receipt of most of my interweb purchases I feel like getting smashed.

[BR60103]

I knew a fellow who had a record mail-order business. I went with him to the post office once.  They took his bag, dumped it through a hole in the floor and kicked in anything that missed.

 

His LPs were wrapped in cardboard to a 2''-3" thickness.

 

[Steamport Southport]

Never write or put fragile on a parcel.

 

It's an open invitation for disgruntled workers, particularly agency staff on zero hours contracts to take their grievances out on something. Couriers are far worse.

 

 

 

Jason

[davknigh]

I have had the dubious pleasure of seeing a couple of my engines delivered by a Canada Post sub-contractor. They described a lovely arc as they were launched from about 5 metres away and landed on my concrete porch. Fortunately, they had been shipped by careful suppliers and survived undamaged. Yelling at the delivery guy would have been a waste of time as he was long gone by the time I got to the door and complaining to Canada Post would have been an equal waste of time and energy. 

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Sprintex]

Couriers are fond of chucking things around, there was a famous one here where they tried to throw a parcel over a locked gate so it was "safe" in the owner's garden. Unfortunately they managed to throw it onto the roof instead !!

 

On a lighter note I do know someone who also had their new loco thrown over the front hedge by a courier - he was gardening at the time and it hit him on the head  Lucky it was N gauge!

 

 

Paul

[Colin_McLeod]

On 30/05/2019 at 15:26, rab said:

Received this Ebay order through Royal Fail this morning.....

 

 

On 15/06/2019 at 11:48, lightengine said:

My wife showed me a photo yesterday of a Singer sewing machine, manual type, sent by courier not fail mail.

On its arrival the handle, wheel and the 4/5 piece wheel support structure had been totally smashed.

 

You should both use Royal Mail instead.

 

Royal Fail and fail mail are apparently not as good.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Or even Parcelforce - which despite their title so easily mangled into sounding like specialists in getting difficult anal suppositories inserted - have done the parcel delivery task right for me on every occasion.

[John M Upton]

Nearly two months now since my claim went in against ParcelForce for damage to an item in transit and still silence...

[njee20]

On 17/06/2019 at 18:04, Sprintex said:

Couriers are fond of chucking things around, there was a famous one here where they tried to throw a parcel over a locked gate so it was "safe" in the owner's garden. Unfortunately they managed to throw it onto the roof instead !!

Quite a few of those:

 

[IWCR]

That was an excellent throw.  Exactly positioned to be reached from an opening window.

..........  or placed there from the window to make a suitable picture.

 

Pete

[John M Upton]

Just had Royal Mangle crush another loco, cue a refund and the sad remnants heading back to my spares box.  Evidence seems to suggest that at some point it was either heavily dropped or something large and heavy landed on it with some force.

 

Should I bother lodging a claim?  My last claim I lodged with them was completely ignored so I am thinking what is the point?

[YesTor]

On 17/06/2019 at 15:44, Steamport Southport said:

Never write or put fragile on a parcel.

 

It's an open invitation for disgruntled workers, particularly agency staff on zero hours contracts to take their grievances out on something. Couriers are far worse.

 

 

I have often thought this too, although you need to be careful with this as some couriers actually state in their terms and conditions that if 'FRAGILE' items are not labelled as such then any claim for compensation may be refused.  This is certainly true for Royal Mail with vinyl LPs, in that the package must be labelled "Records, do not bend", as otherwise any claim will likely be declined.  I always find this policy laughable, as surely it should be pretty obvious to even the most brain-dead dinosaur that any solid, hard, flat package measuring 12" x 12" should not be bent in two and unceremoniously shoved through a letterbox.  But wait, that would require the deployment of a minimal level of common sense, something that staff are not encouraged to use these days, it seems...  

 

24 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

 

Should I bother lodging a claim?  My last claim I lodged with them was completely ignored so I am thinking what is the point?

 

After losing the parcel in the first instance it is then not unheard of for Royal Mail to lose the claim as well.  So if submitting a claim via post then be sure to retain a copy.  I've had many a 'laugh' at this one, as if losing the item itself in the first place isn't enough...  

 

In all fairness though I do personally feel that Royal Mail have improved somewhat over the last couple of years, especially since the new measures that are in place with regard to scanning/tracking etc.  No system is ever going to be perfect and the odd mishap is always going to occur somewhere, but admittedly it can be very frustrating when things do go wrong. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by YesTor

[ColinK]

Here Royal Mail are pretty good.  But today I had a parcel delivered by Hermes while I was out.  Found the card through the letterbox, but took quite a while to find the parcel.  It had been thrown over our 6 foot high wall into our concrete yard. The parcel contained a pan with glass lid - somehow it survived.  It did knock over a garden ornament, but that somehow survived too.  Anything valuable I get delivered to work.

[Bucoops]

I've had an incoming packet from Dart Castings not arrive - first Royal Mail issue in I don't know how long