POSTICHE GUARANTEES

My vast international readership will be viewing with growing concern the lack of any update on the dispute raging between me and Royal Mail as first illustrated in the posting 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' of April 26th last.

Royal Mail did indeed reply to my letter and there have been further exchanges since. Here is the correspondence that followed during this month:

Royal Mail Headquarters
5th Floor
148 Old Street
LONDON EC1V 9HQ

12 May 2009
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Dear Mr Gilbert

Thank you for your letter of 26 April addressed to Donald Brydon. I have been asked to investigate your complaint and reply to you on his behalf.

May I begin by saying how sorry I am to hear that you have found our Special Delivery Service so disappointing. I fully appreciate the fact that you used this service specifically for the purpose of being able to confirm the item had been delivered the next working day unfortunately, we were unable to achieve this on this occasion.

I appreciate your definition of the term “guarantee” however, I should point out that we did in fact carry out the action you asked us to, by attempting to deliver the item by 1pm. At this point I should also explain that we offer a guaranteed delivery time, it would be impracticable to offer a guaranteed delivery, as there will always be occasions when we cannot accomplish this. The terms and conditions of the Special Delivery service state that if we fail to deliver your item by the delivery deadline, we will refund the postage in full. However, the guarantee cannot apply if no one is available or willing to sign for the item. On the reverse of the Special Delivery receipt customers are advised to check these terms and conditions. This can be done by means of our Special Delivery leaflet, which is available from any Post Office Counter.

Regarding the “While you were out card”, the postman responsible for the attempted delivery is confident that a card was left. Whilst, I accept that people make mistakes, there is no evidence to suggest that the correct procedure was not followed in this instance.

Turning if I may to the problems you experienced with our Customer Service representatives. All our staff are trained to a very high standard and should be able to deal with a customer enquiry in a polite and professional manner, consequently, it is extremely disappointing to hear that this has not been a customer’s perception. Under the circumstances I can only apologise unreservedly for the inadequacies you identified. Particularly with regard to the failure of a supervisor to leave a message on your answer phone. I fully appreciate the fact that this will have done little to restore your confidence in our services. However, I can assure you that we take such reports of failure very seriously as they may identify a need for further staff training.

Perhaps I should take this opportunity to explain that very few members of our staff have direct telephone lines. Whilst, some people do not like the use of automated telephone systems, they do save both our customers and staff a great deal of time routing the caller to the person best equipped to deal with their enquiry. However, I am sorry to hear that you find the system unsatisfactory.

I have enclosed a cheque for £7.00 to cover the cost of bringing this matter to our attention. Whilst, the Special Delivery Service was performed to a satisfactory standard, it appears that your subsequent enquiries were not dealt with to the very high standard our customers have every right to expect.

I trust you will accept this gesture of our goodwill along with my sincere apologies for any trouble and inconvenience we have caused you. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and if I can offer any help or advice in the future please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Yours sincerely

Joan Siddron
Assistant to Board Members

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May 16th 2009


Dear Ms Siddron,

Thank you for your very comprehensive response of 12th inst to my letter to the Chairman of 26th ultimo regarding my experience of the Special Delivery service.

I am grateful for the cheque, though it ought not to have been withheld until the matter was escalated to the Chairman’s office. Moreover, you will perhaps understand if I suggest that the sound of it entering my account was reminiscent of a stable door being shut etc. You cannot know the discomfort caused to several individuals by the ramifications of Royal Mail’s failure to deliver the letter in question and no price can be placed upon that.

But the tenor of your argument suggests that this compensation is more in recognition of my treatment at the hands of Customer Services than of any sense that I might have been grievously misled by the claims made for the Special Delivery service. I demur.

Your third paragraph concludes: “On the reverse of the Special Delivery receipt customers are advised to check [the] terms and conditions. This can be done by means of our Special Delivery leaflet, which is available from any Post Office Counter”. On the first point, I was given no Special Delivery receipt. I was merely handed a regular till receipt that bears nothing on its reverse. Examining the till receipt, I see that it says towards the bottom “Please refer to separate terms and conditions”. It also says “Guaranteed Delivery Date: 31/03/2009”.

On the second point, I asked at the local post office yesterday morning for a copy of the Special Delivery leaflet. What I was given was a leaflet called ‘pricing made easy’ (your lower case) and a 44-page booklet, ‘mail made easy: A guide to our UK and International postal services and Code of Practice’. Having been specific in my request, I did not enquire further about the leaflet you mention. Had I asked for such a leaflet on the day I posted the letter, I would not have thought to query being handed such literature as this.

Regarding what is available in practice at branches of the Post Office, it often transpires that what is advocated from – and therefore assumed to happen by – head office does not actually prevail at ground level. Might I suggest (if I may put it this way) that you and your colleagues get out more.

The pricing leaflet that I was given includes prices for Special Delivery. The notes twice use the phrase “guarantees delivery” in regard to this service. It makes no mention of any circumstances in which delivery cannot be guaranteed. Page 5 of the more substantial guide lists features of the various delivery services. The first of these is Special Delivery. Under a heading ‘Product features’, this service is characterised as “Guaranteed next day delivery” against which is an asterisk. The footnote to which one is thus directed states: “Guaranteed definition: delivered by 9.00am or 1.00pm or your money back”. You were perhaps a little irritated by my rehearsal of OED definitions of “guarantee” in my original letter. Now we have Royal Mail’s own definition. In this as in all other references, the guarantee is attached to the concept of delivery, not of attempted delivery, good intentions or wishful thinking.

Pages 6 and 7 provide further details of the Special Delivery service including a repetition of the words “This service guarantees delivery”. Neither here nor elsewhere in the booklet (which I have read thoroughly) is there any mention of any circumstance in which delivery cannot be guaranteed. So the only source for terms and conditions containing the get-out clause concerning attempted delivery that I have so far happened upon is the Royal Mail website. I hardly think that customers who approach a postal counter in good faith for information can acceptably be sent home to go on-line. This is not good Post Office Counters business practice.

The fact remains that the great weight of promotion to the public of Special Delivery obscures any possibility that the vaunted guarantee is no such thing. If you and your colleagues cannot directly spot the discrepancy between the repeated mantra “guarantees/guaranteed delivery” and your own statement that “it would be impracticable to offer a guaranteed delivery”, I certainly do not possess the linguistic or dialectical skills to make you conscious of it. There is a curious parallel between Royal Mail’s after-the-event invocations of a let-out clause that proves elusive – is it on a leaflet that may or may not be available at “any” Post Office Counter? – and those MPs who will not accept any responsibility for dubious practices over their expense claims because of a system of rules that they now discover to be inadequate. In both cases, I am certainly entitled to argue that good faith has not been the first consideration of best practice.

Because Royal Mail appears to be in corporate denial about this matter, it is now my intention to copy the entire correspondence to the Postal Review Panel.

Thank you for your time,


Yours sincerely,


W Stephen Gilbert

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20 May 2009
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Dear Mr Gilbert

Thank you for your letter of 16 May, from which I was sorry to hear that you found my earlier reply unacceptable.

Having considered the matter most carefully I feel there is very little I can add to what I have said previously except, perhaps to apologise for the fact that the leaflet dedicated to the Special Delivery Service is no longer in print. However, I was concerned to hear from your letter that some Post Office Counters are frequently without certain items of stationary [sic] and simply refer customers to the website. Should you wish me to take this matter further, perhaps you would kindly send me details of the Post Offices in question.

It is of course always disappointing to hear that a customer has cause for complaint and even more so when we have been unable to offer an acceptable solution. I realise you will be disappointed with my reply, however, I feel I have clarified our position on this matter.

Thank you, once again for your letter and may I assure you of our best intentions at all times.

Yours sincerely

Joan Siddron

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May 27th 2009

Dear Ms Siddron,

Thank you for your further letter to me of 20th inst concerning the Royal Mail service flagged as “guaranteed delivery”.

Just for the record, when I wrote that “I hardly think that customers who approach a postal counter in good faith for information can acceptably be sent home to go on-line”, I did not intend to suggest that this is in fact the practice in post offices, rather that sending customers on-line would appear to be the only alternative if copies of the terms and conditions are not available in post office outlets. As I reported, I did not find in my local post office the leaflet to which you directed me.

But this is beside the point, which remains the one that you decline to address: that of Royal Mail offering a false guarantee. Depending upon the finding of the Postal Review Panel, I must tell you that my next action will be to explore with my lawyers whether there is a case against Royal Mail under the UCPD.

Yours sincerely*,


W Stephen Gilbert

* Please note: the sincerity of this letter cannot of course be guaranteed; I am only obliged to make an attempt to be sincere. For the small print, see my website.

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A couple of notes for my blog readers. The Postal Review Panel is an independent body that reviews complaints when the complainant is unsatisfied with Royal Mail's own investigation. I copied the correspondence (up to the end of the letter that announces my intention of approaching the PRP) and sent it with a brief (really!) covering note. I would not have known of the PRP's existence without mention of it appearing in standing copy at the bottom of each of Ms Siddron's letters. The PRP's acknowledgment informed me that a response would take up to 30 days.

I have also copied the correspondence (up to the same point) to my MP. He has necessarily been preoccupied with explaining a number of sleazy items from his parliamentary expenses but he has properly acknowledged receipt of my material and asked if there is anything specific I want him to do. I have resisted the temptation to tell him to stand down at the next election.

The UCPD is the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, issued by the European parliament, which subsumes some of the provisions of the old Trades Descriptions Act. In short, I am telling Royal Mail that I believe that describing their Special Delivery Service as one which "guarantees delivery" is an unfair practice because they can, by their own admission, make no such guarantee.