Reminiscing about the way things used to be…

Remember when you used to pop a first class letter in the post box and assume it would get to its destination the following day? The days when you even dared to believe that a second-class letter would get there within a day too if you were lucky? Oh how things have changed…

Now you pop a letter in the post and the delivery date is more of a lottery. If you are lucky a first class letter will arrive within a couple of days and second class??? Who knows?

This is in stark contrast to the claims about performance made by the Royal Mail (or whatever they call themselves these days)…

True story to prove the point…

I applied for a new credit card to replace my current Tesco Visa Card (see Tesco Personal Finance and forethought… now there’s an oxymoron!) The application was duly accepted and a credit agreement sent out to me for signing. This agreement was sent by First Class post and took 5 days to get to me.

I signed the agreement and sent it back the following day only to receive a second agreement in the post a couple of weeks later (which took 3 days to arrive first class).

When I contacted the credit card company I found out that the second agreement had been sent out when they failed to receive the first one back (it actually took over a week to get there).

It transpires that the reason credit card companies say 7 to 10 days for a replacement card has nothing to do with making the cards but actually the time it takes Royal Mail to deliver them!

I wonder if this is why Royal Mail is talking about doing away with second-class post? Nothing to do with their ability to deliver second class post quickly but more to do with the fact that they deliver first class post in second class times maybe?

It’s a shame Royal Mail management has lost sight of the fact that they are there to deliver post rather than to make as much money as possible?

Oh well, off to post another letter I guess.