A Money Mail investigation found that Royal Mail is failing to deliver a significant number of Christmas cards on time. The experiment sent 100 cards using first-class stamps and only 16 arrived within the expected timeframe. This follows a £10.5 million fine for Royal Mail's poor delivery performance.
Millions of us are posting presents and cards to loved ones across the UK and crossing our fingers that they will arrive by Christmas within the timeframes promised by Royal Mail . But will they? We sent 100 Christmas cards to family and friends around the country and the world to find out how long it would take for them to arrive. We sent the cards using first-class stamps, which means that those sent to addresses in the UK should have landed on people’s doormats the next working day.
But, just 16 of the cards we sent from the Daily Mail offices in Kensington, London, on December 4 arrived on time. Some eight households are still waiting for theirs. As the price of stamps continues to rise and post regularly fails to arrive on time, growing numbers are simply giving up. Letter volumes have dropped from a peak of 20 billion in 2004/5 to just seven billion in 2022/3. In response, Royal Mail puts up prices even further, which in turn puts off senders from posting letters. Royal Mail was last week fined £10.5million for missing postal delivery targets. Just 74.7 per cent of first-class stamps arrived on time in 2023-24, despite a target of 93 per cent, according to the regulator Ofcom. Just 92.7 per cent of second-class mail was delivered on time, under its goal of 98.5 per cent. This is the second fine Royal Mail has been hit with in the past 12 months after it was clobbered with a £5.6 million penalty by the watchdog in November 2023. Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom director of enforcement, said: ‘Far too many people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp
Royal Mail Christmas Cards Delivery Delays Postal Service Ofcom
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