I'm miffed.

Today the postman rang our bell to get access to our close at 1pm. He came up, deposited some letters, and also one of those red cards that postmen use to advise you "while you were out, we tried to deliver your ebay parcel and because it doesn't fit through your letterbox, you now need to collect it from our depot, which is only open at times you are not free and miles away from you and where you will have to queue up for at least an hour alongside other miffed customers to collect your precious item."

Just that we were actually in. Remember, we opened the fecking door. And the letterbox was not too small, after all, the postie left the other letters not in the letterbox, but in the space between stormdoor and door. Plenty of space for my ebay parcel. Plus, this isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, it seems that postie doesn't like carrying parcels and as a matter of course leaves these red cards instead and the matching parcel in the depot. Normally I don't mind too much, somehow the excitement of what is in the parcel makes the trip to the depot strangely enjoyable. Mind you, there have been times where the depot people couldn't locate my parcel and it got sent back to sender.

No excitement now though with a four week old baby that has to be dressed for the occasion, positioned into a car seat, car seat strapped into car, accompanied by at least two failed attempts and many a curse, and same procedure twice again at the depot.

Which makes me wonder, why do we pay tremendous amounts of postage for parcels when Royal Mail doesn't actually deliver but makes the recipient pick up the item at a depot? Maybe sometime soon nothing will be delivered and instead I'll have to make a daily trip to the depot?

I shall complain on Monday morning. Big time. Above all, I really really was looking forward to this parcel as it contains my newest gadget acquisition. An electrical breast pump...

24/04/07
Here's the complaint I submitted on Royal Mail's site:
Dear Customer Service,

I would like to report a problem, which made me quite miffed the other day and I feel it needs to be raised. Let me say first of all that usually delivery of mail is not a problem and our postman is a very nice and reliable person.

However, on and off, and it may well be that the usual postman is on holiday at those times, there is a pattern that instead of delivering a bulky item, only the red card "while you were out" is delivered.

This card then usually states that our letterbox is too small. It is small indeed, but we are in fact in and could very well receive the parcel/large envelope in person.

On 21/04/07, we even opened the close door for the postman, yet still, only the red card was delivered. So, once again, I had to drive to Victoria Road depot to pick the little box up, which involves getting my little baby into a car seat, strapping the car seat into the car, driving 2 miles, getting parked half a mile from the depot, taking baby out, carrying heavy car seat with baby to depot, usually also queuing for about an hour in front of it, mostly in a lovely Glasgow soft rain. And the same back again, in reverse order - less the queuing of course.

So it's really not very convenient for me to do this every time I expect an ebay parcel (I  buy a lot online because of having a wee baby) or present for my baby, and after all, the sender (or in the case of ebay, me) does pay postage for the item to be delivered to the door.

I hope you understand that I hope it can be arranged that at least an attempt at delivery of larger letters/parcels is made. Obviously, if nobody is in, I do prefer a card to be left, rather than the parcel to be left in front of the door where it may go walkies. But if both I and my hubby are in, I find receiving a red card "while you were out" a little bit cheeky.

Hoping for improvement, yours sincerely

Cartside and wee Cubling