PWBCSA

Just thought you might be interested in an email I received from Royal Mail customer service.

I had emailed them asking how they justified calling their ‘International Signed For’ service ‘International Signed For’, when it turns out that they can’t tell you if it was signed for at the destination, who signed it, if anyone did at all, and even it actually arrived or not.

I humbly suggested that they either change the name of the service they offer so that it wasn’t so misleading to the great British public or change the actual service to match the title. I was really impressed with the reply.

Hopefully our Police Checks and Medicals arrived OK.... we will just have to wait and see.

Cheers.

NB: ‘Airsure’ can’t be used to Australia.





Dear Mr Bxxxxxxxxxe

Thank you for your e-mail.

When an item is destined for overseas delivery only Airsure can be tracked up to the point of delivery. International Signed For items can only be tracked up to departure from the UK.

When the item arrives in the country of destination it becomes the responsibility of the receiving country's postal authority. They will deliver the item under the universal postal agreement. We can explain to them the standards we require, but the onus is on them to deliver the item.

If you require further information about your Airsure item please call the dedicated International Airsure help line on 0845 609 2609.

For information regarding International Signed For items, you will need to complete a P58 form, available from Post Offices. We will then forward this to the receiving country's postal service to initiate a search.

I hope this has been of help to you.


Regards

Mxxxxx Jxxxx
Royal Mail

DollyDaydream

Been in the same position as you, as many others on here.

The 'International signed for' service is an absolute farce. Would, and have, paid for the services of a courier to send documents. Would never consider royal mail as an option.

Here are some of the threads......

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...nal+signed+for

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...nal+signed+for

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...nal+signed+for

D D

scissors

couldnt agree more,the fact that they call it internationally signed for suggests that it will need to be signed for at its destination,but this is not the case as we found out when we sent our meds,your only able to track the item sent until it reaches the country of its destination,once its in the country it could be anywhere.Our meds took a month to reach there destination in oz,we were going out of our mind thinking they had gone missing,if we had known beforehand we would have used a courier,just for piece of mind.

tracey.

PWBCSA

Everything else went by DHL.

We couldn't bring ourselves to pay £50 just to send 2x Police Checks, if they have gone missing we will get some more done and resend them. Luckily we had to email our CO, he did reply, some info when we received our requests and said that 'all the bits' were in the post.

Our Panel Doctor says that he always uses ISF and has never had a problem.

Cheers.

scissors

i see what you mean police check are not expensive to have done again, but medicals are,if we d have known beforehand we would definately sent our meds with a courier.

tracey.

toocheeky

Hi there,

Yep we discovered this too regarding 'internationally signed for'. Whats worse the guy behind the PO counter reassured me the items 'would def be signed for at the other end and yes it can be checked right upto the destination.....'
Hmmm how wrong was he!! Anyway everything did arrive on time and safely. (phew!)

Also something to bear in mind regarding sending meds. The panel Dr is responsible for sending them (not you) and they are sent to a PO box no in Aus. As far as I am aware couriers (DHL for example) wont deliver anything with a PO box no..... Unless someone knows any different??

sonictigger

[/QUOTE]
Also something to bear in mind regarding sending meds. The panel Dr is responsible for sending them (not you) and they are sent to a PO box no in Aus. As far as I am aware couriers (DHL for example) wont deliver anything with a PO box no..... Unless someone knows any different??[/QUOTE]

I have just sent my Assessment documents to a PO Box in Sydney and DHL have taken it ok. I did explain it was a PO box and that was ok they reassured me. I was lucky enough to have a street address as well, which may have made the difference. I was going to use the "Int Signed for", so am so pleased we opted to DHL. Saying that, they only left here on Wednesday so not due to arrive until Monday. Fingers crossed.

lynnlovessun

Karen - does that mean that the panel Dr is responsible for the medicals if they are lost during delivery? Would the panel dr repeat them for free?
They might be delivered ok but will DIMIA manage to tie them up with applications if they are frontloaded?

Lynn

JAJ

Some panel doctors are better than others in terms of how they send documents to Adelaide - shop around.

The other point to remember is that documents regularly get misfiled within Adelaide and having a proof of delivery can persuade them to look a second time (sometimes they then find things) and not just have them say it 'must have been lost in the post'.

Using a reliable courier is essential if you have time critical documents to send, eg the initial application if an age threshold is approaching.

Jeremy

Merlot

I was shocked after 7 years in Aus the decline of The Royal Mail here.

I won't begin with what has been lost and that is was only going between two towns 7 miles apart in the UK!

M

bridiej

I've had various bits of mail go missing, some of it only going 7 miles, same as you and it always seems to be cheques - but I dont know why unless someone is opening them to see if they can use it and they destroying them when they realise they're useless.

I am tempted to write to Trading Standards about Royal Mail's International Signed For service as it is misleading and sure breaches some description act?

Also when we sent our first TRA by this service the guy behind the counter told me we would be able to track it on their website and it would show a signature when it was delivered!!!

gsb

Yes I know what you mean. It is most definitely not "international signed for"
We had a problem tracking down our meds. I went on their website to track our packages and all I got was a message about the package being transferred to the overseas mail company. In fact if I put the tracking number in to see what has happened to our package now, it still says "transferred to overseas mail company" even though it has actually reached its destination!!

What we also found was that sending our mail to Oz using the standard recorded delivery seemed to be a damn sight quicker that the ISF process.

When we sent our application to DIMIA it took 5/6 days, sending our Meds to Sydney took, I believe, 7 weeks.

Merlot

[QUOTE=bridiej]I've had various bits of mail go missing, some of it only going 7 miles, same as you and it always seems to be cheques - but I dont know why unless someone is opening them to see if they can use it and they destroying them when they realise they're useless.

I am tempted to write to Trading Standards about Royal Mail's International Signed For service as it is misleading and sure breaches some description act?
QUOTE]

Blimey, so where mine, cheques that is. Yes, I think there are some shonks out there!!!

I have now opened a bank account at a local bank in town so I can deposit in person.

Merlot

pusky123

We sent all of our documentation by courier, and paid our panel doctor an additional fee to have our medicals courriered.

I think the Royal Mail is ok if you are using special delivery within the UK, but otherwise I dont personally rate their service. I had my driving licence misdelivered to the wrong block of flats. It was only because of the honesty and kindness of that neighbour that I received it all.

What horrifies me most of all is how the postal services of this country are going to cope with the delivery of the proposed ID cards - potentially it could be chaos - still maybe we'll all be in Oz by then!

Merlot

Have to say I could not fault Australia Post for such a big country to look after.

M