taffie77

After a conversation with someone on Facebook today bemoaning the tardiness of packages from the UK*, he had a look at the Royal Mail website and discovered that due to increased security levels by Homeland Security, some packages that would usually be shipped by Air are actually being shipped by Ocean. Full info here.
So, if you are waiting for something, hang on in there!

It seems that a few other Stateside Brits on another forum were also unaware of the change - but woeful aware of missing packages!

(*Last week I received a package postmarked 12th December, and yesterday one postmarked 14th January)

Britishbees

Thanks for that Taffie.

I wondered why my sister in law's parcel (which was certainly not huge) of a calendar and pictures took 7 weeks to get here!!!!!!!!!!!

Regards Tracy

Mummy in the foothills

I thought that ours had been delayed due to all the snow. We had two turn up, one at the end of January and one the beginning of February. Both posted mid December.

Sally Redux

We ordered some books and were sent a calendar from the UK, they all took over a month. I did hear from somewhere that it was due to security measures of some kind. Shouldn't they refund the postal charge?

White-ishRose

Hah! that explains why my birthday present was 5 seeks late... thanks for the info!

Bob

We're waiting on a few packages from my mother...she sent some clothes for the baby, then when she heard how small she was, sent some premie clothes...if it takes any longer, we'll probably not need them

Kaffy Mintcake

Our package from Germany took an extremely long time to arrive, to the point where we thought it never would, and we were also told it was due to security regulations in the US. This may be rather wide-spread.

MoshiMoshi

Oh, this explains a lot...

We had several packages, posted from the UK in mid-December, that only arrived in mid-February. At that point, I honestly thought the local Post Office had found an undelivered sack of mail in the broom cupboard.

Yay for security -- but no one's going to bother posting us any more Christmas presents after this year's saga

janette

I left a cell phone in England at Christmas and it arrived here at the beginning of February. I looked at the Royal Mail site to try to track it and it said to allow up to eight weeks! Conversely, I posted a parcel from here to my son in England last Saturday lunch time, and he received it this Saturday - ordinary mail. I think that was excellent service.

meauxna

Bumping up.

pat garrett

I live in NY and have been waiting three weeks for a parcel from the UK. It contains a replica Leeds Utd shirt. I will be absolutely livid if it gets lost/stolen en route.

taffie77

It could be worse - my FIL bought my H a rugby shirt for Christmas. It arrived in plenty of time, but when he went to try it on, we discovered that it was an XL Boys shirt, instead of an adults. We're now waiting for Issue 2