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Victory!
So, the Royal Mail Twitter Team responded to my second reply. Here’s the gist:
I’m sorry you remain dissatisfied with my colleague’s response. The advice provided by our PO Box team is that the requested payment of £59.40, representing the difference between a PO Box collection and delivery service, has been correctly applied. Unfortunately I’m unable to cancel or reduce this amount.
I appreciate why you’re unhappy with the outcome however so, If you’d like to take your complaint further, I can arrange for a member of our Escalated Customer Resolution Team to give you a call. They’ll review the case and contact you within 2 hours.
My reaction to that was to ask: “Correctly applied” by what criteria? What are your terms and conditions as regards to you changing your service in the middle of a contract? And how did you make these terms available to me? Yes I’d like the Escalated Customer Resolution Team to contact me, but it’s not convenient for me to speak by phone during office hours at the moment, so they’ll have to email me. Please ask them not to send a letter to my PO Box address.
Two hours came and went. In fact, twenty-four hours came and went. But just before lunchtime today, I did receive another response, this time from Royal Mail Business Customer Service:
I am sorry that you are unhappy with the previous response to your complaint. I do understand the inconvenience that may have been caused by the relocation of your PO Box resulting in you requesting a delivery service to be attached to your existing PO Box. Furthermore I understand the frustration that may have been caused when you received an invoice requesting an incorrect fee for this service.
If I may take this opportunity to explain that the fee charged represents the difference in a PO Box with collection (£244.20) and a PO Box with delivery (£303.60) for the fees charged in 2013. In actual fact the invoice should have been relevant to the fees charged in 2012 (PO Box with collection, £222.00 and with delivery £276.00). A difference of £54.00.
However, as a long standing customer and as a one off gesture I have arranged for this fee to be waived on this occasion. Please note that your PO Box is due for renewal in March 2014. At this time, should you wish to continue with your service you would be required to pay the full fee of £303.60 to have your mail delivered.
Once again, please accept my sincere apologies on behalf of Royal Mail for the problem you’ve had, and our thanks for taking the time to make us aware of this.
Of course, all the time I’ve spent in communication with the Royal Mail and writing these three blog posts far outweigh the £54 credit I’m receiving. But it was always about the principle, not the money – the principle of a large company riding roughshod over the little guy, not because they’re right, but because they just can. And to get get any kind of justice it seems that you have to expend more effort than it’s worth to actually receive that justice.
But it still feels like a win. Yay for the little guy.
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One comment on “Victory!”
Bazooka J Rambo
Fantastic!
It's a shame they only sort problems out when pushed and bludgeoned into seeing sense. I'm going to check out that Collect+ you mentioned as an alternative to the Royal Mail.