Our package of frustration from the Royal Mail

On JULY 13, I had a ‘not able to deliver’ card through the door. We returned from a week’s holiday on July 15 and went to our local post office to collect the parcel.

It couldn’t be found. We were told to leave it for a couple of days and try again. We duly did and were again told it could not be found and given a phone number. The number was never answered, as the voicemail inbox was always full.

Eventually, I was advised to write to customer services in Plymouth. I received a letter from an employee called Zoe telling me she had ‘logged and reported’ my complaint.

Zoe had also passed the details to the manager of the delivery office and told me I should contact the sender of the parcel, so they could make a claim for the loss.

I wrote again to say I had no idea who the parcel was from, or what was in it, I just knew that there was a parcel and I didn’t get it. I received a letter from a Sara Bowman on August 7, once again to apologise on behalf of the Royal Mail.

She assured me that she had raised the matter with our local delivery office. However, if I was unhappy with this, I could write to the ‘escalated customer resolution team’. I did.

I received a letter dated August 30 from one John Pengilly. Once again he was very sorry to learn of the ‘unacceptable experience I had with customer services’, and would I please find enclosed a book of 12 first-class stamps as payment for my lost parcel.

He said if I was dissatisfied, I could contact the ‘postal review panel’ at the address given.

I am still very angry as I write this letter. My husband, Ron, and I had our 60th wedding anniversary in March, it was Ron’s 82nd birthday in April and my 80th in June.

The missing package could have been a present for any one of those, but certainly worth more than a book of stamps. We’ll never know and the Royal Mail certainly doesn’t care.

JENNY J. DAY, Hemel Hempstead, Herts.