Does anybody know if Forest Hill has been/will be affected by the royal Mail strike?
I have been waiting for some letters for over a week now and I have not received anything.

thanks

icb

I think FH has been affected every time, and quite seriously too, as a cheque posted to our bank some weeks ago, in between strikes, has not yet arrived. We are not willing to take the risk again so will do all banking electronically from now on. When we do get post some of it has been postmarked several weeks ago. I've heard similar tales from others. People have reported post boxes being so full with uncollected mail that they can't get theirs in. Perhaps not a wise thing to try at the moment. Its hard to keep up with whats going on on the strike front as it seems to be every week.

There have been strikes every week.
I know when because our receptionists send an email round.

Perhaps they are on the Royal Mail website.

The CWU post their strike dates on their website. This week's are http://www.cwu.org/news/archive/post-str...2009.html.

Royal Mail have a service update page for London & the South East at http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/conte...=102200780

Roz

I've done most of my banking online now for years but unfortunately there's no way of paying in cheques other than sending or taking them to the bank.

You could at one point pay in any cheque at any bank or Post Office for a small fee- can you still do that? I would prefer to do that from now as we have been charged a lot of money as a result of cheques not getting there for weeks ; from the papers today it seems a bit of a pandemic with a lot of expensive implications for people.

I have to say whatever the shortcomings of RM and the unions I would still not want to rely on private companies for deliveries as despite all our local postmen/women seem to enjoy their job and providing a great service with a smile. And if we buy things from Amazon the chances are they'll deliver at 7am when we are still at home. We are still waiting for two weeks now for a HDNL package to arrive from Amazon and its been a real headache, not least of all having to deal with the lies about them trying to deliver even though we were in and they clearly didn't. Internet shopping doesn't seem what it used to be - its too much hassle - does anyone else think that? Only Citylink uniquely seem to try a few neighbours doors before giving up and Next seem more flexible and willing to please.

Roz

I'm pretty sure you can still pay in a cheque at any bank. You just need a paying in slip. You should have/be able to get a paying in book from your bank with slips printed with all your details.
I'm not sure about the Post Office. I know they have arrangements with the major banks for withdrawal facilities but whether you can pay in I don't know, but its worth asking.

I know what you're saying about parcel deliveries. We have had problems, mainly with Parcel Force, both in London and here in Norwich. The most recent one was when a parcel didn't arrive and eventually I contacted Parcel Force and the excuse was that the driver was a Temp and couldn't find the address. I suggested that they put an A-Z in the vans! Its worth phoning the freephone number on the vans and kicking up a stink. Its the only way I found to get any action. I ended up with the unlisted number of the desk of the manager of the Parcel Force Depot. Its amazing the service you get when you talk to the organ grinder not the monkey.
As I hadn't received a note through the door the parcel would never have been delivered if I hadn't contacted them directly.

Yes, I've had the same thing where they say the driver couldn't find the address - and they told me they weren't allowed to use google maps to look up a postcode!

Apart from getting to know your UPS / CityLink / whatever driver so they know when you're in, the best official delivery service I've come across is from Virgin Wine...

There are multiple delivery options available (leave out of sight or with a neighbour, leave at back door, etc, etc) plus, they undertake to send the wine out again should it get nicked!

Of course you have to order wine, but that's not so bad!

My postman has delivered the same letter to me 5 times in the last two weeks. Despite having written "not at (my address)" and returning it to the post box it still turns up. I now have to walk up and down my street knocking on doors asking for the addressee so that it can get delivered.

Because we are the first house on the road we get all the wrongly addressed mail, it hacks me off because when I asked the postman to stop his response was "well you probebly know who they are"

Grrrr

Our receptionists say there will be a mail strike Saturday & Monday.

Does anyone know if Royal Mail are delivering post today?

Indeed they did,- we also had a parcel delivery and they parked in an adjacent road and walked quite a distance to deliver it. Good for them, I was really surprised and thought that they were doing a good job considering conditions. The 'read your meter' guys were out and about too. Despite the weather and living on an impassible ungritted road, today I'd had a postal delivery, a parcel delivery, my gas meter read, a quote from an electrician, and a visit from a neighbour, all by 10am.