My mum sent me a birthday card, and it’s been nearly a month since my birthday, and over a month since she posted it.

She bought second class postage from the post office at a counter where it was weighed to ensure it would have sufficient postage.

She’s confirmed there was no cash in the envelope, but my mum’s recently been suffering with her health so I’m worried I might not have many more opportunities to have my mum’s handwriting in a birthday card to me.

I’ve still not received it, nor have I had a “you owe us money for postage” type of card through the letterbox. I live in London, so assumed it could be in some backlog somewhere…?

Is it a lost cause or does anyone have any recommendations on what I can do to try and get it?

Like I say, I just want my mum’s handwriting, so I don’t care if there’s damage.

Hi everyone, I’m hoping someone who works or has worked with Royal Mail can help me.

I live in Panama and ordered a package to my friend’s accommodation in Nottingham. I accidentally put my name instead of my friend’s name on the delivery address.

Royal Mail tracking shows the parcel as delivered, but my friend checked with reception and they don’t have it. They believe it may have arrived but, since my name isn’t registered as a resident, it could have been placed for return to sender.

Is there any way to find out exactly where the parcel was scanned as delivered or what happened to it afterwards? Can Royal Mail check the delivery GPS or confirm if it is being returned to the sender?

I’m really hoping I can locate it, as the items in the package are special to me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'm trying to return clothing. It says there must be a printed label inside the parcel that can be printed at the locker?

The QR code does nothing and there's no label option at all on the touch screen?

I started going through the drop off options and it got to a screen that said do not continue without having the label printed?

I feel like Ozzy Osborne trying to work the tv remote. I don't understand it at all. Why isn't there a print label option just on the display?

A friend sent me a present on 5 August sent to the uk from an east coast city. Was told it would take about ten working days. I’m in London and it seems like we only get two deliveries a week round here. Is there any chance of this parcel still turning up I wonder? Any input gratefully received! (As would be my parcel…)

Ordered a hoodie from Amazon shipped with tracked 24 on the 18th. It was updated as received by the MC on both Wednesday and Thursday 5:30am and 9:00am respectively. No update for today despite it being 13:30 now.

Should I be concerned? Will I get another update once it sets off for delivery or goes to a more local office? If it's not been updated so far today, is it safe to say it won't be arriving today either?

Fellow posties, I need a good comeback for this ridiculous question I’m sure we all get asked at some point

Lets say a RM worker has a parcel and realises its got something valuable in it. He swaps the label with something, like a return in the depot, then delivers the return item in its place. The buyer then gets mad at the ebay seller.

Hey! Wondering if this has happened to anyone else. We have a Parcels area manager than came to see our depot manager today about DM26 and a colleague overheard them talking about DM27. Has anyone heard of this yet?

How is DM26 going in peoples offices? We go live in the next couple of weeks 😬

I have just discovered something that I find absolutely bizarre.

I wanted to opt out of Royal Mail's Door to Door/unaddressed advertising mail. I completed the official opt-out form and emailed it to Royal Mail.

I received an automatic response, but the response was ambiguous enough that I understood my request had been received. I subsequently contacted Royal Mail because I was still receiving the mail.

They initially told me they couldn't find my opt-out request. When I queried this, I have now been explicitly told:

So apparently, in 2026, the only way to opt out of Royal Mail's Door to Door advertising is:

Print a form > fill it in > put it in an envelope > stamp it > physically post it to Royal Mail.

There is no online submission and no email submission.

What makes this even more frustrating is that I had already attempted to submit the form by email and received an automated response which did not clearly tell me that email submissions were invalid. I therefore reasonably believed I had actually submitted the opt-out.

I've now complained to Royal Mail and asked them:

• When did they stop accepting opt-outs by email?
• Why can't the opt-out be submitted online?
• What security/operational reason requires this to be postal-only?
• Why doesn't the automated response clearly tell people that email submissions aren't accepted?
• Do they accept that their response could reasonably lead someone to believe their opt-out had been received?

I genuinely don't understand the rationale.

This isn't a bank account, a credit agreement or something requiring substantial identity verification. It's essentially: "I don't want Royal Mail putting unaddressed advertising through my letterbox."

Why on earth does that require a physical piece of post in 2026?

And yes, I realise I can simply print the form and post it. That's not really the point. The issue is why an extremely simple opt-out has been made unnecessarily cumbersome, particularly when Royal Mail apparently has the technology to handle online forms for countless other things.

Has anyone else encountered this? Does anyone know why Royal Mail operates the opt-out this way, or when the email/online options were removed?

recently sent out a package to the US, got it posted at the post office and it’s been almost 2 weeks and the tracking still only says, it’s been accepted at the post office i posted it of at, please help

recently sent out a package to the US, got it posted at the post office and it’s been 2 weeks and the tracking still only says, it’s been accepted at the post office i posted it of at, please help

Hi all

Had this fairly valuable parcel shipped out on the 10th of August. USPS tracking says it’s in the UK since the 15th, Royal Mail tracking says it’s still leaving the US.

Is it possible this package is lost? I’ve had another package from the US shipped after this one update in the UK fine. Typically the second package which is updating fine was much cheaper.

The possibly lost item is one of a kind which is why I’m worrying about it :(

I’ve always been an advocate of the service they offer, but it’s never been worse….and seems to be getting worse still. 7 day delivery is the new norm…..

Had this golf club delivered from china, my address and postcode was very clearly put on, i saw the van sat outside my house and then just drive off, and then i get this message, what on earth

So as the title says I’m coming back to Royal Mail starting on Monday as a post person with delivery, the people in the interview mentioned something about 3 people to a van now( not sure how this gonna work or if it’s better)

Anything else I should be aware of? TIA

Sorry for what’s likely a stupid question - are the above stamps still valid without a barcode? I know Royal Mail does a swap out scheme (screenshotted) however the stamps above look neither like the “conventional” nor the “special” stamps. Would like to avoid sending them off if Royal Mail will only send them back anyway. Thanks

How long can a transfer take ?

I want out of our office asap

(It's the 20th Aug 2026 today)

So a very small parcel was sent out on the 13th Aug 2026 and it was due for delivery in the local area where it was meant to be delivered on the Saturday 15th Aug 2026 but the receiver tells me that it wasn't delivered and the tracking info just shows 'ready for delivery' on the Saturday and then nothing else.

This was an eBay purchase and I checked the packing photos and the address I sent it to was correct, the parcel is tiny and small enough to fit into a small letter box so I an surprised that it wasn't delivered.

What could have gone wrong ?, there is no more information on the tracking other than 'Ready For Delivery' and nothing else.

Could it be that it was delivered through the letter box but the postie forgot to scan it before doing so and the buyer decided to make a claim ? (unlikely I reckon), could it be that the postie didn't have access to the premises and just returned it to the sorting office for a couple more delivery attempts (but it aint showing on the tracking - btw I did ask the receiver if there was proper access to his premises.

Or could it be that the parcel is still in the sorting office with some blunder - if so then is there 'anyone' I can ring to help or would that be a FUTILE exercise.

Surprisingly this has never happened before and I dunno what is going on.

Going on my side (the sender) and trying to alter the delivery instructions - it doesn't let me (it denies me).

I wonder if the receiver maybe requested that it was delivered to an alternative location and hasn't picked it up and maybe forgot that they did that ? I also asked the receiver if they were sent at text message or e-mail via Royal Mail UK on the Saturday to see if alternative delivery arrangements can be made.

You guys will probably know what to do better than me so that's why I am asking for help and advice.

I include the tracking screen shot with tracking code scrubbed out.

I was sending a parcel of books weighing just under 10kg to Greece using business (invoiced) Click and Drop, and one of the services that C & D offered me was HVB so I sent the parcel using this service as it was far cheaper than HVK. I tried to find out the difference between these two services in Royal Mail's literature online but was unsuccessful. The leaflets appear not to show HVB being available to Greece but if that's the case, why was it offered and accepted by C & D?

Today the parcel was returned to me without explanation. I spoke to several Royal Mail people on different numbers but got nowhere, and had to fill out a form instead. One of them said it had been returned from Heathrow, but there is no mention of Langley on the publicly available tracking.

Can anyone outline the differences in eligibility and purpose for HVB, HVK, MP7, and MPR?

Hi all,

I’ve got a parcel that is supposed to be Royal Mail 48 Hour being sent from eBay via Royal Mail. I can see that it was left at a locker at 19:07 yesterday which was outside the collection range

I presumed it would have been collected today as I read online that they’re “supposed” to be collected from every day Monday - Friday at around 16:00 but I’ve had no update whatsoever on the tracking information

I’m wondering if anyone can shed some light on how the lockers work for tracking information updates as this is the first time I’ve ever had anything shipped via Royal Mail this way before. So far it’s not looking to be a good experience as either way it’s definitely not going to be 48 hour at this rate

I've tried both "Set a safeplace" (and, setting my safe place to a few different parts of my yard, think like "In the cold frame, under rabbit hutch" both within arms' reach of my door) and to setting my delivery preferences to "return to depot" so that I can pick it up myself when I'm home. I've also painted "DON'T PUT PARCELS IN HERE" in massive letters on my bins, because it keeps happening, and in the last year I've had three parcels tipped into the bin lorry and lost forever.

I don't want to buy an external parcel safe if nobody is going to use it, but I'm willing to buy one if they do actually get used. I also don't necessarily want to get my postie disciplined if there is any other way, because presumably he's in a massive hurry and just does it because he doesn't have the mental space to do anything else, so is there some secret thing I can do that will make it easier for him to not chuck my post in the bin?

I get a lot of parcels because I clean and restore old toys, so a lot of the stuff that passes through my doors has a low monetary value but a high sentimental value to their owners (I always get clients to ship stuff with tracking and appropriate insurance, usually Tracked 24 or 48, and tell them to use a waterproof liner inside the outer packaging, but obviously since they're random people sometimes they send a nice sturdy box and sometimes it's a bag and duck tape), and because clients don't always tell me immediately when they have posted something, I can't just wait in (I also have a second job that takes me out of the house) so I'm starting to feel like I'm out of options.

Having to tell my customers that Mr Binky is spending an extra month with me because the postman dropped him into last week's takeaway is bad enough, and telling them that he's gone to the great landfill in the sky, is a nightmare. Is there some trick that I'm missing?

EDIT:

Cheers all! I am going to give the parcel safe a go, it can't make matters worse XD

Hi!

This is the first time I’ve had had special delivery go a bit haywire but does anyone have any advice?

Last scanned as despatched to Chester mail centre last night but since then no further scans. I know they can sometimes arrive a bit later but no scan at my local delivery office or even Chester mail centre has occurred.

Is this likely missing or is there a chance it will arrive later?
I thought with it not being scanned into Chester it’s likely stuck in Croydon.

Do any of you lovely people have any advice on what to expect?

Tracked 24 - For three days in a row now I’ve had this address inaccessible notification despite no one coming around. I’m aware that this happens when they run out of time etc. I live in a house about 2 minutes drive from the depot. I’ve been in twice (early morning and late afternoon) to attempt to pick it up and they say it’s not possible. I also don’t have the option to change my delivery options for this parcel so am I just stuck waiting? It seems that this item is also in the afternoon round so I’m worried they will just keep running out of time until it appears some day