Now Post Office branches hit by computer glitches

Computer glitches reduced Post Office branch services to a crawl on Monday. The Post Office network was knocked for six in two 30-minute periods, leading to long queues on one of the busiest posting days in the run-up to Christmas. The bugs coincided with problems accessing services on the Post Office website. The Post Office …

[Emj]

"Capgemini" - there's your problem!

Just about enough said, but will add at least that Capgemini should be consigned to the same boat as Crapita and sunk somewhere over the laurentian abyss.

[Skoorb]

Last Week?!

"unrelated to those that nobbled Royal Mail's website services last week."

When was the last time you tried accessing their website? Most of the stuff that isn't the front page has been down, throwing errors, or running like a drain since the 21st of November!

http://www.royalmail.com/price-finder etc. At least they're redirecting that to a 43 page booklet (called 'Mail Made Easy') so you can work it out for yourself

Yesterday it took me over half an hour to print some postage for an International address.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah

Twice I got all the way through creating some online postage labels, entered my credit card details only to be told there was an error. No labels, no order history, nothing. If there's a charge on my card then they're going to be hearing from the credit card company.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse the Post Office and Royal Mail systems, totally different.

[Skoorb]

In branch? Yes. Website? Not so much.

http://www.royalmail.com/customer-service/customer-news/website-technical-difficulties on the 15/12/11:

"I would like to apologise again to those customers experiencing technical difficulties with parts of our website. The Royal Mail, Parcelforce Worldwide and Post Office Ltd websites were unavailable for short periods on several occasions in the past 48 hours. In addition, when the websites were available, their performance has sometimes been slower than would normally be the case resulting in an unacceptable experience for some customers.

We continue to work closely with Capgemini, who manage the Royal Mail website on our behalf, to restore all services and performance to normal. I would like to again sincerely apologise to any customer who has experienced disruption at this key time of the year."

Also, see http://www.postoffice.co.uk/price-finder http://www.royalmail.com/price-finder and http://www.parcelforce.com/quick-quote/quick-quote

[AndrueC]

>Computer glitches reduced Post Office branch services to a crawl on Monday

That'll make a change then.

Mind you - I haven't had the misfortune to go into a Post Office for a couple of years now. Most things can be done online. I even got my passport renewed online although that was mostly filling out an eform so it could be printed out and emailed back to me :-/

[Michael Jennings]

This is a debacle, and "last week" is a joke.

I have a parcel I wish to send to my sister in Australia. Yesterday, I attempted to print the postage using the Royal Mail website. After an hour of timeouts and errors, it eventually announced that the system was down and I should come back later. This was after it took my money and failed to issue me any postage.

I went to the Post Office, and stood in a long queue. If I had succeeded in preprinted my postage online, I could have bypassed the queue and just placed the item in a chute for prepaid items. However, this had failed. After about ten minutes, I realised that the queue was barely moving. I gave up and went home, and send an e-mail complaint to the Royal Mail.

This morning, I received a reply apologising for the online problems, and stating that my money had been refunded. I logged in again, and exactly the same thing happened. I was charged for my postage but the system went down before the process was finished.

This is a debacle.

(Incidentally, if I look at the "history" section of my interactions, I am told that my online prepayment balance was transferred from an old system to a new system on 20th November. So clearly they migrated to a new platform that doesn't work five weeks before Christmas. Cretins.

I don't know how big this migration was. Enormous, I fear. Things are failing all over the place. I don't buy the "unrelated".

[Natty]

I have an idea

Hey all, I have an idea.... lets upgrade our website.... when?... I dunno, how about just before xmas?... what if it all goes wrong?.... lol....

Logging into our online business account we get faced with a screen which only offers assistance in case something is wrong! No place to order our postage! Even the online chat is out to lunch...

Well done Royal Mail, pat yourselves on the back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but add people to the equation....

At our local post office, our post mistress simply weighed the parcels and noted the cost, and completed the details once the systems come back on line. All efficient as usual. Another reason for christening a recent email server "anne" in her honour.

[Anonymous Coward]

the internet

a good idea which sadly doesn't work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the joys of outsourcing

enough said...

[Intractable Potsherd]

Are they serious ...?

"... French technicians are being brought over to sort out the Post Office's problems." Thank FSM the contract wasn't with a firm in South Africa!!

This is absolutely insane ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone service useless too

Press 9 to go back to the main menu

9

GOODBYE, ......CLICK!!

twunts all and sundry

[Simon B]

Royal Snail - Royal Fail.

[Jay Jaffa]

Microsoft + CapGemini + Post Office = null

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8_1FAjKFRY

what are they trying to achieve indeed?