Obligatory commitstrip
Frustrated Britons struggle to locate their packages: Royal Mail tracker smacked
Certain Royal Mail customers have not been able to pin down the location of their packages today. Since around 800 UTC, about a hundred people have taken to downdetector to report issues with the missive-sniffing checker on its website. For certain reference numbers, the tracking system currently says: "There has been an …
COMMENTS
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Monday 9th October 2017 12:29 GMT lsces
Two changes spotted so far ... having typed in an international tracking number it gets displayed with credit card spaces! It's 2 letters 9 numbers 2 letters and that is how it's read...
Second change is the TOTALLY alloying capture that is often impossible to answer where it appears on other sites ... at least that seems to be skipped if one logs in before checking, but why should one have to? I there must be a capture, then a simple text string is a lot easier to live with.
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Monday 9th October 2017 13:00 GMT Lysenko
I like it. Once they've got AI embedded in such systems, unionize them and ask them to vote on strike action. Then we'll see if they've been coded to optimize long term customer satisfaction (which will inevitably be the claim) or short term C suite bonus packages (which will be the reality).
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Monday 9th October 2017 13:40 GMT Muscleguy
I had one of those the other week. I was upstairs, thought I heard a light tap, looked down the stairs, noone at the door. Heard a loud but indistinct conversation on next door's doorstep, they get more parcels than us, I often have to take them in for them.
I checked again and a figure darkened our door, bent over. I descended and opened it to a startled delivery guy who was writing out a card to pop through the letter box. That light tap had been him 'knocking' on our door, the bell works and is permanently wired up, only the repeater in the kitchen is on batteries.
I've had to chase them down the driveway with the card, the sound of which is the first inkling that a delivery was being attempted. I am absolutely not deaf. They see no car in the driveway, my wife is out, and assume the house to be empty without bothering to find out.
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Monday 9th October 2017 16:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Mostly to check that what has been posted got to where it was sent."
I tried doing that earlier today. It doesn't do anything without JavaScript enabled. Enabling JavaScript produces an endless succession of captchas that just send you round in circles without allowing you to track the packege. No doubt this is amusing for the prankster who designed it, but I found it somewhat irritating.
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Monday 9th October 2017 20:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
endless succession of captchas
If using chrome try firefox and vice versa or some other browsers.
I've been caught in one of those catchpa continuum loops a few times and believe me shouting "I know what a f*cking road sign looks like, do you want the b*stard pole as well or not?" or "that's the f*cking tree you plank" or even "there's your f*cking mountain even though I would call it a hill" at the monitor makes no difference.
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Tuesday 10th October 2017 06:34 GMT Ken Moorhouse
Re: endless succession of captchas
Yes, I agree that some guidance would be helpful.
I wonder if they give one of these as an intelligence test for prospective "service delivery staff".
Click the BUILDINGS that you see in the picture.
Click the DOORS you see in the picture.
Click the LETTERBOXES you see in the picture.
OK you've got the job.
(Apologies for the cynicism. On one occasion the reason given for non-delivery by Shitty Link was that "there was nobody at the loading bay to sign for the package." Nope, no loading bay where my office was.)
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Monday 9th October 2017 13:48 GMT Dan 55
"Hi Royal Mail, where the hell is my expensive 4K TV delivery KK...GB?"
"Well now your name and address has been deduced from social media and someone purporting to be you collected it this morning at 10am with fake ID, I don't know. That'll teach you to publically post stuff you shouldn't."
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Monday 9th October 2017 19:32 GMT Charlie Clark
Craptastic
Even before the weekend the service was shit. Since Friday the package which was "guaranteed to arrive on Saturday" is "on the way to Germany". In theory, I'm supposed to be able to track the package via the partner courier, GLS, except their system has no record of the ID.
I'd like to say that the German parcel system is better but if so, only marginally: it's never been down and never lost ids. When you get your stuff is another matter but that's as much down to too many parcels being sent all the time and drivers being given unrealistic schedules for built up areas. I suspect it's only a matter of time before we're expected to go and collect the stuff directly from the suppliers!
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Tuesday 10th October 2017 11:49 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Craptastic
Even before the weekend the service was shit
Much like Hermes then. I've ordered a printer from Amazon (yes - I'm contributing to them dodging tax via sales in Luxemburg). Get a notification that it's been shipped with a Hermes tracking number.
Checking with the Hermes tracker and it tells me that, as of Friday, it's "out for delivery". Well, it wasn't delivered on Friday (or Saturday or Sunday or Monday) and, looking at the tracker, it's apparently still out for delivery on Friday..