New I-hate-my-neighbour stickers to protect Brits' packages
From Monday the Post Office will deliver letters and parcels to the house next door if you're out - and hand out new "don't trust the people next door" stickers that will tell you at a glance what type of neighbourhood you're living in. The Post Office asked for permission for surrogate deliveries back in July, and following a …
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Re: Another Sticker?
I'd prefer one to cover both eventualities:
Don't deliver to my wife and my husband
Re: Another Sticker?
"I'd prefer one to cover both eventualities:
Don't deliver to my wife and my husband"
Well let that be a lesson to you to just pick one or the other next time.
I used to have one of these stickers...
...then my neighbour stole it.
this sounds ripe for abuse
Order numerous small value, unsigned for items, have delivered to neighbour. Contact seller and say they havnt arrived, get sent another batch of items. Get the original items from neighbour. Bingo! You have 2 orders! And the posty pays!
Re: this sounds ripe for abuse
No more so than it already is... nothing to stop people from doing this already.
Re: this sounds ripe for abuse
Keeps this going indefinitely become a millionare! Surely it is their word against your neighbour if they are not signed for :)
Re: this sounds ripe for abuse
"Order numerous small value, unsigned for items, have delivered to neighbour. Contact seller and say they havnt arrived, get sent another batch of items. Get the original items from neighbour. Bingo! You have 2 orders! And the posty pays!"
A few years ago I order a vacuum cleaner from Amazon. It didn't appear. I went round to my dippy neighbours and asked multiple times during this period. I eventually got Amazon to send another one.
Six months later the dippy neighbour turns up with the missing vacuum. It had been sitting in their hallway of their tiny house for all that time and was presumably there when I went round to ask months back.
Optional, sometimes expedient
I like my neighbours and get on well with them. I hate having to make the 40 minute round-trip to my "local" collection office to retrieve the undelivered package.
Still, I would rather they didn't receive my badly-disguised copy of "Busty Housewives IV" for obvious reasons.
Hand-based icon for similarly obvious reasons.
Re: Optional, sometimes expedient
Dude, you're on the internet and you get porn delivered via snail mail?!
Re: Optional, sometimes expedient
Could be worse, you might have a 40min round trip to your neighbours.
Re: Optional, sometimes expedient
Is living in a really posh neighbourhood with a 40 minute journey between houses worse?
Re: Optional, sometimes expedient
Posh neighbourhoods wouldn't have a 40min trip from house to house, they pay for enough space to surround their property but not for the inconvenience of travelling to another property.
Rural areas on the other hand, 40min trip to your neighbour probably means about an hour to the sorting office.
I've got my sticker. Happy enough with most of my neighbours but as I pass the delivery office at least twice a day it's as simple to get it from there and avoid any 'kept missing you' type of thing.
What I find bizarre is that you have to go to the RM site, complete a form and they then send you the sticker through the post. As the sticker is the *only* thing that determines whether the Postie takes it to a neighbour or not, this seems a bit of a convoluted process when they could make them available for collection from Delivery and/or Post Offices, or even just have done a mail drop to every household.
Furthermore, the sticker itself is ugly and consists mainly of a wordy explanation of the instructions to the Postie, instructions that he/she is most certainly already familiar with.
Why not give us an immediately recognisable yet unobtrusive logo instead of a block of ugly, redundant text?
I've got my sticker too
but its a crappy paper sticker that is only sticky on the back so you gestured to affix it externally.....
Yes I have Sellotaped it to the glass inside but come on!
Nothing Personal
I share your circumstances. It is easy for me to pick up a parcel at the delivery office, and I'm fine with my neighbours, but I don't want them to feel like they're running a free PO box for my mail. Especially the pensioners who you just know are going to be the one's most often lumbered with others' parcels. So I'd much prefer to drop in on the delivery office.
Do I have to put up a sticker and then tell my neighbours it's nothing personal?
posted stickers
One thought occurs: having the stickers delivered means one can't loot the stack of them, and put them up at all the neighbors' so as to not be bothered with other people's packages.
'Why not give us an immediately recognisable yet unobtrusive logo instead of a block of ugly, redundant text?'
Because RM doesn't want you to use these stickers, that's why. This is part of the 'nudge' process. RM wants to make it difficult and inconvenient to use the stickers so that it forces people to do it the way that the company wants them to. In the future, you can be certain, many posties will manage to 'not see' the sticker.
When I lived in the UK, there would have been no way that I would have wanted any package delivered to the curtain twitcher with her nose in everyone's business next door. Instead of this stupid 'leave the package with the neighbour' system, why didn't RM work with shops and the like to set up a system of intermediaries (relais as they call them here in France)? If they were held at the local convenience shop or something, people could pick up their packages without too much trouble.
Royal Mail philosophy
OK, it might take a bit of understanding, but they did circulate a shiny leaflet explaining that this would present a great opportunity to employ more unproductive staff to maintain a huge database of names and addresses of people who like / dislike their neighbours. After all, it is not as if the don't have enough databases already. You do understand that if you have ever redirected mail or dared to go on holiday at any time you are stuck on one of their somewhat permanent lists, don't you?
The idea that anyone interested in their latest caper could pick up a sticker at a local Post Office......... too complex, mate.
Even Gareth Malone won't sort this lot.
Go along to online-sign and make up a custom "dont leave my mail with anyone else" sign. Then just print it off.
The Strictly no admittance sign would probably be a good pictogram to use. (http://www.online-sign.com/build_sign.php?pic=55)
faster than waiting for the stuff from RM and you can give precise intructions to the postie. If they actually look at them.
Optional, sometimes expedient
I like my neighbours and get on well with them. I hate having to make the 40 minute round-trip to my "local" collection office to retrieve the undelivered package.
Still, I would rather they didn't receive my badly-disguised copy of "Busty Housewives IV" for obvious reasons.
Hand-based icon for similarly obvious reasons.
I don't get the Children's Panel bit - surely they just print "CONFIDENTIAL" on the outside, and then the postie doesn't deliver it elsewhere?
Same thing for tax details and other dodgy post - equivalent of putting the sticker on the delivery itself.
@ richard
And do you really think that people look at that?
I've received confidential mail of mine before, mistakenly delivered to the neighbours, opened by them, only to realise it's actually for me, and then shoved in my mail slot without any apology whatsoever.
Oh well...
What on earth is the matter with the PO, a simple "Please do not disturb my neighbours" sticker is both polite, caring and non controversial.
Can I have a ...
sticker to say "I don't want to be disturbed by the postie because I work night shifts"?
I mean, if the parcel is for me, fair enough, and I can usually time my orders so that it arrives with me on a day off, but my neighbour is freakin' OBSESSED with buying stuff from Amazon. He gets 2 or 3 books or DVDs a DAY, and he's never in to receive them.
Re: Can I have a ...
Remove doorbell battery before going to bed.
Problem solved.
Let him pick up his own damn parcels (and I'm that sort of person myself, around Christmas-time, and a royal pain-in-the-butt to my neighbours - but I don't ASK for them to be disturbed just because I'm out. Leave a damn card and I can get them all at once from the Post Office and not worry about them wandering off, well not-as-much.)
The phone and the doorbell have off switches, you know? It's amazing how many people don't know this or think they "MUST" have it on all the time "for emergencies". If there's a 1-in-a-million, absolute emergency that you (and only you) are required for, someone will find you, and you won't be any good if you're bleary-eyed from no sleep. Turn your damn phone off when you go to sleep or go on holiday.
Re: Can I have a ...
Our internal doorbell is mains powered from the flat's intercom system, but separate from the entry phone, so no, I can't simply leave the entry phone off the hook and be certain that the postie won't be waking me up. Yes, there are a hundred and one ways I could disable the doorbell, but why the hell should I? I enjoy much peace and quiet as it is, and all I would like is for the counterpart sticker to the "don't deliver my stuff elsewhere", which would be "I don't want to take part in your neighbour delivery scheme thank you".
Re: Can I have a ...
@Lee Dowling "The phone and the doorbell have off switches, you know?"
Er No. I have a cheap Tesco value phone; no batteries, no off switch. The only way to turn it off is by unplugging it.
My doorbell is battery operated but again no switch; I'd have to remore the batteries.
Also what would you suggest I go with the door knocker, dismantle that twice a day ?
Re: Can I have a ...
@TRT, same situation and appears to be possible:
http://www.royalmail.com/delivery-to-neighbour#Opt out
Assuming the posties take any notice?
Re: Can I have a ...
@Lee Dowling, duhhh, there is such a thing as knocking on doors and they usually do it very loud. Ask anyone who does deliveries and they will tell you a lot of door bells don't work, so they knock. Their is an opt-out sticker. Now instead of useless replies, try to be more helpful next type:
http://www.royalmail.com/delivery-to-neighbour#Opt out
Mine are elderly and various things up with them that make it difficult to answer the door anyway, but annoyingly they will make the effort and take in stupid size packages they can't cope with when couriers have done it in the past. I always feel guilty when they get my stuff. Though having been done over by distraction burglar scum they won't answer the door at all now.
Re: Can I have a ...
> Er No. I have a cheap Tesco value phone; no batteries, no off switch. The only way to turn it off is by
> unplugging it.
So unplug it...
> My doorbell is battery operated but again no switch; I'd have to remore the batteries
Put a toggle switch in the wire between the button and the bell box. A 2-pole switch is pennies from Maplins, cut the cable and connect the ends of the wire to the connectors on the switch. Turning the switch off effectively breaks the cable, so the push-button does nothing.
The doorbell is battery operated
It is quite conceivable that it is also wireless.
Why stickers at the houses?
I've still got a redirect in force from my old address and mail addressed there magically obtains a sticker _on the envelope_ at the sorting office. It seems to me that there's a database somewhere that's just screaming for a "Can leave at neighbours" field.
Re: Why stickers at the houses?
And how much does this cost you, eh?
Oh...
If this goes as badly wrong as it could, retailers will be up in arms with all the re-sends they are having to do. If my neighbour is on holiday for a week and my package is left there, I'll be politely expressing surprise that my package hasn't arrived yet - send another!
Failed fail, because if it is delivered by RM then you have to wait at least 15 days (or is it 30?) before claiming it hasn't arrived.
Its not really a fail, as you'd be communicating with the seller not RM.
Your contract would be with the seller, who would no doubt put RM's ass in a sling upon finding out you didnt get your parcel.
Remember RM want the business retailers provide, so I doubt Amazon, Ebuyer etc et all have to wait 15 (or 30) days before objecting like the rest of us do.
Er, surely if your neighbour is on holiday for a week, they won't be in to accept the package?
Don't worry..
it'll be a matter of months if not weeks before all major online retailers abandon RM as a result.
Whoever in the courier companies was lobbying around this has done a fantastic job...
What's New?
I don't understand this, am I missing something? For as long as I can remember and wherever I've lived, the postie has ALWAYS left stuff with my neighbours if I've been out - the standard card they stick through your letterbox even has always had a tick box to show that it's been left with a neighbor, so what's different with this 'new' scheme?
Re: What's New?
They won't if it requires a signature ;)
Re: What's New?
I depends where you live. I am in a relatively small (3-4000 pop) village. I know the postie well and he often signs the delivery for me and leaves the parcel somewhere safe with a note through the door to tell me he's done that. He does the same for everyone I know and i suspect everyone that he delivers too. Now in my mind, thats a great service. Although I fully accept that this is not possible in large citys and probably totally against the rules.
Re: What's New?
"They won't if it requires a signature ;)"
Hasn't stopped the postie ripping off the recorded section and popping letter/package through the letterbox or dumped on the doorstep before. As has happened to me (knowing full well it was sent recorded and can even see the evidence where it's been torn off).
Oh... yeah... these stickers wont cause drama... not at all...
My neighbour is a giant nosey cow, always sticking her beak into other people's business, head always over the fence, always coming over "for a chat" when you've got visitors... but I'd think twice before putting up such a sticker because she is also a vindictive so and so who would take it as a challenge...
Personally, I would order ten thousand empty boxes and ask for them to be delivered, 8 per day, to my house.
Or order an enormous sex toy (the most outrageous one I could find) and ask for it to be delivered in the most OBVIOUS packaging ever (i.e. wrap it in paper and then pop it in the post, assuming you have labels that will stick to the uneven cylindrical shape).
Hell, play a tape of a donkey braying quietly in the bedroom every night. When she accuses you of something, ask her how she knows. Because she stuck her oar in where it wasn't wanted?
And when she sticks her nose in, tell her where to go.
If she wants to see who my visitors are - sorry, you weren't invited and I have guests - BYE!
I'd also build a slightly larger fence and then, hopefully, they'd get the idea.
If people annoy you, don't deal with them. Screw with their heads instead. If they want to know what's going on, deny them even the knowledge you'd usually give people and act even more mysterious.
"This?! Oh, it's just my... erm... parcel. For... erm. You know." (then stare, giggle and go inside).
And if you work from home, you could order a load of these stickers to attach to your neighbours houses to prevent you being the local sorting office of unclaimed parcels.
Business opportunity
Nothing to stop me charging a handling fee as far as I can see?
Just don't accept them
Since its not your stuff, you have every right to just tell the Postman that you aren't taking it. If they leave the package on your porch, just leave the thing there and never touch it.
Did they consult on the stickers proposal?
Delivery to neighbours with an opt out option? Fine no problem go ahead.
I don't trust my neighbours stickers to opt-out? Feck off!!!
It saves them money not to deal with collections and redelivery they really should manage the opt-out process without requiring you to put stickers up outside indicating that you don't trust/like your neighbours. I don't want to or need to opt out but I'm offended that they think this is a reasonable approach and suspect that they intend it as a type of social pressure not to opt out.
Re: Did they consult on the stickers proposal?
This should have been an Opt-in scheme.
Then those people who want it could order the stickers and the sorting machines could print a deliver to neighbour note on the envelope.
While we are at it, other delivery companies could be forced to do the same., or even to pay for access to the leave with neighbour database.
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