THE postal service in Oxfordshire is terrible.

I work for a small charity based in Oxford (and work from home in Somerset), and this week has to send a very urgent package to a colleague. I paid (an incredibly expensive) £11 for guaranteed next-day delivery for a small package of urgent documents, to be delivered by 1pm to Kingham. The package arrived at 3.35pm, so it missed the deadline.

My colleague, who received the package, complained about this to the postman.

My colleague told me: “I even discussed with him about how it should have been here by 1pm as it was exam papers that I needed to mark. “He then gave a story about how the decision has been taken to give everyone extra rounds to do, so he wasn’t surprised it wasn’t delivered by 1pm.” This is so outrageous.

How can the Royal Mail offer a premium-rate guaranteed delivery service and then take a decision that they know means they will not meet that obligation to their customers?

This is verging on taking money by deception and treats customers with such disrespect.

This is not the first time we have been let down by Royal Mail.

They once posted hundreds of letters that we had paid to be franked, without any stamps on at all, causing much understandable outrage among our supporters. I will never use the Royal Mail again for any package or urgent delivery requirements again.

It is no wonder they are struggling when they have such a sub-standard service and business practices like this. By the way, the package actually arrived at 3.34pm but Royal Mail’s internal online recording system shows it as arriving at 2.34pm.

Their technical people are either still on British Winter Time or this is a deliberate ploy to cover up poor delivery times.

TERRY LEWIS

Mango

George Street

Oxford