Irvine couple slam Royal Mail

Jul 3 2009 by Lex Brown, Irvine Herald

A FED-UP Irvine couple this week slammed Royal Mail for taking FOUR months to probe the disappearance of a registered letter containing birthday cash for their son.

Pensioners Jim and Jeannie Reynolds posted the birthday card containing a 100 Euro note to Germany in February.

But the package – mailed at a cost of £6.42 – never arrived.

This week pensioner Jim, 67, said: “They have passed us from pillar to post for weeks.

“They wanted proof we had posted the card with the money.

“Then they wanted proof we had bought the Euros in the first place.

“The irony of the whole thing is that we bought the notes from the same Post Office from where we posted the card.”

The couple from Aberlour Place, Girdle Toll, sent the card containing the cash to take son Jim, 42, and his wife out for a meal.

They registered the card and cash at Girdle Toll Post Office.

Jim added: “When the card didn’t arrive we contacted Royal Mail. They wanted all the receipts. Then they came back to us and said they had gone missing.

“I sent duplicates and they wrote back to me returning the original documents.

“It’s as if Royal Mail don’t want to pay out the compensation and are hoping that because we’re pensioners, we’ll just go away.”

This week a Royal Mail spokeswoman said the compensation claim was only registered with them on June 10.

They were liasing with the German postal authorities to try and track down the missing package.

She went on: “We are sorry to learn about this item which appeared to have gone astray.

“The claim was registered on June 10 following a number of requests for information from the sender.

“The German postal authorities have no been contacted as part of the process and we are awaiting a response.

“We have advised the customer it can take up to 90 days for investigations to be fully completed.”