Are these further Royal Mail price increases justified?

[boatbuilder]

With inflation at almost 0% and oil prices (and subsequently petrol/diesel prices) having fallen significantly which can only help their running costs, can further increases in sending letters and parcels via Royal Mail really be justified, considering the increases already borne by us in the past few years?

Stamp prices set to rise, Royal Mail says

As far as I am concerned the service is the worst it has ever been. More often than not, where I live we don't get out mail delivered until the afternoon - sometimes near 4pm. The postmen can't even do their job properly. Twice in the last 10 days I have taken in a small packet for my neighbour and they haven't even bothered to put a card through their door to say where it is. Consequently I have had to take the parcel to my neighbour because they don't even know it has been delivered, rather than them coming to me for it.

Next time they ask me I will take it in without saying anything and watch if he puts a card through their door. If he doesn't I will go after him and will certainly be making my feelings known.

[frankiesays]

Our mail has started coming in the morning again after being delivered at between 2pm and 3pm for a couple of years. I too also took in a package for a neighbour last week at they didn't tell him I had it.

[boatbuilder]

Maybe they don't bother any more and rely on our honesty to make sure the neighbour gets the goods. I can't agree with it if that's the case, as it's too bad if you don't have an honest neighbour. They can't prove the goods have been delivered if they are not tracked.

Also a few weeks ago the postman knocked on my door to deliver a small packet to me and asked about my next door neighbour as their was a car on the drive and he could get no answer. I told him that was not her car but a second car her partner has, who would have been at work in his other one, and that she must be out in hers. I told him I would take her parcel in but he refused as it had to be signed for, so they obviously won't deliver signed-for goods to neighbours. I don't know if it was a Recorded Delivery or a Special Delivery one, although I have known them to push recorded delivery ones through the letterbox, if they will fit, without obtaining a signature. I think they are a law unto themselves. I bet when they do that for Recorded Delivery items they squiggle something themselves that looks like a signature on their electronic pads.