Yet again, I have fallen victim to this scam, which will no doubt befall thousands of other people today.
It was a low value item (rear Mazda badge for a fiver) which I need sharpish, and as I have to take today off work anyway, I paid the £7.45 for "Guaranteed next day delivery" i.e. today.
It is a small parcel, so it would have fitted through the letter box, and just in case it doesn't, there's a big sign at the side of our front porch that is not visible from the pavement saying "Please leave parcels here", which other delivery services take literally.
Not the fucking Royal Mail, oh no, they wait until your back is turned for two seconds, sprint up to the front door and instead of knocking or ringing, shove a card through saying "Sorry we missed you, hope you don't mind taking another hour off tomorrow morning to drive to the sorting office and pick it up yourself!"
Apparently they wanted me to sign for it. So this is the Trade Misdescription from Hell. I didn't pay extra to be messed about like this, I paid extra for "next day delivery", which in the ordinary meaning of the words means, er, today.
If you compare the Royal Mail's shitty behavior with the competing private delivery companies who apply common sense, you can only assume this arrogance is a hangover from the days when there was a state monopoly on parcel delivery and they could pretty much do what they wanted.
They did this to our neighbours recently. Even more bizarrely, their postcard said that the parcel was at house number 99. There is no house number 99 on our road.