I thought I was popular today. I got a letter through the post.
It was from Royal Mail, and it read as follows…
Dear Customer,
THIS IS A TEST MAILING – PLEASE IGNORE THIS LETTER
Royal Mail is continuously looking at ways to improve our service to customers, and we post test letters in order to measure our quality of service. This letter is being used to train our staff and test the effectiveness of a new service. We send test letters to genuine customers in order to produce the most realistic results. In this case we chose your address because you are a recent customer of our Redirection service. The use of your address has been very helpful.
This test is now complete. You do not need to take any action and you can throw this letter away. I must emphasise that this test should not lessen the quality of service that you currently receive. If you want to contact Royal Mail for information about any of our products and services, please call your local Customer Services Centre on 08457 740740.
Now what’s that all about then?
Is this to test if the postman knows how to put it an envelope through my letter box? The envelope has got my old address (crossed out) on the left hand side, and the new address I’m getting my mail redirected to on the right. Even so, despite having “DO NOT REDIRECT – RETURN TO SENDER” in big letters on the envelope, it’s still been redirected and not returned to sender. Test failed then? What “new service” are they talking about?
How exactly does it “train staff” and “test effectiveness”?
Scans below:
When someone tells you to ignore something, that's the last thing you do, right?
Ignore this envelope!
Curious.
Dude phone the number to find out more. Please ignore this comment.
I can’t imagine a conversation that would start: “Hello. I’m unable to ignore a letter that you told me to ignore.” is ever going to be that productive.
Besides, have you ever tried ringing Royal Mail? Generally, after an hour pressing buttons on their menu, you eventually get some mardy sounding person who would clearly rather be on strike than actually do some work. I try to avoid dealing with the Post Office, Parcel Farce and Royal Mail wherever I can!
I just thought getting this letter was most odd! I couldn’t imagine BT ringing me up just for a random chat.
You’re lucky! I’ve just received six test letters & two test parcels from: France, Belgium, Spain & Ireland. Some said Test Letter, others just Blank sheets of paper. All of these were ‘Signature Required’ but some were put through door unsigned. Have told postman not to bring any more. Spooky!
Hi, I’m a RMG employee.
The letter shouldn’t of reached you, but instead, it should of been killed off and sent back to the sender (in this instance RM). This is to test the DNR service is being used correctly. As you received the letter, the postman failed.
Hope this clarifies things :)
This exact same thing happened to me today! I also wondered if I should call the number but decided it might be a bit daft and having attempted to talk to RM on the phone previously decided it was not worth it.
Thank you to Lee who has now solved the mystery :D
It would would appear my local postie has failed the test.
Thanks :)
Hi Squara,
The test isn’t anything significant to the recipient … the DNR service RM offers is to stop benefits cheats etc. hence they shouldn’t be redirected. Your postie probably won’t get into any trouble but the office will receive a bad mark for failing a test. It’s all part of the RM & Postcomm test (scam) to fine RM for failing it’s obligations and then hoping to sell off RM group … a bit like selling off the railways – downhill from here if they do! Take care :)