Recorded Delivery

Ten days ago, I sent a letter to the scumbag bandits at Holmes Place via Royal Mail‘s “Signed For” service. (“Signed For” being the dumbed-down name for “Recorded Delivery”) Basically, I wanted to know that Holmes Place had received the letter and cheque – not an unreasonable concept, really – and I wanted to be able to check online when it’d been received. And Royal Mail emphasise that you can use their “Track and Trace” online system to check that an item has been delivered.

Only, well, you can’t. It’s been ten days now, and still all I see when I key in the Track and Trace number is

Come back later
Recorded Signed For™ items are only tracked after the item has been delivered. Depending on whether the item was sent first or second class, this may be a few days after posting. Please try again later.

Information on your item is not yet available online.

So frankly, what fucking use is that as a service?