Royal Mail have announced that 16 days after their cyber incident they are ready to accept International Parcels again. However the services will be restricted to certain services.
We are using alternative solutions and systems, which were not affected by the recent cyber incident.
Our focus has been on despatching the export parcels and letters which were in our network before the cyber incident. We have also been successfully despatching standard export letters since reinstating those services for customers on 18 January.
– Royal Mail
We are pretty sure that the ‘alternative solutions and systems’ are those of Jersey Post and that the normal Royal Mail computer systems are yet to be reinstated.
Royal Mail can accept International Parcels for despatch
As a result of this progress and the growing capability of Royal Mail’s alternative export solutions they are resuming International Signed services to all destinations for business account customers and customers buying postage online. This includes parcel, large letter, and letter formats for the following services:
- Royal Mail International Tracked & Signed
- Royal Mail International Signed
Delivery of International Tracked & Signed and International Signed items posted from today, Thursday the 26th of January may take slightly longer than usual and Royal Mail warn that you may notice different tracking information as items leave the UK… again leading to the assumption that they are using Jersey Post systems to electronically manage despatch.
Formats for which Royal Mail can still not accept International Parcels
Royal Mail still can not accept international parcels sent via:
- Royal Mail International Tracked
- Royal Mail International Standard
We are aiming to provide further updates on these services in the coming days.
Import operations continue to perform a full service with some minor delays. Domestic services are unaffected.
– Royal Mail
We’re sorry for the disruption this incident is causing impacted customers. Our teams are continuing to work around the clock to reinstate all remaining services for export letters and parcels as quickly as we can.
Are you ready to trust Royal Mail?
Businesses now have a decision to make, do they carry on using alternative carriers for domestic and international post, or do they return to Royal Mail?
Many smaller businesses will have been left with no choice other than to sit on parcels until they can be despatched, and indeed even now only the most expensive Royal Mail International services are available. Other businesses will have put alternative plans in place, both during the strikes for domestic post and during the past 10 days for International post.
If you have the scale, there are plenty of mail forwarders who can inject your post into overseas countries without the need for Royal Mail to touch your post. However these services will only be economically viable for those regularly shipping volumes – think 50 parcels per day or more for export.
Domestically, the next key events for Royal Mail will be when the result of the fresh CWU ballot for further strike action comes in in February, and when CEO Simon Thompson is recalled to Parliament to with MPs saying they have had significant quantities of evidence that suggest his answers may not have been wholly correct the first time he was hauled in.
Giving inaccurate information to a Parliamentary Committee, whether by accident or otherwise, is taken very seriously. We must get to the bottom of these inconsistencies on behalf of Parliament and intend to do so during this additional hearing.
– Darren Jones, Committee Chair, Business. Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee
7 Responses
Best check your post office first if you are intending to use Click & Drop. Mine have told me that they have had no notification from Royal Mail so the instruction of no international mail that requires customs data can be accepted. P*ss ups and breweries comes to mind.
It’s 16 days, not 10 and still counting, as ordinary parcels still can’t be sent.
Simply appalling, inexcusable.
Too late. We are GONE. The way I see it, Royal Mail left us, not the other way around.
I hope Jersey Post have set themselves up totally separate from the Royal Mail system, they don’t want the cyber attack affecting their system.
We’ve moved quite sucessfully to eBay Global Shipping for our eBay items and got rid of Royal Mail international services for our Magento website products.
Made no difference at all and in face (once the month end has gone) I feel we’ve probably sold more since the Royal Mail’s DIRE international services were hacked.
Who did it ,how did they do it ,and who left the door unlocked
Seems to be ignored
Hurry up royal mail with ours international parcel and letters , customer complain etc reputation go down . Lots lost money for parcels .