some people are easily amused by tracking a parcel across europe and try to beat it home. having said that. i just watched a 28 minute video of a man tracking a parcel across europe trying to beat it home 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Wouldn't you prefer sending a parcel from Scotland to the middle of Africa by surface mail? That evening it went to Edinburgh and from Edinburgh airport to Heathrow. Or it went by mistake to somewhere in Germany, by air. It did get to Germany by mistake somehow and a day later they put it on a plane to the destination capital city. You don't often get service like that.
I've absolutely no idea why youtube decided to pop you in to my videos, but man I'm glad they did! I never thought I'd sit and watch someone track an airtag thousands of miles across europe!! Bonkers and brilliant! I'm now working my way through your Arctic trip and looking forward to what comes next. Keep it up chap!
I worked for royal mail for 15 years and the last few years I watched a extremely well run business being gradually run into the ground,sad to see what it has become
Oh long before 15 years ago. In the late 90's working for Manpower, job was drive a long box 7.5 tonner to collect full load of roll cages at another Parcel Farce depot. On return some cages were emptied onto a big heap on the loading bay, the bulk emptied & thrown the length of the interior of a 40' box trailer. In 28 years of stores & logistics, I've never seen such a shitshow anywhere else.
It still gets me how they prosecuted all those post masters for what could only be a glitch with the software. It was stunningly obvious there was something more than a load of people pocketing money. How would a conspiracy between so many people be possible without leaving any sign of communication between each other? Also how could there of been so many distrustful people all at once in such a position of trust? Instantly a red flag would have popped up saying this is something more than just a bunch of thieving postmasters somehow coincidentally all at it at the same time. Yes the conclusion would have been the new system that had been put in. Another case of somebody high up covering themselves and their careers for making a big cock up it seems. Chuck everyone else under the bus to save themselves no doubt.
About 20 years ago we were moving to a new delivery office, so the old sorting frames had to be dismantled and moved, underneath we found letters ten years old. We were told to hand them in to the management, expressly told not to deliver them. At a village post office, the sub postmaster died, I was sent to help clear the place. We found parcels stacked up, some going overseas. He'd taken the money and not sent them. Again, told to keep our mouths shut.
One thing that's struck me especially in these comments is how few people realise that Royal Mail not only has nothing to do with the government-owned Post Office, but is a privatised company much like British Gas or BT, and is soon/has been (not sure) taken over by a Czech company. It's the sort of thing that goes under the radar because people are just so used to it being a public service and don't check the news that often.
Something else the Tories ruined by selling off. 500 years in public ownership then some bell end called David Cameron shows up and sells it off for peanuts to be run into the ground.
What a great video. Your tag does not do "real time" updates. Rather, whenever an iPhone user encounters your tag (could be a random passer by - any iPhone within 10M) then the tag uses their phone to upload its location. So it could be that the truck parked in the back of the rest stop was only there for a short time but that there were no iPhone users nearby. It could be a good while before your tag encounters an iPhone which would account for why you do not get "live" updates. This is exactly the sort of content I watch RU-vid for. Well done. Keep it up. Maybe do a Lands End to John O'groats one in a similar fashion? Race the Royal Mail!
It’s as good as live when they’re on main roads as there’s always iPhones around them. But also it tells you when it last pinged so I could see it was still there. And thanks! Not sure how well this video will do but if it does well I might do more!
@@Adz there good but if ear shot a iPhone, but still way better nothing tracking something? as person, and a large company or government, with large backroom logistics, there great? 🙂
Who'd have thunk it.... a privatised company with a monopoly becomes dysfunctional & corrupt, serving the short term interests of the shareholders & investors rather than the long term interests of the company & its customers.
My heart sinks when Royal Mail is involved. I've had packages disappear into the black hole only to get it delivered a week after the original date; I watched a small item (off Amazon) get picked up within about 4 hours in Gemany, and appear next day in Heathrow. I watched it on Royal Mail tracker as it went from one location to another before it finally appeared about 4 days later in the local Distribution Centre. I watched it get sent to the Local Delivery Office (the wrong one), get sent back the next day with the comment along the lines of "returning to maintain good record" and then it appeared the next day. The tracker never tells you when they will deliver, only that they failed to deliver. The service is so bad that I almost dropped dead on the spot when a package was delivered the day after ordering it; not believing they would deliver on time I'd gone out for a few hours and they delivered it 30 minutes after I'd returned home.
Had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago. Checking tracking my item hadn’t moved for a week, contacted Royal Mail and was told my item was lost. Contacted the Company that sent my item and they were very pleasant and apologised for not getting my item . Turned up a few days later.
Years ago, I managed to get a parcel from Staten Island, NY to the West Midlands in less than 24hrs. The amount of shit that had to line up right between USPS and RM back then for that to happen probably pales in comparison to how much would have to line up right for that to happen now. Sad to say but even Evri is faster than RM these days.
Royal mail revisions have made the walks completely unachievable to complete that is why the service is terrible, postal workers just bring the work back as they have run out of time
That was such a good idea and a fun watch, cant believe how long it sat in the UK depot, well rapid through Europe but dog slow when it got here, sounds about right 😛
Yes quite normal, if you get something online and it goes Parcelforce 48 (I know, not really Royal Mail, sure) it will take at least 72 hours 24 of which will be tracked as sitting in a depot.
When it arrives in the UK, it needs to clear customs, that's why it sat in that first UK depot for so long. Following Brexit, customs clearance takes much longer.
royal mail is no where near as good as it used to be. They lost a recorded delivery letter I posted and gave me a book of postage stamps as compensation. I then re-wrote the documents and posted them using "Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm" 15 days later they still had not delivered the letter and declared it lost yet again. I was not a really strange address I was sending it to. It was in fact a goverment department in the uk! Also a few times people have sent me recorded delivery (royal mail signed for) and the post person has put it through my letter box without ringing my doorbell and signed for it theirself!
Sign for to large addresses, such as government departments is a scam. All the mail is delivered in a pallet, which means no one sees it to sign for it. The first time anything happens is when the letter is opened & some action (or not) is taken. In these instances, the Royal Mail is offering a service that they cannot deliver. Hence my calling the service a scam!
I have received tracked mail delivered to me that was supposed to go to a different street with a different post code. But strangely they managed to deliver some mail correctly to me at the same time. same thing has happened to a neigbour; not sure if they are now relying on the public to deliver to the correct address.
@johnclements6614 My friend has become friends with someone in a neighbouring village due to their post getting mixed up so often. They have similar addresses (same street and door number, different town/village). Their post still gets mixed up at least once a month, but they usually plan on meeting up anyway so they've stopped complaining about it lol.
They have been pants for years and years! About 20 years ago I posted a mini fridge via Royal Mail, which then proceeded to go "missing". How you "lose" a fridge is beyond me.
I recently dispatched an order to a customer who, it turns out, put the wrong postcode on the order. It has, for the last 45 days, been going between 3 Royal Mail sorting offices and depots...every single day! 😂 I phoned them up to tell them and the man said "oh it happens all the time, it will eventually get sent back to you" then he hung up 😅
@@Adz yeah you'll have to search for it,wasn't that long ago. I just find it funny how we are all recyclingn'doing the right thing' they just dump it with everything else.
I asked a resident in Tenerife where was the recycling depot. The big street bins were marked for metals, timber, paper/card, glass, cans, plastic. He said the wagons go up the mountain, reverse to the edge of a ravine and eject the lot. Great place to get rid of your rubbish. (Just saying).
I often get notifications on my phone saying an AirTag is beside me as I drive HGV’s for Royal Mail and always wonder if someone’s doing a test….. Now I know they are
Don't ask me why, but RU-vid decided to recommend this to me at 3am, but frick me am I glad they did!!💯 🙌 binged watch 4 episodes of the artic series and haven't slept since 😭😂❤
I am an admin to an online charity that sends knitwear to hospitals it is amazing how many packages get lost - interesting watch. Glad the pigeon made it.
Lost or stolen? I received an email from RM stating my package had been delivered 1 minute earlier, yet it never came through my letter box. Their proof of delivery was merely a photo of my front door and nothing else. Certainly not the package! Rogue postie maybe? The sender did replace my order and I do hope they got a refund from RM.
Imagine explaining to a customs officer that you’re tracking a pigeon on a cross-border espionage mission. Meanwhile, Lazy Larry’s out here living his best life, taking naps and making pit stops, while the pigeon is probably drafting its memoirs: '11 Days in Parcel Hell.' Honestly, this race should be an Olympic event!
Every Goguessr player is now looking for your front door 😂. I thought they the malfunctioning girl was going to be stuck like that for ever until someone gave her a smack.😂
Brilliant episode Adz. So interesting, full of wild life and incredible locations. Delivered with the superb wit we expect of our host. Great job ….well done that man.
Here in the US, the favorite game of the USPS parcel delivery drivers is to stay in the truck if it is cold or rainy or close to end of shift. So I've had more than one parcel returned (six weeks later) to the sender marked "no such address" when that's the exact same address receiving mail for years. And our Postal Inspectors, who are the only ones allowed and required to investigate, somehow never manage to.
Really happy this video came up. Enjoyed it and found it interesting. As a former "lazy Larry" it amused me that when transporting air mail by lorry after the channel tunnel opened (yes I'm old) we were carrying air mail underground!! We were going in the opposite direction, from Farringdon, London to Paris or Frankfurt and to this day I still say, depot to depot, we were the fastest and most efficient transport available at the time. This is the first of your videos I've seen and look forward to sampling more!! You have a new subscriber.
Great job exposing the uselessness of the Royal mail, I've had similar problems but never put an air tagin my parcel. On one occasion the post office informed me my parcel had been delivered but it hadn't, the following day it arrived and when asked I was told the buttons were to close together and he had accidentally pressed delivered, but he must also have accidentally taken a photograph and not knocked on my door. So appart from abusing their own managers they can't even get the basics of delivery right.
Just wait untill the Chech, billionaire financier buys the Royal mail. How will he get back the 5.3 billion asking price and cover the 1.5 billion losses without screwing over the British public or asset stripping the company. .
Love it! Bet it was really exciting seeing what would happen! Definitely made the journey back more exciting :) Hope you enjoyed the motorhome, can’t believe Royal Mail let you down! Have a great week and weekend, all the best, David & Rachel 👍
Yep. I gave up waiting for a tow bar that was posted from Poland but sat in the UK at a depot for days being lost, found and lost again. I drove to the depot and collected it.
I remember drunkenly trying to get to my girlfriends house in Lewisham on a train like that once and waking up in Kent at the last stop on the last train. Never been a fan of that line since 😂 Back on track, loved the adventure and appreciate you putting that chocolate out of its pain👍
Fantastic!! Really enjoyed this vid, loved the editing with the map as the pigeon changed from truck to train to plain etc!!! Keep up the amazing work!! 😊
Adz I swear your videos are the best thing on YT 😅 So many laugh out loud bits in this, 'slight malfunction' had me dying 😂 And David Adzenborough, and a chocolate in pain 😂 Not to sound too weird but I love your bright blue front door and bee doormat 😍 Another awesome video 🙌
Sometimes Royal mail tracking seems to show little movement as if a parcel is stuck somewhere and then suddenly you get a delivery. I suspect when Royal mail is busy and delay is threatened they just stop bothering with tracking and their system stops getting updated. When you think a sender has paid for tracking they should get a bit more than a website saying package received at depot and a week later on a update saying package delivered
Yeah definitely. There’s many ways they could let you know for example that it’s waiting to clear customs or whatever. With a company that big it should be more efficient
Well, that was a nice recommendation from RU-vid! Don't know if I'll stick around, might do, might not, but if not, you seem like a lovely person and I hope you have a wonderful life!
You do take the p**s out of the Royal Mail but I live in Spain and their system is unbelievable. We ask relatives NOT to send cards at Christmas and for birthdays, we just won't get them. Money in a card is a definite no no. Credit/Debit cards, who knows where they go? Luckily we can cancel them. If you complain they just shrug. Perhaps you should send a tracker to Spain .............. love to know where that ends up.
You suddenly popped up on my RU-vid aswell and I've enjoyed your humour, watching you track your package through the countries, while enjoying some, not very ofter, sunshine in my garden with my two young cats playing. Thank you. 🙏🏽😊
Totally Normal for Royal Mail. I had a parcel being delivered by royal mail this week. And again the tracking was as use full as a fart in a space suite. It was telling me it was still at the collection hub and would not change. I arrived home today to find a card saying nobody was home to sign for it. So it was back at the local post office. When I checked the tracking ??? Yes you have got it. Apparently it was still at the collection Hub. Royal Mail an absolute waste of space.....
I would send this video to The Post Office HQ and ask them why it took so long for this Special Delivery to leave their International Postal warehouse... The key Question is What does Special Delivery actually mean?
Massive benefit of the Samsung Smarttags is that they have location history so you can look up where it was in the past, makes this sort of thing easier.
So, I have also worked for Royal Mail. Where I worked they had building A and building B for the sorting hub. Nothing we sorted came externally into building A, it was all shuttled from across the way from building B somewhere nearby. I didn't work in that building and it wasn't in the same part of the retail park. It wasn't the same international sorting centre either like in this video. The overnight and next day delivery went direct to another sorting office. We didn't handle those. Most of what we handled was 2nd/3rd class or franked mail. Some of the letters were dated, by at least a few weeks by the post date stamp. I believe because of the backlog they just dumped the overs in building B, that was the entire point of the 2 buildings as one was just temporary storage for non-important packages. Or at least I think. If my thinking is correct, then the Royal Snail, due to staff shortages had too much volume of mail to sort and just dumped it in a storage warehouse still in it's crate/cage. It was eventually processed and send to the main sorting building and then sent out. Thanks for exposing this, it confirms my suspicions from twenty 24 odd years ago.
I’m a Brit living in Switzerland - been here 8 years. The bus thing catches Brits out. They get on the bus expecting to pay, generally get a free ride, and get off puzzled. On the off chance they get asked for their ticket, it can get very expensive very quickly! Sometimes the inspector will give you a very long lecture and let you pay for the trip, but mostly they will fine you 90 Swiss Francs or more, and put you on a list of non-paying offenders. Why? Because you need to buy your ticket BEFORE you get on the bus or train or tram. No exceptions no excuses. 😅
I’ve already had to explain this in another couple of comments but I did not have to pay. During the previous video I asked the bus driver myself, because the lady on the campsite told me I didn’t have to pay. The bus driver verified this. Not sure why but someone else said something about tourists get it free with their tourist tax. So yes there are exceptions
You know you're a bloke when you can happily watch a 28 minute video of a man trying to beat an airtag home from europe, all the while thinking "maybe I should do that at some point".
I never thought that I would EVER watch a video of an Apple flavoured pigeon travel by road, air, truck, train, boat, ferry and probably foot half way across Europe! But (for some reason I haven't worked out yet!) I thoroughly enjoyed it all! I was better than TV OR cinema - but without any background music. Your photography is superb, the sound is perfect and your sense of humour is - well, humorous! I'm going to leave the last 5 minutes to watch when I wake up tomorrow. I want to know how the tracking device can transmit through metal vans and big whorehouses. I have trouble getting my phone to work in B&Q! Thanks for doing this! (I'm going to ask for a Chocolate Pain in town too!)
Just so you know as a fellow trucker, he's probably on his 9hours off catching up on sleep. Because if he doesn't have his sleep it won't make it and end up in a heep somewhere when Larry falls asleep at the wheel 😂😂
Mate, brilliant, simply brilliant, well done on putting together a hilarious and entertaining show, flippin great and full of the usual Adz humour. We love it, keep it up mate 👍🏻
Fantastic episode & great idea! I know it took a lot of your time but really well edited. Thanks Adz! Keep up the amazing work and have fun doing it 🤘🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
You have just confirmed what I always expected. I have seen parcels travel half way around the world in 4 days then take 6 days from a main sorting office 15 miles from me. Very frustrating and when you contact them they can tell you nothing!
"We're going to Luxemberg". 1. Check for defibrilator and heart medication. 2. Consult your financial adviser. 3. Hang on to yer britches... Cuz daz 'spensive af.
A lot of French towns near the German border have German names, Mulhouse also doesn't have a direct translation in German but Müllhaus would be German for rubbish house. So whenever I see a sign for Mulhouse while driving down to the Alps that's what I always think of.
And there is just about the finest motor museum you will find anywhere. Interesting back story too. Wartime, taxation and secret storage. Lady in the cafeteria told me tax is a sensitive subject in that region. Don’t mention it.
Brilliant insight as to what happens during posting an item, it’s good old royal fail that has let the side down! Did it really need to take that long? Probably not but at least it made it back. Great work mate I can’t imagine the hours you put into making this visual feast, bravo!!!
Speaking as a postal logistics guy I'm surprised it was uplifted via air for such a small distance. Then again also surprised it went on such a small journey via rail in switzerland too. I guess they do postal logistics differently in Europe vs Australia.
Royal mail only opperates inside the UK. International postal services opperate by the agreement of... "if we deliver your letters, you deliver our letters." It is entirely possible that as the letter is posted from outside the UK, the Royal Mail actually got £0.00 from this postage delivery.
In Germany especially in cities you have to buy a validated ticket, they last for a few hours to days, and cover smaller or larger areas, not individual journeys If a ticket inspector stops you and you don't have a valid ticket you can be fined, instantly Mulhouse is a city in France ... It means Mill house
