VERY poor deliveries for some years. 1st Class typically takes 4 days. Unusual to get a next day delivery in my area (Northumberland). Some items take 2 weeks or more ,(e.g. bank statements) by which time they are completely out of date. Only recently able to get on-line via a phone but awful signal (rural area) means still being reliant on post that isn't being delivered. Paid extra for recorded delivery to send an important financial document - it disappeared for 2 weeks holding everything up. Previously complained when an urgent cheque vanished for over 5 weeks. Got no reply and had to get the cheque cancelled and organise a different method of payment. Pandemic is now making the situation much worse. In last 6 weeks I have had only 4/5 deliveries and these are arriving in bundles of 10 or more letters in an elastic band, every single one of them weeks out of date. People are being hugely impacted and financially detrimented by the pandemic but the last thing they need is to incur more financial penalties for missed deadlines they didn't even know about until it was too late, sent by other large companies who are not accepting phone calls, and sticking to their usual procedures leaving the general public to pay the price. This is a national scandal and there are many people who may not recover from the financial blow who might otherwise have just about survived it had the Royal Mail not delayed vital papers so much. This has happened to me and the complaints procedure is so long and drawn out with little chance of success. There are millions of people with no access to the internet due to cost/signal etc. who have to depend on a service that seems to have a "don't care, take it or leave it" attitude. I have always believed the Royal Mail should be a quality service for everyone and not be privatised, but I'm beginning to feel that anything will be better than this as I am fed up (understatement! - can't repeat what I would really like to say,) and distressed at constantly having to take the brunt of the effects of none delivery such as financial penalties, more expense due to delays, people not believing that the post is so slow etc. I don't think Royal Mail is fit for purpose any more. The recent fine imposed on Royal Mail for failing to deliver 90 per cent of 1st Class the next day indicated the target was missed by 1.5 percent. Presumably this was averaged across the country because it doesn't reflect the delivery in my area where next day deliveries are as rare as hen's teeth! By contrast my family recall going to the post office in the village and posting a birthday card in the 1960s (it was considered important to take the trouble to post it then) and it had been delivered second post (what's that these days!) before they got home. In the 1980s we had a post lady who delivered by 7am without fail for 20 years. Now we are lucky to get someone shamble up like they're out for an afternoon stroll, usually looking scruffy, and deliver things from weeks ago somewhere between 12 noon and 3pm (helplines are closed from 4pm at present with huge queues to get through so no chance of dealing with urgent issues) and the latest posting time is 9am (7am on Saturdays) from my local box, meaning the letter won't go till the next working day unless people travel to another box. This is really not fair on e.g. older people with no tranport. They can't even keep the letters in their bag until they reach the door - I got one letter that was so wet through I had to tease it apart with tweezers and hang the pages up to dry before trying to read what was left and not smudged or obliterated. If the Royal Mail was a private company doing this I think it would have collapsed years ago as people voted with their feet and used a competitor (although, to be fair, UK Mail is no better and do not respond to complaints at all). We all know we have to make allowances for the effects of the pandemic but come on Royal Mail, if other delivery companies can do it why are customers who are already very vulnerable having to put up with this?