Man takes parcel to US to beat Royal Mail ban...

January 29, 2023

 By Christian Iluesure

Vern took a parcel destined for Tennessee 

to New York with him, as the Royal Mail cyber-attack meant it could not be posted

Image source, Vern

Miriam Barker

BBC News

Ellie Carter

BBC News

When businessman Vern received an order for one of his products from the USA, he knew it could take weeks to arrive.

But in a bid to beat the Royal Mail's ban on sending parcels abroad following a cyber-attack, Vern took it with him on a holiday to New York.

From there he was able to send it to a very satisfied customer in Tennessee.

Vern and others have complained about the impact on their businesses. Royal Mail said it was "working around the clock" to resolve the issues.

Vern, who runs a dog accessory business called WildBarc, said flying 3,641 miles (5,859 km) to fulfil an order was "all in a day's work".

Royal Mail was the victim of a ransomware attack, which affected the computer systems it uses to send deliveries abroad.

Vern, who wished to withhold his surname, said Royal Mail's pause on international orders was affecting "thousands of small businesses across the UK", leaving overseas customers "waiting patiently for their goods".

"However, when we had an order from Tennessee, and we just happened to be visiting New York City for a short break, we knew what we had to do," he said.

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Vern, 40, had looked at other providers but said it would cost £58 to post a small box.

"We messaged the customer to notify them they wouldn’t be getting the parcel anytime soon via mail, but told them we were going to NYC [New York City], and happy to ship."

He said the customer was "so overwhelmed" and offered to pay delivery when they arrived in the States.

"We said no to them paying and did it off our own back," explained Vern, who receives about 30 international orders a week.

"Royal Mail aren’t updating customers on what’s going on. At least when the strikes were going on, we knew what was happening.  

"We haven’t had a lot of information on this cyber-attack, we get a couple of messages when trying to buy online but no-one really knows what’s going on."

'Letting customers down'

Ceri Hyett, 38, runs Castle Welsh Crafts in Cardiff, which sells Welsh love spoons and gifts.

"We’re a small business and times are hard, 20% of our income comes through the website," she said.

"I went to the Post Office two weeks ago, I had a parcel for Australia and another for America.

"I was told it would be resolved in a couple of days, but I have been last week and this week and still it's an issue.

"I am hoping it will be resolved next week."

She said her customers had been understanding but it was hugely frustrating.

"It takes time out of the business for me to ferry [parcels] to and from the Post Office and we don’t like letting customers down.

"We had orders for love spoons for February for Valentine’s Day and for people's weddings, we’ve had to tell customers they’re going to be delayed.

"We’ve offered customers to use alternative postal companies but this means additional, higher costs.

"If this continues we may have to reconsider posting abroad."

Rob and Jess run Hell on Shirts, based in Swansea, selling officially licensed film merchandise.

"We work on a pre-order basis with a rough three to four-week turnaround," explained Jess.

"we had a pre-order run for two weeks end of 2022, and it was ready to ship the week the cyber-attack happened.

"This meant we had between 50 and 100 parcels that we couldn’t ship.

"Luckily a lot of our international customers were understanding and happy to wait, but of course there were a few who weren’t.

"We’ve had a couple of angry emails and a handful of refunds to give out."

'Something needs to change'

Jess said there had been "total silence" from Royal Mail for about a fortnight apart from their local postmaster.

She added that they had been able to start shipping internationally but only through online shipping.

"It’s not perfect but it means we can carry on shipping our international orders and clear the backlog the cyber-attack has caused."

Jess said something needed to change but she was not confident they would.

"Even after the strikes, first class parcels shipped within the UK still took months to arrive with no clear reason as to why.

"We always stay in constant communication with our customers and update them on everything, so the majority have been understanding, but we’ve definitely seen an increase in handing out refunds for lost parcels or replacing them."

In a statement, Royal Mail said: "Following the recent cyber incident, we have been temporarily unable to despatch export mail parcels to overseas destinations and we have temporarily asked customers not to submit any new export parcels into the Royal Mail network until further notice.

"We have been working on new despatch processes and we have started moving export parcels that are already in the Royal Mail network, our initial focus is on clearing export parcels that have already been processed and are waiting to be despatched."