All the 22 Post Offices ear marked for closure by the Post Office in Oxfordshire have now been closed. You can imagine how the postmasters feel when they see the chief executive Adam Crozier, trousering £3 million. Especially when they all have very strong views on how much better run the organisation could be. I agree - the Post Office does not even know how profitable individual offices are. And now comes this e-mail, to show how appalling and crass the Post Office has been to the offices it is closing, including forcing them not to use the word post office, re-directing their mail and cutting off the phone!! Incidentally, the postmaster who wrote this had been promised a personal visit to tell him whether he had survived or not. In the end, all he got was a call from a call centre.
Further to our chat this afternoon, herewith just a few of the frustrations we are facing:
1. Change of Name
At no point before or during the Consultation Process were we advised that we would have to change our business name. In October of last year, we had a rerun of stationery printed “X Post Office & Stores” - this will be of no use in 3 weeks time when we are closed and I now have to fund printing of new stationery, etc.
Post Office Ltd have advised in their closure letter to me that
“as part of the process to close your Branch, Post Office Ltd will, with effect from the date of closure, redirect any mail addressed to the premises in which your Branch is located that includes the words “Post Office” in the address, to the nearest Post Office branch. If you have any personal mail or private business mail that could be affected by this redirection, then as soon as the public announcement is made regarding the closure of your branch you should take steps to ensure that with effect from the closure date at the latest, this mail does not include the words “Post Office” in the address.”
In addition to the above, contained in the information pack regarding the procedures we are to follow for the actual closure of our Branch was a note regarding our telephone line.
“Post Office Ltd will arrange to stop the telephone line to your branch 7 working days after your last day of service. If you wish to retain a telephone line at your branch you should contact BT on 0800 800 150 (for Residential Services) or 0800 800 152 (for Business services) to request the transfer of the line approximately one week before the scheduled closure date for your branch.”
I have to date, at my expense, written to all our customers and suppliers advising them of the above, and the fact that our business name will change . However, I received a call from British Telecom today advising that whilst they are able to change our business name , they are unable to take the words “Post Office” from our address as the Royal Mail Postal Address File (PAF) lists X Post Office & Stores as the premises name.
I consequently contacted the Post Office Network Change Office to ask how I could effect the change under these circumstances. Needless to say they didn’t understand the problem!!
I then contacted the Royal Mail Address Management Unit in Sunderland, explaining my dilema, and advised that we wished X Post Office & Stores to be removed from the PAF file and our new name added to it. They advised that I cannot do this, it is the Post Office who need to contact them to have their details removed!
After 2 hours on the ‘phone today going backwards and forwards I have no resolution as to how I can comply with the Post Offices Terms and Conditions of closure regarding ensuring that our post reaches us by making sure that the words “Post Office” are not contained in the address, nor how I can ensure that our ‘phone line is not disconnected.
As you can imagine, this is a very trying time for us Postmasters facing closure, and I believe that the above issue is something that the Post Office should be sorting out and not left to us to have to spend our time and money doing it!
Other somewhat irritating points regarding our closure include:
- Being told that we will not be sent any more cash (float) from this point forward until we close (some 3 weeks!) but how imperative it is that we continue to service our customers as normal until closure!!
- Being told that we are to shred all the Post Office Manuals and other sensitive information that we hold here - when they still haven’t sent us a shredder. Something that should have been sent weeks ago!
and the list goes on!
