Royal Mail's "Special" Treatment

Want to know why your Royal Mail delivery is so unreliable? An Australian colleague has just found out. She had to send six forms of identification, including her passport and Australian driver's licence to the DVLA in order to get a British driving licence. She also had to enclose two "special delivery" envelopes for their safe return.

On the day that the items were returned to her, the envelope had simply been posted through her door. Apparently, she learned from the neighbour, the postman had arrived and was complaining about nobody being home and muttering something about passports and driving licences, so the contractor working on scaffolding on the neighbour's house offered to sign for the package. Personally, I get on wonderfully with both my neighbours, but I would not expect either side to be able to sign for a special delivery that I might otherwise miss. I most certainly wouldn't expect a random contractor working next door to be able to get away with signing to confirm that I had received the item.

Obviously, my colleague is just relieved she hasn't now lost her identity to the fraudsters — an envelope with so many unique items of personal identification could no doubt have been worth a fortune to someone...