Royal Mail Suspends Sending International Mail and Packages – Update

Royal Mail said on Wednesday it is having an unspecified issue processing international mail and packages to international destinations.

After the tweet, Royal Mail issued a full statement:

“Royal Mail is experiencing severe service disruption to our international export services following a cyber incident.

“We are temporarily unable to despatch items to overseas destinations. We strongly recommend that you temporarily hold any export mail items while we work to resolve the issue.

“Items that have already been despatched may be subject to delays. We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers for any disruption this incident is causing.

“Our import operations continue to perform a full service, with some minor delays. Parcelforce Worldwide export services are still operating to all international destinations though customers should expect delays of one to two days.

“Our teams are working around the clock to resolve this disruption and we will update you as soon as we have more information.

“We immediately launched an investigation into the incident and we are working with external experts. We have reported the incident to our regulators and the relevant security authorities.”

What is concerning is that the organization is asking shippers from refraining sending items internationally until the problem is resolved.

With many small businesses still reeling from the December postal worker strike, this is just the latest situation eroding confidence in the UK’s mail operator.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

Note: Updated to include the full statement from Royal Mail.

Richard Meldner

Richard is co-founder of eSeller365. He has over 17 years of experience on eBay which includes tens of thousands of sales to buyers in over 100 countries and even has experience with eBay’s VeRO program enforcing intellectual property rights for a former employer. And for about two years Richard sold products on Amazon using Amazon FBA in the US.

To “relax” from the daily business grind, for a few weekends a year, he also works for IMSA as a professional race official.