Royal Mail’s website appears to be down ahead of the busy Easter weekend with frustrated customers reporting problems with its parcel tracking service.
Over 760 users have reported problems with the Royal Mail site this afternoon, according to website disruption tracker Down Detector,
Irritated customers are also tweeting the official Royal Mail account on X (formerly Twitter) in search of help with their deliveries.
Royal Mail confirmed that it’s suffering from an IT issue in a tweet responding to a customer.
“We're really sorry for any inconvenience. Our IT team is aware of an issue and they're working to fix this ASAP,” Royal Mail tweeted at 2.17 pm today. “Please try again later. If you'd like our help to record a complaint please DM your name/address/contact details?”
Customers are being greeted with an error message on Royal Mail’s tracking website that reads: “Service temporarily unavailable...We are working on fixing the problem.” Others claim that they are being shown a “server error” message when they try to track a package on both the app and website.
It’s unclear exactly when the technical issues began, with one X user claiming the tracking problems started two hours ago. Another person said that they had been encountering problems as far back as Tuesday, March 26.
The disturbance comes as Royal Mail is facing mounting pressure to reform its service. In a review update published on Wednesday, Ofcom said Royal Mail could be allowed to cut its letter deliveries to five days a week, or even three, under a series of options to overhaul the postal service.
Royal Mail previously suffered a cyberattack in January 2023. The breach caused a backlog that led to lengthy delays for customers and businesses. A ransomware group named LockBit linked to Russia claimed responsibility for the cyberattack.
