Royal Mail is a disgrace. Critics say that the company needs to be dragged into the 21st century, but that’s far too optimistic — the 20th century would be a good start. Even that is probably an insult to the Victorian postal service.

I exaggerate, of course. But almost every single time I have the misfortune of dealing with this company, something goes wrong. Badly wrong. This week I discovered that an important legal document that I had sent by Special Delivery more than two weeks ago was “still in transit”, a Royal Mail euphemism for lost.

If Royal Mail cannot delivery safely a single letter for £4.95, after expressly guaranteeing to do so, what hope is there for first or even second-class post?

Royal Mail defends itself on the basis that it loses only a small fraction of post each year — although it refuses to publish figures on the exact number of letters that go missing. What we do know, however, is that in the past fiscal year the company received almost half a million complaints about lost post (and more than a million complaints in total — about 5,000 every day, on average, far more than any other company in the UK).

Given that the vast majority of the public probably do not even realise if their post has gone missing, and of those who do, most do not bother to complain, the scale of the problem is huge. Even if Royal Mail loses only ten letters or parcels for every complaint it receives, which is probably a gross underestimate, that is still more than four million items a year, enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools. In 2004 Postcomm, the industry regulator, estimated that Royal Mail lost or misdirected almost 15 million letters or parcels, enough to fill almost eight Olympic-size swimming pools. Quite where all this post goes is a mystery; it is hardly as if it could slip down the back of the sofa unnoticed.

If your important delivery doesn’t arrive, don’t expect any sympathy, or worthwhile compensation either. After my initial complaint, it took Royal Mail three days to confirm finally that my package was never to be seen again. No explanation was offered as to how the letter might have disappeared, and although there was an apology, it was delivered in the halfhearted and resigned tones of someone who has had to repeat such cold comfort many times before. Nor is there a single penny of redress available for the inconvenience, stress and embarrassment caused by important documents disappearing into thin air.

Sadly, it is not just lost post where Royal Mail is failing. Customer service standards generally are appalling, from the lateness of the daily delivery service to the inconvenient opening hours of parcel collection depots. For some reason, every interaction with the company involves a large queue, whether you are calling the telephone helpline or wanting to send a parcel from the post office. In an incident that sums up everything that is wrong with the business, I discovered this week that the post box at my nearest post office in Whitechapel, East London, was not working. There was just a shabbily stuck up notice saying that the post box was “out of order”. Quite how a post box can be out of order is a mystery; it is hardly the most technologically advanced piece of equipment.

It is difficult to know who is to blame for this shambles of a company — the employees or the management. Either way, this once proud business can no longer be trusted. Royal Mail is dying a shameful death.

Npower comes a very close second

Running Royal Mail close for the ignominious title of Britain’s worst company has to be npower.

In 2007 the energy supplier promised customers — in its marketing literature and contracts — not to charge more than 4,572 units of energy at its higher rate in any 12-month period. The company failed to live up to this promise. Between May 2007 and May 2008 many customers were charged more than this number of units. When confronted, npower tried to weasel out of its promise, saying that when it said a year, it actually meant a “tariff year”, which conveniently could be any amount of time it liked. It is hard to imagine a clearer breach of contract, but the company has refused to refund customers properly.

Worse still, Ofgem, the energy regulator, has failed to force the company to offer proper redress. Indeed, at every step Ofgem has tried to wriggle out of investigating the issue. The regulator effectively ignored a request to investigate from Energywatch, the industry watchdog. Ofgem has failed to offer a credible explanation for this oversight.

This is simply not good enough. What use is a regulator if it will not investigate and properly sanction companies that do not honour their contracts? It is like having a football referee that refuses to send players off for dangerous play.

Ofgem’s conduct in this affair has been appalling and consumers have suffered badly. The regulator must look at this issue again, and if it does not have the statutory authority to do so, it must demand such powers from the Department of Energy.

The probable overcharging of two million or more customers cannot be swept under the carpet.

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