OT. New online postage stamps?

[Bob Eager]

Scared of using a photocopier???

[Bob Eager]

Sorry, Tim. I read that too fast and assumed you were making a completely different argument! I *think* I'm awake now...!

[Owain]

I've had some bad experiences with photocopiers, and it wasn't because I was trying to photocopy my arse when drunk.

Owain

[Brian Morrison]

True, however I think that it is uncommon to post anything without first stamping it. The repeated printing of a bar-coded stamp encourages this by having an effectively invalid stamp. The "not stamp" in my book of stamps doesn't have that same property.

[Brian Morrison]

Accepted that this is a bit tricky Roland, but then the whole deal seems that way to me. Whichever part of the process has to ensure single use of a given stamp is adding complexity to what was previously a simple arrangement.

[Mark Goodge]

This is a problem that has always existed for franked mail (as opposed to stamped mail). Take a look at any commerciallly posted letter that you've received lately, and wonder how Royal Mail manage to avoid the franking mark being used repeatedly. But, because it's a long-standing problem, it has a number of long-standing solutions. And all this system is doing is allowing individuals to do their own franking, rather than restricting franking to organisations with bigger budgets. There isn't anything new here, from the point of view of Royal Mail, that requires them to come up with a new process to validate the franking mark.

The really important thing to remember is that, for all that the media are calling them "online stamps", this system is *not* producing stamps in the sense generally understood - it's more of a personal franking system, which works in a completely different way to stamped mail. It's just that most individual users of the Post Office never get to send franked mail (although they almost certainly receive it regularly), so they don't understand how franking works.

Mark

[Tim Fitzmaurice]

I do wonder if this is true though....let me play Devil's Advocate for a second. Previously it was buy stamp, stick stamp on letter process. With the new system its buy barcode, print bar code then they have some checking system to ensure validity.

However to go back a step - prior to the barcode they had franking machines as well as stamps. They must have had to have some check system to ensure validity of franked mail - to prevent forgeries from 3rd parties. Also the same with stamps they should have some check system in place to ensure no forged/reused stamps are getting in.

Therefore is a check system for these barcode stamps really adding to the complexity of the system. Any reader system to run them through the mail can include a validity check method fairly trivially, presumably in a similar manner to preventing fraud via false frank marks...checking 'real' stamps for validity/non-forgery seems much more difficult.

Tim

-- When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart ICQ: 5178568

[Andy Hall]

You could tell that to Xerox. They are always looking for original ideas.

[manatbandq]

You can buy traditional stamps on line, no need to make a special trip to the PO.

MBQ

[Stuart]

Well that's what they used to have as I did that as well but now they have some new fangles thingy that you put the letter etc on and it shows the assistant on his/her side of the counter what the cost is .Not so convenient as the previous arrangement .

Stuart

[Stuart]

AND when the postman trudges along your street with the rain pissing down .

Thats why I usually put sellotape over the address if I have printed out a label,although usually I just write it with a pen .

Stuart

[William Munns]

OK, perhaps I am being dumb here, you try to defraud the PO {by printing the stamp multiple times/by excluding a stamp}, you know you are in the wrong and you post the letter, in a postbox on the street where no-one can see you close enough to {see/even tell if you had used} a stamp. The letter goes to the PO and they see it {has no stamp/uses a faulty barcode}. The letter gets treeted as 2nd (or worse) and gets delivered to the PO of the destination address where they forward a message to the recipient telling them about lack of postage.

I don't know where you see the diffrence, the detection point is the same, the person who pays is the same, the social stigma is the same, the only diffrence I can see is if dumb people try to defraud the PO in this way they might not expect to be caught, but they will be, but then dumb people have been posting letters without postage for a long time, and the PO deals with them already.

[Andy Hall]

Good grief

What a palaver.

This is why professional delivery organisations supply little plastic stick on envelopes to take the label and any other documents.

I shouldn't need to worry about their logistics issues. It should be possible to read their specs. for delivery requirements (e.g. weight, dims, value, origin) write it on the address label, call them and that's it.

These people are paid to deliver a service. The customer should not have to think about the postman's wet weather arrangements.

All the time that customers go on accepting this nonsense from Royal Mail, they will never improve. In reality, they are the Austin Rover of the communications industry. Trading on past glories and living on delusions of grandeur. It would be far kinder to kill them off now rather than to see their inevitable slide into oblivion.

[Bob Eager]

I have letter and parcel scales, because I have always found them useful. I doubt they check every item down to the last gram.

Having said that, it's all pretty useless if the item won't fit into the postbox slot!

[Bob]

.

Er.... by that argument they would have to invent a bar code that couldn't be photocopied, photographed or scanned.

What you're really saying is there's no such thing as a unique barcode because any bar code can be duplicated. I don't agree with you, but even if you're right it's obvious that it doesn't take us anywhere.

[Clive George]

How much do you expect such a service to cost? When do you want it picking up? Are you going to hang around for this?

clive

[Jules]

Which requires you to know the precise weight of your present in order to figure out postage costs, surely, even with the new charging system? So for anything other than a letter that's obvously within single first class rules, surely a trip to the post office is needed anyway to make sure that the correct postage is put on the item?

Of course if RM issued every individual with a set of calibrated scales (and paid for their maintenance) there wouldn't be a problem :-)

[Stuart]

Why is it a palaver ? As I said . " although usually I just write it with a pen "

Ha..You don't want much ..You prepared to pay for all that ?

Well some of us DO think about other things apart from themselves and anyway it's my letter so if I choose to protect it's delivery details from getting obliterated by rain then that's my choice .

Nonsense .

Stuart

[Jules]

That's an interesting one, though - the idea of "item has been delivered" must presumably be done at some sort of final sorting office - it says nothing about whether an item gets lost between final sorting office and final destination. In other words, it's still not without flaws.

[Bob Eager]

I don't think delivery comes into it. It's the 'logical franking' that's the point.

With conventional stamps, they are cancelled by a 'rubber stamp' and at that point become non-reusable. This doesn't happen on delivery, but at the initial sorting office. I would guess that barcode scans (and thus 'logical franking') happen at the same time. Whether the item is delivered or lost is irrelevant in BOTH cases.