Flatulent Letter Too Thick

[chris_doran]

Sorry if this is a bit OT, but we discussed postage a few days ago.

I've just received a letter with a warning sticker wingeing that it was underpaid, though graciously saying they wouldn't surcharge me this time, but to be more careful in future. As the weight was well under

100gm, it must have been deemed too thick (>= 5mm). I measured it at 4mm when squashed, but when the envelope was allowed to "balloon" it teetered over the border. I guess the sorting machinery uses an optical sensor rather than a mechanical one. Has anyone been into a PO lately? What kind of gauge do they use there? If it's just a slot, then it seems that a letter can be accepted at one rate at the counter but surcharged at the sorting office. A nice little earner :-(

Just to bring it on topic -- it looks like we need a diy design for a non-contacting thickness gauge.

Chris

[Jonathan Schneider]

Oooops. Yours truly saw the subject then started reading the article unable to work out how it related to a tenant with a digestive order. And why Chris would want to weigh and measure what came out their rear end.

Jon

[Jim S]

At the PO they just have a 'slot' and if it don't go through then that's it. A friend tried to send a card with one of those 'I am 60' metal buttons attached and it cost him 80p (1/3 of the cost of the pint he had in his hand during the telling) Turns out that the card cost about £3.50 anyhow.

[Stuart]

Royal Mail delivered a paper version of the size device with the two slots in to guesstimate whether your letters would fit which category .I understand all households got one ....I sent away to RM for a cardboard version of the same . In Post Offices they have a heavy duty plastic version of this which I presume is more resistand to letters being forced through than the lightweight paper one. I don't know if the cardboard version is still available from RM...can't see it on their website .

What I did see ,however,was a link to opting out of unadressed mail deliveries .I don't recall seeing that before ...maybe that is a result of the fuss over the postman who was giving advice to customers as to how to do this ..He has been reinstated in his job I see

Stuart

[Steve Firth]

A slot in a thin piece of cardboard. I suspect that these slots will wear ragged rather quickly.

[Mathew Newton]

It's been a perspex one in the ones round my way.

Mathew

[Malcolm Stewart]

My worry too - particularly as the RM "fine" of £1(?) is probably a relatively small cost if one has to drive some distance to the nearest sorting office to collect the offending mail. I've just sent some DVDs to family members, and instead of using bubble-wrapped envelopes, I enclosed the disc in an envelope with card (recycled from food packaging) either side of the disc.

[Lobster]

I saw a proprietary gauge for sale in my local stationers, stacked up next to the till - biggish plastic thing intended as a dual purpose ruler.

David

[Steve Firth]

Bit of red cardboard at our local PO.

[Bob Eager]

But not on a delivery round; he is to be confined to the delivery office.

[Bob Eager]

All the ones I've seen (and I've been in several post offices) have a solid piece of perspex with the details printed on them.

[Stuart]

And in my local PO as well

Stuart

[PeTe33]

What about redesigning the post boxes with 2 holes. If it won't go through the thin hole it goes in the other one.

2 bags ready sorted for collection.

[Stuart]

Like ones they used to have for "City" and " Non-City" and all the letters got shoved in the same bag when the van came to colect them . Expensive tho' as well to have to rebuild all the post boxes ......Letter weight comes in to it as well of course

Stuart

[Stuart Noble]

What about pear shaped items where contents may or may not migrate to one end of the package in transit? I guess we'll see a growth in rigid envelopes. More plastic to recycle.

[MikeH]

Only an organisation with the mindset of a government department would come up with such a potty pricing structure :-(

Prescott's influence obviously extends beyond our beloved government, or perhaps he's been given a new job by Royal Mail?

Mike

[dennis]

Plastic ones heat sealed and vacuum packed.

Opps! there goes a possible patent.

[Lobster]

Yes I'm sure the folks at Jiffybag plc will by losing a helluva lot of sales; and/or will be frantically trying to design thinner bags offering equivalent protection to their standard ones.

David

[Andy Hall]

Quite.

This is simply rubbish.

All the professional couriers work using small packets by weight and then use industry standard dimensions (i.e. sum of linear dimensions) and weight after that.

When will this bunch of amateurs get their act together?

They really need to have their license restricted or revoked if they are going to continue with foolhardy games like this.

I was listening to the union leader who had been involved in defending the postman who had been helping customers not to receive junk mail. What a total dork. His main point was that it was a bad idea for customers to be informed in this way because if RM didn't have this business then DHL and TNT would be pleased to pick it up and therefore monies would not be going to subsidise RM.

What a crock of shit.

If this stupid organisation can't conduct its affairs in a proper, professional and commercial way and without subsidies and the prattling of union leaders attempting to defend the indefensible, then this needs to be exposed and the organisation allowed to go to the wall as it properly should.

[Brian Sharrock]

AIUI: we can't actually blame Prescott specifically.

Two-jags was merely implementing an EU Directive which will make internal postage within the UK charged on a cost per item basis. Although Roland Hill decided that the flat rate penny-post should operate from Saxa Vord to Lands End on a - "it'll sort itself out in the long term" basis; this isn't good enough for Brussels (or is it Strasbourg this week?). The little /big / thick/ and 'you must be joking' pricing policy is to permit foreign ^W EU-wide competition for the UK's internal post delivery market. First; they've got to be able to charge on a actual-cost basis; the 'flatulent letter too thick' example is only the first stage.

You'll all remember this EU Directive being debated in Blair's parliament? No! I wonder why?