OT: Buying Postage Stamps On-line

[fictitiousemail]

I know that RM sell stamps online but you need to buy loads .Is there anywhere else that sells them?...Probably there isn't enough money in it for sellers .

[John]

Buy a book of 6 (or 12) from your local Post Office thus keeping them open!

HTH

John

[nightjar]

The Royal Mail web site also has the print your own postage service. You just print a 2d bar code onto a label or envelope and use that instead of a stamp. You can set up a pre-paid account if you want to use the service a lot, or pay with a credit card or if the postage is over £3.50, with a debit card.

Colin Bignell

[dmc]

If you have a printer then you can buy individual stamps online and then print them yourself.

You do need to ensure the envelope is big enough though - the label is pretty big and they say you mustn't cut it I suspect it'll work fine with just the barcode tbh but not tried it).

Used it loads, works fine. No extra charge as long as you pay with credit card (debit cards get a charge if less than 3 quid or something).

Cheers,

Darren

[Invisible Man]

You can only post with computer printed stamps for a very short period.

Superdrug were recently selling discounted stamps. Some greeting card shops and others sell them.

[Suz]

"nightjar .me.uk>"

Handy, but barcodes would be a bit unseasonal on your Christmas cards though...

Suz

[Huge]

What's to stop you printing dozens of copies?

[nightjar]

You could pretend it is a picture of falling snow.

Colin Bignell

[Rod]

Exactly the same thing that prevents you sending all your mail without any stamps. When found out, the recipient will be charged. Well, giving the punitive regime, grossly over-charged might be a better way of putting it. And you can be pretty sure that somewhere in the system there is a barcode reader checking up at least a proportion of the labels.

[gazz]

i've used paypals online postage thingy a few times, bloody handy, but annoying that it's time limited, i.e. you have a certian date you have to post it after and before, you do get a refund if you dont post it in time, bit it's a pain in the arse if you miss the deadline for some reason.

i imagine the time limit is to allow the re-use of the barcodes... i guess there's only so many combo's of them possible.

but when you post a parcel by handing it over the counter, they scan the code and give you a proof of postage reciept, so if you had tried to re-use a code it would reject it there and then, and you'd prolly be arrested for mail fraud.

obviousely for letters that go in the post box it'd be the reciever that gets a different card through the letter box than they were expecting, asking them for the origional postage, plus a wrong postage fee, a fee for printing the card to tell you to pay the fees, a fee for the postie to have to deliver the card demanding the money, a fee for accepting the charges, a fee for picking it up at the sorting office, a fee for breathing the air in the sorting office etc.

no doubt they'd also ask the reciever to tell then who the sender was so they can do the same to the sender if not worse.

as for the barcodes not being xmyth'y enough, print the entire envolope in some sort of xmyth theme around the address, leaving a bit blank for the barcode, it only gets thrown in the bin after being ripped open,

[RobertL]

the stamps only live for 3 days. I wonder why they make the limit so short.

Robert

[Neil Williams]

Might be to allow re-use of the code.

Neil

[Andy Burns]

If they reuse them, how are they sure you haven't used a stamp you claim a refund for, someone else might have used the same re-issued code? Or is there a time limit on refunds too?

[fictitiousemail]

Debit Cards get charged extra but Credit Cards don't. Is that not the opposite of what usually happens ?

[Andy Burns]

Well credit cards are charged a percentage, and debit cards a fixed fee for processing; on a small item like a stamp the latter is more significant, usually it's the other way round.

[fictitiousemail]

Thx for all the replies and the "no extra charge" is good . Must remember that now that RM have shut the nearest P.O. I used to go to although using this service doesn't help the ones that are left .What they should do is note your Post Code and "credit" the local P.O.with "one footfall" just as if you had gone there .

[John]

Footfalls don't balance the books or pay the wages - neither do old people using it as a meeting place for a gossip. Like many shops they are suffering from competition - and trying to make a living on the crumbs. A bit like the local DIY shop - cans stay in business by selling the odd screw and paint brush - they need to sell the occasional power tool at full price to make a living. (or be very imaginative)

[Bob Eager]

Costco too.

[Bob Eager]

As already stated; it's a 2D barcode. Once it's scanned once, it ceases to work.

[Adrian]

"Bob Eager" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I strongly suspect the barcode contains not just the identity of the user who printed it, but also the recipient's postcode.