OT. New online postage stamps?

[Matt]

How do you *know* it isn't ?

[Mark Goodge]

Because you can print SmartStamps without an address, if you want to.

Also, the Royal mail website has a page giving details of SmartStamps, and one of the items is about the barcode. It says about the barcode that:

All information in the postage mark is encoded into a barcode which read by Royal Mail sorting technology to prevent the posting of fraudulent or duplicate items.

doesn't mention anything about the address also being in the code.

OK, so that doesn't prove that it isn't encoded if you do print them with an address label, but I'd be very surprised if it was.

Mark

[Guy King]

The message from Stuart contains these words:

I've found that if you print labels they slip through the post much quicker. The machine readers can do the postcode more successfully if it isn't hand-scrawled.

[The Natural Philosopher]

There are two sorts of people in this world. Those that look for ways to break human derived systems on the basis that 'they ought to be better'; and those that have better things to do, and print labels on a machine that another machine can read.

[bof]

In message , Mark writes

- take the correct selection of 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p stamps from the stamps tin.

Yup.

[bof]

In message , Mark Goodge writes

Unfortunately 'they' don't know who it's from or what it is until they've gone to the sorting office, at which point they've already spent £2.00 on petrol and half an hour of their time, so might as well pay the

1p shortfall + £1.00 fine to get it while they're there anyway.

[Sarah Brown]

Not if you're using a Mac, where you always get the option to print to file (PDF).

[Andy Hall]

It's very competitive in comparison to the cost of me going to the post office, waiting in a queue, dealing with incompetent morons behind the counter who don't understand the meaning of the word "service"

This can be specified and arranged as well.

[Andy Hall]

Because you are having to put in extra effort and thought to cover the shortcomings of an organisation who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery with the glasses laid out and the taps turned on.

Absolutely. In comparison with titting around with the shortcomings of Royal Mail it is extremely cheap.

It's not an issue of being selfish.

This is a business transaction, not a charitable arrangement.

They are being paid to deliver a service. That's it. The boundaries of that are collection, delivery and a means of tracking properly in between, not worrying about whether the postman's bicycle has a flat tyre.

If you want to do stuff to accommodate the shortcomings of these buffoons then fine, but at least recognise that there is a cost associated with it.

You may think that now. You probably thought that Austin Rover was a viable business as well. It's all just emotional nonsense, supporting untenable business models and outmoded ways of carrying them out. This is the 21st century, not the mid 19th.

I'll make a prediction. Royal Mail will not exist in anything close to its present form 10 years from now.

[Bob Eager]

I think I'll use it occasionally, but for small packets rather than the usual 'letters'. I am pretty geared up to check costs, so as long as it fits in a post box I'll use it. For normal stuff I have a stock of adhesive stamps.

Unfortunately, they closed two good sub post offices near here (one on a large estate, with the next nearest to the estate being the one at the bottom of the road). This has increased queues unacceptably. The main PO for the town now means struggling into the Co-Op and parking is dreadful. And it's really busy; I'm not sure the Co-Op are so happy now as the changed access arrangements have resulted in an increase in shoplifting!

[Clive George]

You don't half make life complicated for yourself! What proportion of RM's traffic requires that? The majority of our posting needs are handled by 'take stamp out of little booklet obtained from the supermarket, apply to envelope, stick in postbox'. No queueing, not even any need for interaction with people. Cheap too.

(Ok, I'll admit I'm not best pleased with courier companies at the moment, one of them just having taken three days to find my house on a 'next day' delivery. On the third day he actually made the effort to find out where it was rather than just fail to find it in his map book and then give up.)

clive

[Jules]

Oh, absolutely. I just mean to say that, as a consumer, there's no real improvement over the physical stamp process - items still need to be weighed in order to know correct postage, things can still get lost in the system etc.

On top of that, from what I've read here, you can't even buy one of these things as you would a physical stamp and then use it as and when you see fit, because both the date and the recipient are encoded in the new version.

I'm sure it's a beneficial system to some people - I just have a feeling that to many more it'll be less convenient than stamps (so I hope RM aren't going to remove the ability to use the latter any time soon, or use it to justify closure of more post offices!)

cheers

J.

[Jules]

Add to that a third class who expect a system used by humans to also be operated by humans, rather than by a machine (which, for certain classes of operation, can have a far higher error rate - handwriting recognition is undoubtedly one of those categories :-)

[Andy Hall]

Ever less I would imagine.

I deliberately use their services as little as possible.

In general I have no need to send letters and the like because I can achieve the same communication by email or fax.

I don't send printed literature to customers. They receive an email with a PDF which works far better.

I don't write cheques except under very unusual circumstances. Financial transactions are handled by BACS, credit card or direct debit. If I find a supplier is unable or unwilling to deal with any of these then I will find another.

The only regular use that I make of RM's services is to send copies of invoices to my accountant once a month by Special Delivery. That's it.

Everything else is handled by overnight couriers, international couriers and occasionally delivery van services. These have tracking, accountability and if necessary compensation.

OK, so you should be pursuing your supplier for compensation. If you let it go, then they will think that the service was satisfactory and take no action. If you inform them, and a reasonable number of others do as well, then there is an opportunity for improvement or change. Really there is absolutely no excuse for not being able to find a delivery address. GPS systems and mobile phones are quite cheap.

[John Rumm]

*very* bad idea!

[John Rumm]

Like expiring records more than a month old perhaps? Thus even valid stamps will "time out" if not posted within a resonable time after purchase.

[John Rumm]

How is that different any from the current situation when the sender fails to affix the correct postage?

[Bob Eager]

They time out after a day anyway.

[Mark Goodge]

I have a feeling that the new system has been introduced as a result of two different, but complimentary, pressures:

1. Individual users, particularly in rural areas far from a post office, who want something of the functionality of the existing SmartStamp product without needing to pay a subscription for the software.
2. Royal Mail's web development team who have looked at the SmartStamp product and said "We could write an online version of this that individuals could use for one-off printing. Wouldn't that be cool?".

Mark

[tinnews]

I'd be surprised if the Royal Mail sorting offices have instant online communication country wide. If you use the same SmartStamp for posting items in several different places will they really catch it?