Royal Mail puzzle

[Davey]

Yesterday, Royal Mail left a card telling me that I needed to pay £2.50 for unpaid postage on an item to be delivered. I paid online, and today, the item was delivered. It was an envelope with one sheet of hand-written paper inside. But there is a 2nd Class stamp on the envelope. It is not franked, and is one of the old style. There is a new yellow sticker, with £2.50 marked, and the sticker is clearly over-stamped as used. The 2nd class stamp cannot have been added at the Post Office, as it would have been one of the new-fangled bar-code ones. What is going on? It is as though a bot has not seen the stamp, and has demanded a new £2.50 charge. I'll take it to my local Post Office tomorrow, and ask them. RM are still using Horizon software, aren't they? The only clue is that the envelope is about 1/2 inch longer, and about

1/4 inch wider, than a standard (D?) size long envelope. But looking at the latest price list, I can't find any way to come up with £2.50 as a charge. 2nd Class postage for it would appear to be 68p. Can anybody explain what is happening here?

[Andy Burns]

doesn't sound like it'd be too heavy,or too thick, was it larger than

24cm long or 16.5cm wide?

Presumably the post office have until end of Jan to use up old staps, just like anybody else? Not that they necessarily put a stamp on it when you pay

The £2.50 doesn't correspond to a normal postage fee, it's a penalty rate to cover the extra handling required.

[Bob Eager]

Horizon was/(is?) Post Office,. not Royal Mail.

[Martin Brown]

You have fallen foul of the granny oversize birthday card price gouging trick. A second class stamp is insufficient for a large letter (and so is a first class letter stamp). So they charge you £2.50 handling fee.

I'd hazard a guess that it is 1mm too big in one of its dimensions.

[Brian Gaff]

That is right. We are the local talking newspaper and many of us all over the country have started to see bar or qr coded stickers on our reusable free postage pouches, which have been stuck by obviously brain dead staff over the slot to remove the address label or over the velcro that secures the pouch. It seems that the wording freepost - Articles for the Blind means nothing to a lot of people. This is a world wide scheme, and even the Russians seem to do it. Back in the day when the Russians had their turn at sorting out Afghanistan, we used to get mail for the blind in and out. What is wrong with the UK which makes simple things so complicated. Brian

[Peter Able]

If your item had insufficient postage or no stamps attached, a flat rate fee will be charged as follows:

• Letters/Large Letters - no postage paid - £2.50 flat fee

PA

[jon]

I would tell them to stick it...

[Mark Carver]

I had similar a few years ago, except I turned up in person at the sorting office instead.

They brought out a Christmas Card, presumably oversized for the postage.

I told them them to bin it, and stuff their surcharge, and I walked off.

It seemed to annoy them. Have they really got nothing better to faff about with ?

[Fredxx]

Royal Mail and the Post Office are two separate entities. No point in complaining to the Post Office. Royal mail do have an online contact form and I would use this.

[Davey]

Thanks, It's worth trying. It even said "No postage" rather than "Insufficient postage", but there was a stamp on it.

[Peter Johnson]

Maybe they think there is something wrong with the stamp, that it's a fake/forgery.

[Davey]

Maybe. But it would be nice to know.

I visited my local Post Office today, to mail a parcel, and I asked them if they could see anything wrong with the envelope, but they could see nothing wrong. Size was fine, stamp looked good.

I then went to the local Main Post Office cum Royal Mail depot, but the sign very confusingly says, for each day: "08:000 -10:00 Closed". except for Thursday, which had something different instead of "Closed", but it has had a sticker placed on it to make it match every other day. Apparently "08:00 - 10:00 Closed means: "Only open between 8 am and 10 am", although it is not exactly crystal clear, it could mean "Between the hours of 8 am and 10 am we are Closed". Since it was about 11 am, it was closed.

I can't get there tomorrow during that brief period, so I'll try the Complaints procedure. I wonder how that will work.

[Davey]

Phooey. I tried to fill in the complaint form, but it keeps asking for the Reference Number, which doesn't exist, and explicitly states that without a Reference Number, it cannot accept the form. Catch-22. Tomorrow, I'll try the 'phone.

[Davey]

I finally managed to get to the Royal Mail office, at 08:15. I asked why the envelope was deemed to have no postage paid, and they took it in the back. When they came back, they informed me that the machine was identifying the stamp as a counterfeit. I said that it looked ok to me, and they said it looked ok to them as well, but it was a fake. Apparently, they see lots of these, usually purchased, or on items purchased, online. I came home, and looked this up on the internet. Youtube has several videos about this, it is amazing how much security there is in a simple stamp. And sure enough, not all of the required security details were there. Some were, some were not. I am now writimg to the senders, an old couple who I don't think compute, to let them know. One of the things to check is using a UV lamp. CPC's cheapest is £26, e-bay has them for £3. Hmmm. The stamp I will use for their letter is from a Royal Mail book of stamps, purchased at my local Post Office, so shoud be good.

[Andy Burns]

Presumably not one of the shiny new bar-coded ones?

[Davey]

Correct.