Royal Mail slammed over punishment for customers and people say 'it's a joke'

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... t-29045328

Royal Mail admits its scanners ‘make mistakes’ but stands by the process it uses to detect fakes as ‘robust’ as it issues fines to households.

Royal Mail admits its scanners ‘make mistakes’ but stands by the process it uses to detect fakes as ‘robust’ as it issues fines to households.

A Royal Mail counterfeit stamp scandal threatens to echo the Horizon and Post Office furore, it has been warned. Royal Mail admits its scanners ‘make mistakes’ but stands by the process it uses to detect fakes as ‘robust’ as it issues fines to households.

Writing into the Guardian newspaper consumer affairs section, one customer said: "I received a card through the post from a friend, along with a demand for a £5 fee, as Royal Mail claimed the barcoded stamp was counterfeit."

The customer, from Kent, went on: "The joke is she says she was sent this stamp by Royal Mail when she exchanged her old ones for the new barcoded kind under its Stamp Swap Out scheme." Royal Mail announced it would investigate after postal workers declared stamps sold from their branches were being wrongly identified as fake.

“We have a robust, multistage process when assessing whether barcoded stamps are genuine. This includes a thorough examination using specialist equipment, then a follow-up inspection by a human before any stamp is marked as counterfeit or pre-used. We require any customer who believes they have been incorrectly surcharged, to send the envelope to us, with the barcoded stamp attached, along with the exact location of where the stamp was purchased," it said.

“Any suggestion that postmasters, or their staff, are selling fake stamps to consumers is very serious,” says chief executive Calum Greenhow. “The reputation of postmasters has taken a significant knock due to events around the Horizon scandal when so many were falsely accused of crimes.

"The NFSP has repeatedly highlighted, to both Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail, that it may be possible for fraudulent stamps to be purchased from reseller platforms but, very little has been done to prevent it.”

One Brit responded saying: "whether these stamps are fake or not the fact is that the recipient has done not one single thing wrong here thus RM is simply attacking the party who they can easiest identify, this fine should not be supportable in law."

"Since many of the items posted (rather than emailed) by private individuals are probably non-essential items like cards for a birthday or other similar occasion, rather than paying a considerable fine, just reject the item. If the post office finds itself handling a large quantity of undelivered post, it will soon take action," another said.

[Celtic warrior]

Can you just imagine the backtracking if one of us uses a stamp, that we get sent at Christmas, and that gets identified as a fake.......

[olilew]

Can you just imagine the backtracking if one of us uses a stamp, that we get sent at Christmas, and that gets identified as a fake.......

Has happened