Response Services and stamps

[metalrat007]

Hi
I have noticed that charities are increasingly offering their supporters the opportunity to use a stamp on pre printed Response envelopes
The idea is to save the charity postage charges e.g. " Stamp not required but using one will cut our costs"
I believe that if a stamp is used, the license holder will still be billed as the licence is scanned by RM thus postage is paid twice
My question is if the "Freepost or Business Reply" along with the Alpha number/code is strike d out completely with a black marker for example, would this be a suitable way for the charity to avoid postage charges as long as the envelope carries the correct postage stamp?
The stamp would obviously need to cover the 1st/2nd class post mark and the lower barcode

Thanks in advance

[TeeferTiger]

When I worked for RM and used to sort out the business replies, make the list of who had what at what postage, put it onto the system so the company would be charged, and if it had freepost but there was a stamp, it wasn't counted/charged.

Now, I don't know whether that's the same in all offices, but in ours if it had postage on it, it overruled the freepost as postage had already been paid and therefore they couldn't be charge twice for the same item.

[arnold cheshire]

Hi
I have noticed that charities are increasingly offering their supporters the opportunity to use a stamp on pre printed Response envelopes
The idea is to save the charity postage charges e.g. " Stamp not required but using one will cut our costs"
I believe that if a stamp is used, the license holder will still be billed as the licence is scanned by RM thus postage is paid twice
My question is if the "Freepost or Business Reply" along with the Alpha number/code is strike d out completely with a black marker for example, would this be a suitable way for the charity to avoid postage charges as long as the envelope carries the correct postage stamp?
The stamp would obviously need to cover the 1st/2nd class post mark and the lower barcode

Thanks in advance

you cant scan a licence number . the freepost are just counted in the local delivery office and if it has full postage paid it wont be counted

[barrowc]

There's an autobilling system for some Response Service items now but I think that any item with stamps over the Response Services indicator (especially the small barcode immediately below the 1 or the 2) wouldn't be autobilled. That barcode is used to determine whether the RS licence is printed in the top-left or as the first line of the address - see page 24 of the user guide at http://www.royalmail.com/general-corres ... epost-plus for how that barcode works.

Non-autobilled items would be billed at the delivery office as described by TeeferTiger