Pat puts her foot down over stamp surcharge

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/ramsgate/Pa ... ticle.html

A DEAF pensioner from Ramsgate has hit out at Royal Mail for charging her £1 because a Christmas card was SIX PENCE short of the postage required.

Pat Rowe, 76, had been sent a festive message by second class post from her pal Valerie who lives in Bournemouth.

After a trip out she returned home to find a card informing her that the festive greeting had been underpaid and the total charge to release the card was £1.06.

The former ceramic artist said: "I wonder which jobsworth decided to pick out that card among many. As far as I could see there was a stamp on it and it was no bigger than most Christmas cards.

"Both Valerie and myself are elderly pensioners, women alone at Christmas and no families anywhere near us. I am registered deaf and cannot communicate by telephone without great difficulty, that is why she put a small note in with the card.

"They are making up rules to rob people £1 a time. It’s just easy money for them."

A second class stamp is for letters that weigh no more than 100g and are no thicker than 5mm. The inclusion of a small letter in with the and Christmas card subsequently pushed the price up by sixpence.

Mrs Rowe said she became so angry and upset that she suffered a nose bleed and had to go to hospital for treatment.

She said: "My blood pressure was going up and I think that’s what caused it."

The Dane Park Road resident refused to hand over any cash so the card and it is still at the sorting office.

The 76-year-old added: "I have spent Christmas alone with no proper Christmas dinner because I can’t stand on my feet long enough to cook it. My letter and card from my friend would have been some comfort to me."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail always takes a common-sense approach to the tiny fraction of mail with underpaid postage. Surcharging customers is the last thing Royal Mail wants to do and we would urge people sending mail to ensure they use the correct postage. The surcharge that is levied helps to cover the extra cost of handling items that have been underpaid. We always seek to apply any surcharges sensibly as we want to avoid a situation where those who underpay postage end up being effectively subsidised by those customers who pay the correct price.

"If customers are in any doubt whatsoever about the correct price for an item of mail they should ask at their local post office, check online at www.royalmail.com or call our customer helpline on 08457 740 740."

[Stormproof]

[Spedley]

So let me get this straight ... if she under pays the postage she only want to pay the difference between what she payed and the correct postage?

Sounds like a bargain to me, if you don't get caught it's free and if you do get caught it only costs you what it would have anyway. Win win!

[not me]

why are these storys still being published??!!

[andy2007]

It's because the wrong people are being penalised. The problem is, though: We can't find out who paid the wrong price for sending the card.

The Public see the injustice of the recipient being charged, for the sender's mistake. But don't appreciate the fact that we can't find out who sent it. We have to cover the costs somehow, don't we?

[pinstripe]

Instead of surcharging these cards why don't we just send them to Belfast and see if the Return Centre can do anything. Then just deliver a card saying that an item has been sent there, we think it's a Christmas card but due to all the bad press we didn't want to bother you. Of course the cost of this would far exceed the £1.00 admin cost we currently charge, so IF the Return Centre can find out who sent it they can then be charged say, £15-£20 for our trouble. Remember, business not service. I wonder what the press would make of that.

[andy2007]

Instead of surcharging these cards why don't we just send them to Belfast and see if the Return Centre can do anything. Then just deliver a card saying that an item has been sent there, we think it's a Christmas card but due to all the bad press we didn't want to bother you. Of course the cost of this would far exceed the £1.00 admin cost we currently charge, so IF the Return Centre can find out who sent it they can then be charged say, £15-£20 for our trouble. Remember, business not service. I wonder what the press would make of that.

Don't you think that's a little impractical?
There isn't enough staff at the Returns Centre to cope with that kind of workload. And even if there was, the kind of prices you're suggesting are excessive, to put it mildly.

Remember: We ARE a Business, but we still provide a SERVICE to the Public. What we need to do (in my opinion), is to "put our cards on the table" with the Public. At the moment, they think that we're trying to penalise them, for other people's mistakes. And RM's attitude, when criticised for this, just adds to that perception. Why don't they simply explain the problem sensitively. That way, the Public would realise that this system, although flawed. Is the best we've been able to come up with, to cover the extra costs of handling underpaid items.

[pinstripe]

Instead of surcharging these cards why don't we just send them to Belfast and see if the Return Centre can do anything. Then just deliver a card saying that an item has been sent there, we think it's a Christmas card but due to all the bad press we didn't want to bother you. Of course the cost of this would far exceed the £1.00 admin cost we currently charge, so IF the Return Centre can find out who sent it they can then be charged say, £15-£20 for our trouble. Remember, business not service. I wonder what the press would make of that.

Don't you think that's a little impractical?
There isn't enough staff at the Returns Centre to cope with that kind of workload. And even if there was, the kind of prices you're suggesting are excessive, to put it mildly.

Remember: We ARE a Business, but we still provide a SERVICE to the Public. What we need to do (in my opinion), is to "put our cards on the table" with the Public. At the moment, they think that we're trying to penalise them, for other people's mistakes. And RM's attitude, when criticised for this, just adds to that perception. Why don't they simply explain the problem sensitively. That way, the Public would realise that this system, although flawed. Is the best we've been able to come up with, to cover the extra costs of handling underpaid items.

No, it's totally impractical and the prices are excessive, that's the point. PIP has been in force for over 2 years but there are still millions of underpaid items being sent. Not all of them are absent minded mistakes, but every time Great Aunt Betty complains to her local paper, the full sad story of how RM ruined her Christmas, how the nasty jobsworth at the DO refused to hand it over without her paying for it and the probability that her friend probably underpaid the postage on all her cards is overlooked, is reprinted time and time again in local papers all across the country.

I don't often agree with RM but we should at least be allowed to recover the costs involved. What normally happen in my office is the chap in the callers office uses his discretion when they come to collect them. Nowhere in the article does it say she actually went to collect it. I read it three times and I get the impression the only thing she did was phone the local rag.

[ar26]

The core problem is PIP baffles post office counter staff never mind the public, anything under or above a standard DL or A5 size should be charged at the large letter rate. royal mail need to tell the public the sizes it can send, oh I forgot management want us to deliver everything regardless of shape size and practicality. The other problem is they make too much money from the surcharges, during a normal week our office surcharges almost cover the wages of the callers office staff, dread to think how much they made during Christmas.

[andy2007]

Wow! I didn't realise it was making that much money. I thought the whole point of the fines, was to cover the extra expense of handling underpaid items.

[baldrick]

RM should make it a condition of posting, that the sender's name and address is on
the posted item, so that badly addressed or underpaid item can be returned to the
sender for correct address or postage.
Seems to be done in the USA.

[andy2007]

Now that's a good idea. At least then, whoever made the mistake with the postage, would be the one penalised. Instead of the recipient.

What gets me though, is why no-one (including myself) thought of that earlier.

[not me]

RM should make it a condition of posting, that the sender's name and address is on
the posted item, so that badly addressed or underpaid item can be returned to the
sender for correct address or postage.
Seems to be done in the USA.

ive said before this should be a requirement for all mail
for example if you send a packet to Canada with the return address in the wrong place they return it!!!
seems we are just too lax over here
its rediculous the amount of time and effort RLB has to go through with so many items

[The FraudSquad]

Its a nice little earner for royal mail, our office makes roughly £400 per week on surcharges alone....hence the reluctance to publicise the correct pricing levels, return addresses etc...

in some instances i feel sorry for those being asked to pay up for an item six pence underpaid....at the end of the day though you wouldnt go into a pub and only pay £2 for a beer that is £2.20 for example!!!!!!!!1

[janitor]

Now that's a good idea. At least then, whoever made the mistake with the postage, would be the one penalised. Instead of the recipient.

What gets me though, is why no-one (including myself) thought of that earlier.

Only problem is more than once over Christmas letters kept coming to our DO because the MC read the address on the back of the envelope, though it was clearly marked Sender and was on the opposite side to the stamps a couple even turned up three days running despite a circle in crown being put round the correct delivery address, in the end the dom scribbled out the senders address and that was the last we saw of them. The letters not the DOM unfortunately.