RM asks firms to pay £3,000 to get post in the morniing

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Royal Mail is asking firms to pay £3,150 a year to ensure their post arrives in the morning.

The move means thousands of businesses, small and large, face a bill for a service that has been free for more than 300 years.

There are fears the same regime could be extended to family homes in the future.

The charges are effectively being forced on businesses as a result of the decimation of the postal service, caused by radical reorganisation and job cuts.

Royal Mail managers have begun telling firms the only way they will be able to ensure guaranteed morning deliveries is to pay an annual fee of £3,150.

Chief executive of the official customer body, Consumer Focus, Ed Mayo, condemned the tactic saying: 'Business should not be forced to pay extra for a specialist service simply because normal deliveries are so unreliable.'
Royal Mail's controversial policy turns the entire financing of the organisation on its head.

The principle has always been that the sender should cover the cost of postage ever since the Royal Mail was founded in 1660.

But the Royal Mail's ruse means it will increasingly get paid twice, with both the sender and the recipient paying a fee.

Royal Mail insists many postmen do not start their rounds until 10.30am, not 7.30am as previously, meaning eventually 60 per cent of letters will not arrive until the afternoon.

Cash cow: The new demand for charges come despite Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier recently being awarded contracts of up to £3m a year

This deterioration has come after Royal Mail chief executive, Adam Crozier, has been rewarded with contracts worth up to £3million a year.

Details of the pressure being put on businesses to pay for morning deliveries emerged in a letter from a manager at a Royal Mail depot in Norwich. It warns business customers: 'From September 28, we will no longer be able to commit to getting your mail to you at a specific time without you taking out one of our Timed Delivery services or call and collect services.'

This means firms will have to put up with late and haphazard deliveries unless they pay extra.

Or, they can go to the time and expense of collecting mail from delivery offices themselves.

The Timed Delivery Service, which costs £262.50 a month, means a business chooses a time-slot starting at 6am.

Royal Mail promises to deliver within 15 minutes of this time on Monday-Saturday, providing the firm is within ten miles of a delivery office.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: 'We are absolutely not putting any pressure on customers to pay for delivery of the mail and, of course, Royal Mail's standard six-days-a week delivery service remains free for customers at the UK's 28million addresses.'

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[nelson]

The Timed Delivery Service, which costs £262.50 a month, means a business chooses a time-slot starting at 6am.

How the heck can that work when the sorting will not be even started at 6am?

[shelanda]

The Timed Delivery Service, which costs £262.50 a month, means a business chooses a time-slot starting at 6am.

How the heck can that work when the sorting will not be even started at 6am?

Easy they pay for the mail that they shd of got free the day before!!!

[pickaname]

A Royal Mail spokesman said: 'We are absolutely not putting any pressure on customers to pay for delivery of the mail and, of course, Royal Mail's standard six-days-a week delivery service remains free for customers at the UK's 28million addresses.'

Notice what they are doing here?

They are now saying that they offer a delivery service "for free". This tactic is a sly movement towards charging art both ends of the delivery process. How long before RM start saying they can no longer offer this phantom free service?

Its like Tesco saying you dont have to pay to use their supermarkets as they offer this as a free service.

[mailsort6]

There is no way some of these small struggling businesses are going to pay a £3000 fee to get their mail in the morning. With RM stating this I hope that the public try to understand why us posties are out on strike now, it is not us trying to destroy the postal service.

[banner18]

This will be nothing compared to what will happen if we continue down the road we are on, or privatise. All customers, business and residential are going to get what we have been trying to tell them for years now. Overcharged for a poor service.

The British public will probably do what they have done regarding every other public industry and public institution that has been threatened, roll over and take it.

[pickaname]

The CWU need to take the initiative on this story and make the most of it.

Some of the comments seem to still want to blame the union for this though. I bet RM will say this charge is a direct result of IA,

[IWW Fellow Worker]

This was on the cards the minute they started to bring in later start times. They had another stupid idea a few years ago where houses which got more than a set number of items (15 I think it was) would have their mail delivered by a van later in the day rather than a postman on a walk. The DOM we had at the time said it was a scam to get those people to cough up to have their mail delivered at the normal time.

[The FraudSquad]

The CWU need to take the initiative on this story and make the most of it.

Some of the comments seem to still want to blame the union for this though. I bet RM will say this charge is a direct result of IA,

Its operating just now, in a slight variation........early collect, allows companies to come in from 7am onwards and collect mail which is ready at that time....in our office the local hospital uses it and pays £3000 per year to do so

[IWW Fellow Worker]

The CWU need to take the initiative on this story and make the most of it.

Some of the comments seem to still want to blame the union for this though. I bet RM will say this charge is a direct result of IA,

Its operating just now, in a slight variation........early collect, allows companies to come in from 7am onwards and collect mail which is ready at that time....in our office the local hospital uses it and pays £3000 per year to do so

They'd steal the pennies from a dead mans eyes! Three grand stolen from the sick to fund some parasites huge bonus.

[wardroom]

Had a business cust only last week moaning about the time I arrive 13.00 when he finished ranting I told him he could be asked to pay a fee for an earlier delivery slot, well the language was choice but I told him it was fact.
If we are 10% down and reducing year on how do you justify much later deliveries.
I will call in on him on Monday with the news.

[antcpfc]

The CWU need to take the initiative on this story and make the most of it.

Some of the comments seem to still want to blame the union for this though. I bet RM will say this charge is a direct result of IA,

Its operating just now, in a slight variation........early collect, allows companies to come in from 7am onwards and collect mail which is ready at that time....in our office the local hospital uses it and pays £3000 per year to do so

They'd steal the pennies from a dead mans eyes! Three grand stolen from the sick to fund some parasites huge bonus.

For years we kept all the local schools mail when shut.The caretaker would pick it up as and when.They have now told us to send it back to sender if he schools have not paid for a keepsafe.It really is beyond belief,we all did it in our normal time so it cost RM precisely nothing.
And they lecture us about the customer being unhappy.

[dvbuk55]

The CWU need to take the initiative on this story and make the most of it.

Some of the comments seem to still want to blame the union for this though. I bet RM will say this charge is a direct result of IA,

Its operating just now, in a slight variation........early collect, allows companies to come in from 7am onwards and collect mail which is ready at that time....in our office the local hospital uses it and pays £3000 per year to do so

They'd steal the pennies from a dead mans eyes! Three grand stolen from the sick to fund some parasites huge bonus.

For years we kept all the local schools mail when shut.The caretaker would pick it up as and when.They have now told us to send it back to sender if he schools have not paid for a keepsafe.It really is beyond belief,we all did it in our normal time so it cost RM precisely nothing.
And they lecture us about the customer being unhappy.

As I recall it isn't RMs fault - it was the regulator who said "all men shall be equal" which meant nobody could be given preferential treatment.

[wingmanchillian]

many of the firms on my walk are very disappointed with this news.

its greed at the end of the day. first time in 20 years that all parts of the company have made a profit but they still not happy. guess profit isn't profit unless its extortionate.

[k979aaa]

It is timed delivery service they royalmail have always charged near this amount but as mail centers will close and mail has to be sorted by fewer and fewer posties and travel further and further and be delivered by less and less posties later and later because there is not the staff in the fewer and fewer mail centers ever so far away with less and less postmen delivering most will not leave the office till 11.00 AM soon and this is modernisation?.