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Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

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TrueBlueTerrier
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Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by TrueBlueTerrier »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10896007" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The postal watchdog wants to stop unfair surcharges being imposed on stamped letters and packets sent by customers from their Post Offices.

Consumer Focus has told the BBC that the guidelines on what to charge for parcels and packets are not always being strictly followed.

The problem applies where mail is not weighed or stamped correctly.

ImageRoyal Mail staff check items at random to see if they have been correctly charged

Recipients then have to pay the shortfall and a £1 fine at their local sorting office.

The issue came to light thanks to Maggy Edwards, who frequently mails out newsletters from her home in Coventry.

She is a big fan of the Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, and helps run his official fan club. But she is certainly not a Post Office fan at the moment.

That is because after taking around 100 identical newsletters to a local sub-post office for weighing, sizing and posting, more than 20 of her club members were each surcharged and fined £1 for underpayment at their own sorting offices.

"Some of the members blamed me, perhaps thinking I just bunged a few stamps on and put the newsletters in the nearest letter box," Maggy said.

"But it was the local counter clerk who weighed and measured the items and told me what stamps to put on," she said.

Ms Edwards was so upset at what happened that she wrote to each affected member personally, reimbursing them out of her own pocket.

Image
Maggy Edwards fears having to pay more excess charges for her members
Now she says she is nervous of posting batches of fan club mail.

She says the news letters all fitted the measuring frame in the post office, and has no reason to think the counter staff gave her the wrong information.

She then took the issue up with the Royal Mail, the Post Office and her local MP, but says she got nowhere.

Her favourite Star Trek character Mr Spock would doubtless label what happened "illogical".

So how can it be that Post Office counters and Royal Mail sorting offices seem to be living in parallel universes, where different charges apply?
The post and packet pricing structure is quite complicated”

David Stubbs
Postal expert

It appears that, no matter what the counter staff may decide, the sorting officers are the final arbiters of whether you have paid the correct price.

The surcharges and "administration fee" are imposed by revenue protection staff who pull out items at random to see if the correct postage has been paid.

David Stubbs, an independent postal specialist working in the industry, says the problem partly arises because of a lack of complete co-ordination between counter staff management and the Royal Mail itself.

"A lot of it is down to a lack of training in the post offices around the tariff structure - and also because the post and packet pricing structure is quite complicated.

"There are five different prices for letters, another 10 for packets and then you go into parcels," he pointed out.

The Post Office said it was sorry for any difficulties experienced Mrs Edwards, but had no new information to add.

Nigel Woods of Consumer Focus will ask the Royal Mail to change its policy

"We aim to take the greatest care in advising customers on postage costs, and the overwhelming majority of all mail has the correct postage paid," it said.

It points out that if it did not take a strong line on wrongly stamped items, many more people would put too few stamps on items, or maybe none at all.

Nigel Woods of Consumer Focus said he did not agree that training was much at fault, but said that it was wrong that the price quoted at the counter could be changed later and the recipient surcharged.

So his organisation will talk to the management of Royal Mail and the Post Offices to get things changed.

"We'd like to see if there can be a system in place so when a customer buys a stamp over the counter and the mail gets sent from the post office through the system, when it it is pulled out by revenue protection people, they can see it's been purchased over the counter and will let the mail carry on," said Mr Woods.

"They can then take it up with Post Offices Ltd internally," he suggested.

Maggy Edwards of the Leonard Nimoy fan club says she is now nervous of posting her newsletters. Mr Spock himself has made no comment.

With 70 million items boldly going through the system daily, measuring and weighing post consistently may not exactly be the final frontier, but the problem certainly needs a space-age solution.
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POSTMAN
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by POSTMAN »

One for the PO guys me thinks. :nervous
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It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by DGP1 »

POSTMAN wrote:One for the PO guys me thinks. :nervous
Or Star Trek fans Image :wink:
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subbie
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by subbie »

If the Revenue Protection people (who I wouldn't trust further than I could throw them) are going to blame experienced Counter staff for "getting the postage wrong" then they are going to have to send the offending mail item back to the clerk concerned as evidence.

So this will piss on the Regulators proposal to allow the item to travel on unhindered.

We don't correct errors without hard evidence in the Counters Network.

Subbie
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by IcanthelpthewayIam »

think the solution to this is far too simple, if item posted in post office then post office should only apply the white sticker(ok the funny gold one now with the queen on it) instead of using stamps, if it has said sticker on it, RP should either ignore it or track back the mistake to offending po, that way anything with a stamp on it is a "customers mistake" and not the post office
The BFO
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by The BFO »

Some light entertainment for a change. Just how sad is this? Has her child been run over by some drug-crazed speeding motorist? No, some of her Leonardo Nimoy fan club letters have been surcharged. Although I suppose I should not perhaps be so churlish, speaking as the only person to cry when Spock died in Star Trek II, whilst the rest of the audience collapsed in mirth. However, I was only 32 at the time, and have since ‘moved on’.
TrueBlueTerrier
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by TrueBlueTerrier »

DGP1 wrote:
POSTMAN wrote:One for the PO guys me thinks. :nervous
Or Star Trek fans Image :wink:
:d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh! :d'oh!

Sorry DGP that's not Leonard Nimoy that's Zachary Quinto who plays the younger Spock in the Newest Star Trek Film/s.
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by DGP1 »

Teebs, I know it was Syler and no 'original' Spock but if you look behind her in the picture then that Spock does look like 'alternate timeline' Spock................and TBH only a really sad Trekker would notice :wink:

Live long and prosper :nervous Image
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subbie
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by subbie »

Hi ZX135

We are not allowed to use labels for certain classes of mail, so PO's will still have to use stamps, plus if RP are going to charge the PO for an underpriced item, then they will have to provide PROOF, eg the item concerned, which will cause inordinate delay to the customers item.

I have a better solution, RML should STOP selling stamps in any old joint that wants to flog em, restrict stamps sales to PO's ONLY, supply each PO with electronic scales, and TRUST the PO to get the measuring right. Sack all the RP people which will save £££££'s in its self, and TRUST the PO Network to be the RP frontline for mail.

It used to work this way when I joined the industry, in those days surcharges were a rare event.

Subbie
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by IcanthelpthewayIam »

subbie wrote:Hi ZX135

We are not allowed to use labels for certain classes of mail, so PO's will still have to use stamps, plus if RP are going to charge the PO for an underpriced item, then they will have to provide PROOF, eg the item concerned, which will cause inordinate delay to the customers item.

I have a better solution, RML should STOP selling stamps in any old joint that wants to flog em, restrict stamps sales to PO's ONLY, supply each PO with electronic scales, and TRUST the PO to get the measuring right. Sack all the RP people which will save £££££'s in its self, and TRUST the PO Network to be the RP frontline for mail.

It used to work this way when I joined the industry, in those days surcharges were a rare event.

Subbie
wouls till be problems with your solution, who sells the stamps would not make a difference as joe piublic would be the one putting them on the wrong size or weight of envelope etc so RP staff would still be required, best solutions is still the labels, just allow them to be put on all classes of letters packets etc, oh and i never suggested charging the po that makes the mistake just highlight the fact to them so the offenders could be properly trained, as for using the PO network to be the front line, good idea in principle but impossible to work, two words for you post boxes
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by Lounge Lizard »

subbie wrote:Hi ZX135

We are not allowed to use labels for certain classes of mail, so PO's will still have to use stamps, plus if RP are going to charge the PO for an underpriced item, then they will have to provide PROOF, eg the item concerned, which will cause inordinate delay to the customers item.

I have a better solution, RML should STOP selling stamps in any old joint that wants to flog em, restrict stamps sales to PO's ONLY, supply each PO with electronic scales, and TRUST the PO to get the measuring right. Sack all the RP people which will save £££££'s in its self, and TRUST the PO Network to be the RP frontline for mail.

It used to work this way when I joined the industry, in those days surcharges were a rare event.

Subbie
"We are not allowed to use labels for certain classes of mail" - does that mean that you're told not to use labels or the Horizon machine will not print labels for certain classes of mail, and are those classes of mail the ones and just the ones for which specific denominations of stamps are printed, namely Inland '1st', '1st large', '2nd' and '2nd large', Europe 60p and 88p and Worldwide 67p, 97p and £1.46 ?
subbie
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by subbie »

Thats right the system is programmed to prevent 1st tier weights from having a label, it did not start out that way, but the door has been shut now.

Subbie
Lounge Lizard
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by Lounge Lizard »

subbie wrote:Thats right the system is programmed to prevent 1st tier weights from having a label, it did not start out that way, but the door has been shut now.

Subbie
And you're probably paid less for selling the '1st Recorded' and '1st Large Recorded' stamps introduced last year than using £1.15 or £1.40 Horizon labels for those Recorded Delivery items :sad: and the same too for the 100g and 500g Special Delivery stamps due out soon ? :shock:
subbie
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by subbie »

The RD stamps pay the same, didn't know the SD stamps were coming out, remains to be seen if a reduction follows.

There would be no justification for a reduction the things take just the same time to process via Horizon, but I wouldn't mind betting to see these things put into a book form and sold in corner shops!! Leaving us with just the processing fee of 15p, same with pre paid postage bags and boxes that I hear are likely to be sold in Tesco's et all. Or maybe RM will wait until after the SPLIT then start to sell their products in other retail outlets, its at that time access to the Counters part of the Network will REALLY have to be examined and costed!

Subbie
adb2aber
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Re: Call for end to surcharges caused by Post Office errors

Post by adb2aber »

There'd be a lot less surcharges on label packets from POs if they were to check where the items are going - we often get foreign items with inland postage labels on them. Smart stamps are the worst though by a long way, whose bright idea was that?