Wait until 3pm or collect it yourself (for a price)

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 29 Jan 2011, 10:56

Wait until 3pm or collect it yourself (for a price): Royal Mail's £200 fee to pick up your own post

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1CQ8gU7R1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Royal Mail is to charge customers £210 a year if they choose to collect letters and parcels from sorting offices rather than wait for the postman.

Soaring numbers of fed-up businesses and residents have been opting to pick up mail themselves rather than wait for a daily delivery, which can be as late as 3pm in some parts of the country.

Until now, this option, called Mail Collect, has been free. However, a charge of £210 a year is to be introduced from April as part of a raft of inflation-busting price rises.
Pricey: The Royal Mail is set to charge its customers £210 to pick up their own post

The price of a first-class stamp for a standard letter will rise by 5p to 46p, and second-class by 4p to 36p.

Larger letters and many greetings cards will go up even more, with first class going up 9p to 75p. Special Delivery, business post and posting heavy parcels will also be more expensive.

Moves to hike prices have coincided with major cuts in Royal Mail services, with fewer collections, thousands of post office closures and a switch to a single late daily delivery.

Of the new £210 fee, Colin Borland, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: ‘Royal Mail is trying to charge businesses for doing their job for them. In some parts of the country, the post doesn’t arrive until 2.30pm. If a company has received an order, they want to turn that around in a day. That is impossible when the post is late.’

Philip Cullum, deputy chief executive of Consumer Focus, said: ‘Royal Mail needs to modernise but customers are being asked to pick up the tab.’

Pay for it: Mail Collect, until now, has been free as people opt to get a quicker delivery of their goods

The Mail Collect service is particularly popular in Scotland, where businesses in rural areas cannot afford to wait until late in the day for the postman to turn up. Ayr MSP

John Scott said: ‘How on earth can it cost Royal Mail anything for business customers to pick up their own mail so that such a charge can be justified.’

Royal Mail said: ‘From April, the cost of using the Mail Collect service will be £210 a year and the overwhelming majority of our customers are not affected by this change. Royal Mail is improving the security and set up arrangements for this service, used by a very small proportion of business customers.

We need to be able to cover the operational costs for providing the service.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1CQ8v0MNs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 29 Jan 2011, 10:59

TrueBlueTerrier wrote:
We need to be able to cover the operational costs for providing the service.’

How long till they use that excuse to charge people for delivering it more than a couple of times a week. After all taking it down to the callers office is cheaper than talking it out on delivery in most offices.

Stormproof · Post by **Stormproof** » 29 Jan 2011, 11:35

What about if these businesses want to collect their mail early..8-9am?, half the stuff is'nt going to be ready for collection, so they may aswell save the cash and have it delivered with ALL of that days post.

Broxi51 · Post by **Broxi51** » 29 Jan 2011, 15:41

Will that mean that businesses will move to working from tues - Sat instead of Mon - Fri and work
with the previous days mail ?

Post by **janitor** » 29 Jan 2011, 15:51

No it means more business will take orders by other means, telephone or email, smaller businesses especially will need to find other means or lose trade to larger companies, that are already webbed up.

taurus88 · Post by **taurus88** » 29 Jan 2011, 16:21

£0 to £210 in one hike. Seems rather a lot. I suspect it will lose more money than it gains as most businesses will simply try to do away with paper services altogether. If they receive ten letters a day at 46p then RM could potentially lose £1400. If they receive one hundred then it's £14,000 and so on. There will be those who believe that letters are essential to all businesses, but they're only as essential as you're willing to make them, and for as long as you're willing to accept them. Times are a changing and Royal Mail, in my eyes, is doing little to help itself change with them. I guess it's very easy to criticise but progress doesn't come in price hikes, staff cuts and poorly thought out ""modernisations"".

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 29 Jan 2011, 16:24

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 29 Jan 2011, 16:52

Moves to hike prices have coincided with major cuts in Royal Mail services, with fewer collections, thousands of post office closures and a switch to a single late daily delivery.

Our exalted leader Moya the bag lady wants privatisation...on the whole small businesses don't because up until a few months ago we were relatively cheap,reliable and offered many free services that a privatised Royal Mail couldn't justify.
She took care of the reliability with BT2010.
She took care of the cheap with the hike in stamp and business prices.
Now she is dealing with the freebies.

All hail the glorious leader...we're not worthy.

Post Off · Post by **Post Off** » 29 Jan 2011, 18:38

I ask you, what is there left to modernise? If all the machinery is in place and we have got all the tools (which we haven't), then I ask again, what is there left to modernise?

One can't simply modernise a post person's walk without aiding that post person with some technology / new machinery or equipment. Is everyone under the impression that we as individuals must be modernised? I mean, are we about to join the Borg Collective, or something?

How much more modernised can we expect to become, if RM haven't got a clue beyond what is they already know. This modernisation which everyone is clinging to has more to do with scrapping our working conditions and stretching us to new and medically dangerous lengths.

If they want to fugging modernise us, then modernise our fugging equipment, so that we can (nearly) do the fugging job!

...About this mail collect, thingy. Isn't it about time these silly little businesses stopped moaning and groaning. If they can't wait for their mail, but want it earlier, then it shouldn't sound too unreasonable to a business person (ffs) to be charged for getting their mail when they want it. Might do 'em good too to get off their backsides every so often, too.

DGP1 · Post by **DGP1** » 29 Jan 2011, 19:12

Pegasus legs

can be programmed to walk at any speed

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 29 Jan 2011, 19:18

IWT arms?

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 29 Jan 2011, 19:25

Walk sequencing arms.

Post by **mucker** » 29 Jan 2011, 20:18

Royal Mail is to charge customers £210 a year if they choose to collect letters and parcels from sorting offices rather than wait for the postman.

Soaring numbers of fed-up businesses and residents have been opting to pick up mail themselves rather than wait for a daily delivery, which can be as late as 3pm in some parts of the country.

Until now, this option, called Mail Collect, has been free. However, a charge of £210 a year is to be introduced from April as part of a raft of inflation-busting price rises.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -post.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Indy · Post by **Indy** » 29 Jan 2011, 20:23

About bloody time in my view!

fishtank · Post by **fishtank** » 29 Jan 2011, 20:37

Indy wrote:About bloody time in my view!

Why?

ROYALMAILCHAT