Dear Royal Mail, I am not a thief

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Dear Royal Mail. Rather than making my complaint public through a blog read by at least four people and translated into Catspeak for my feline fan, I would have preferred to contact you direct, but that’s proved to be difficult verging on the impossible, leaving me with the sneaking suspicion that you don’t want to hear complaints.

The customer service page on your website is anything but. It’s not good enough to post a photo of a young lady called Sarah, who I’m sure is very nice and is good to her mum, and invite people to ask a question. I don’t want to ask a question, I want to complain.

When I search for ‘complaints’ on the site, I’m offered a PDF of the procedure and can, wait for it, write a letter. Or, if I prefer, I can complain online if my gripe falls into categories such as ‘sales inquiry’, or ‘damaged goods’ where I can then, if I have a couple of hours to spare, complete a form. I suspect you want me to lose the will to go on. What’s wrong with a complaints@ email address? Eh?

Here’s the thing, I was being green. Not in the Incredible Hulk way, though I do go a funny colour when I get cross – and I am cross. I recycled an old envelope which had stuff on it, so I covered the stuff up with labels, then stuck my stamp on, a stamp I had bought with my own money. Not that it’s any of your business, but it was a stamped addressed envelope for my number in the John Carr series of races where I will be doing my very best not to come in last.

The postie who delivered it seemed rather embarrassed as he wanted me to pay £1.12 on top of the postage I’d already forked out. It seems that the stamp was stuck on a label that could have been cut from another envelope where the stamp had already been through the postal system, remained unfranked and was therefore used, but not used, a kind of don’t buy one, but still her one free. The assumption was that I was trying to defraud the Royal Mail out of the value of a stamp. No benefit of the doubt, just a demand for money or I wouldn’t get my race number.

Well, Royal Mail, I have to tell you this was not the case. I am not a thief. But what can I do about it? Not a lot, it seems, though I could always Ask Sarah.

[Bahia Feliz]

£1.12 sounds like it was a surcharge 12p underpaid plus the £1 handling fee. So not charging him for the full cost of postage + £1 surcharge fee.

[PhilthyPhil]

From the picture it looks like a C3 or DL sized envelope not C4. More likely since it contained a race number it was more than 5mm thick so was surcharged for that.

[Spedley]

Comedy - all that blog for a total misunderstanding.

Folding a large letter into a small one doesn't really count unless it is fully taped up.

[Lounge Lizard]

From the picture it looks like a C3 or DL sized envelope not C4. More likely since it contained a race number it was more than 5mm thick so was surcharged for that.

"I recycled an old envelope which had stuff on it, so I covered the stuff up with labels, then stuck my stamp on, a stamp I had bought with my own money"
Look at the photo, and, "stuck my stamp on, a stamp I had bought with my own money" , no, it's a five year old stamp cut from another envelope that had been glued on the new envelope, and £1.12 surcharge indcates not that the stamp was not accepted but that it was a 'Large Letter' with an orinary 'Letter' stamp on it.
Blatent lies and expects sympathy. Pathetic.
She IS a thief,.

[DGP1]

Teebs has alread given her a full reply and I'm sure if she had contacted RM they would have told her the same (after waiting on the phone for an hour and being transfered between 20 people).

[Indy]

This whole un-franked stamp thing is crap..... I see (and cancel) AT LEAST 20 stamps a day. why the F*ck can't RM employ people to cancel stamps OR get a machine to do it. Can you really blame people if they did try to re-use a stamp??

In my view this is completely down to RM as they let far too many unfranked stamps through the system.

[swintonpostie]

so in being green and reusing an envelope it has cost her £1.12 , next time buy a pack of envelopes for a pound then you will have some spare for next time ! and theres no point trying to be green when virgin media and dominos pizza are practically decemating the rainforests on there own

[mazza111]

Am I missing the obvious here? Surely it shouldn't have been out with the postie until it had been paid? Is there still offices who take these out? To me it looks like it's been stickered in error and went out with normal postie, and not in the charges bag?

[Lounge Lizard]

so in being green and reusing an envelope it has cost her £1.12 , next time buy a pack of envelopes for a pound then you will have some spare for next time ! and theres no point trying to be green when virgin media and dominos pizza are practically decemating the rainforests on there own

Reuse any envelope, yes, but cut out an unfranked five year old stamp from another envelope and glue it on, NO.

[kawoxux]

They got it wrong, 12p underpaid so it probably came under a large letter.

Surely if the reason was becuase of an unfranked stamp the surcharge would be £1.46 (or, indeed, £1.60 as it is now)

[Spedley]

I have seen several problems with recycled envelopes since sequencing came in. The machines read the previous barcode and send the letter to its original destination without even looking at the address.

[MGB]

so in being green and reusing an envelope it has cost her £1.12 , next time buy a pack of envelopes for a pound then you will have some spare for next time ! and theres no point trying to be green when virgin media and dominos pizza are practically decemating the rainforests on there own

Reuse any envelope, yes, but cut out an unfranked five year old stamp from another envelope and glue it on, NO.

How do you know it's 5 years old?

[chunk]

The postie who delivered it seemed rather embarrassed as he wanted me to pay £1.12

We posties dont collect money this story has more holes than a fishing net and is more fishy.

[Lounge Lizard]

so in being green and reusing an envelope it has cost her £1.12 , next time buy a pack of envelopes for a pound then you will have some spare for next time ! and theres no point trying to be green when virgin media and dominos pizza are practically decemating the rainforests on there own

Reuse any envelope, yes, but cut out an unfranked five year old stamp from another envelope and glue it on, NO.

How do you know it's 5 years old?

Because First Class definitive stamps with a large '1st' in the top left, rather than the usual small '1st' in the lower left, were sold for a limited time after being issued in August 2006 when Pricing In Proportion was introduced.