Royal Mail claiming stamps re-used???

norbet colon · Post by **norbet colon** » 20 Jun 2007, 18:38

Quite a few unused stamps but usually without any glue ! on E-bay, RM Uniforms for robberies wouldn't surprise me either, you can get Police Uniforms

Terryk · Post by **Terryk** » 14 Sep 2007, 20:08

I must admit the number of surcharged items we have had since the changes last summer has increased dramatically. We are in the fortunate position because we can reclaim the money from the sender plus a handling charge for collecting it - but it does seem the message still hasnt got through to some people that you cannot send a huge envelope for 34p anymore!

Post by **johnston65** » 14 Sep 2007, 20:17

T he problem we have in MC s is that staff are being told not to cancel out stamps as there is too much mail and too little staff. This means that customers can then re-use these stamps. This ahs been brought up by the union on numerous occassions but as we all know RM management and common sense don't go hand in hand. So go on folks use them and use them again cause we have loads of money and can afford to keep this practice up...

ROCKY · Post by **ROCKY** » 14 Sep 2007, 20:19

1 OF MY CUSTOMERS SHOWED ME ALL THE STAMPS SHE SAVED LAST XMAS THAT SHE COULD USE AGAIN ALL UN CANCELLED THERE WHERE SHED LOADS

stressed · Post by **stressed** » 14 Sep 2007, 20:57

I had an SD to deliver a few weeks ago and it was nearly Â£5 in stamps on the front and none had been franked. Is there any wonder RM are losing money.

norbet colon · Post by **norbet colon** » 15 Sep 2007, 00:18

northyorks wrote:I had an SD to deliver a few weeks ago and it was nearly Â£5 in stamps on the front and none had been franked. Is there any wonder RM are losing money.

-There was a crackdown from on high ONCE as the "brains trust" realised they were losing money -well I never !. The sections are just little empires in MCs , noone not ML4s, not staff , give a s*** ,nor do the SMs , it's push everything through . Bad cultures ,most are s******s , half the time it's making work for others down the waves/pipelines .

Post by **Pochahontas** » 21 Sep 2007, 23:27

RM should either employ staff who can do mental arithmetics or supply calculators and proper electronic scales - our offices scales are notoriously off the mark.
We have two choices - go to revenue for accurate weighing of items - send it though hoping the next stage of processing it will pick up on it - or dispatch to DO and hope the postie will take the item out. In most instances if it looks more or less near the right weight for the price it gets through - and experienced staff can easily gage whether an item is too heavy for the price attached - with this new casual labor approach unfortunately comes mistakes - big mistakes that are not picked up on - all for fast through rates and dispatches.

Customers - sticking a First Class stamp on an A4 envelope will be placed in the revenue box for surcharging. (minum charge for light A4 items is 48p but customers still think that sticking an ordinary stamp on with just first class is enough because of the 1st well those stamps are now for POP size letters @34p)
Reused stamps - notoriously common! washed and signs of old date stamps are common.

As for the person who said that by sticking his stamps onto the address bit of the plastic wrap - sorry I don't see how this can get confused with re used stamps. The office in question must have some really stupid staff in revenue to miss a clean stamp - Else you bought your stamps from an unauthorized place and they were in fact old used stamps - or PO is flogging off old stamps - I don't know because I didn't see the stamps in question but there are numerous reasons items are taken out for checking. Most common is fraud!

The reality is a lot of people do re use if they think they can get away with it. The current climate is that social mail isn't a priority any more - our office is more or less trying to establish itself as the best DSA office going sod the live mail. Non Machinable mail costs money and time which is what I thought PIP (pricing in proportion) was all about but unless MC staff are given the correct training and time to cancel out all stamps this bad working practice of letting it through will continue, all I suggest is if when we are manually sorting and come across unfranked mail we put a biro mark through the stamp left to right diagonally.

Post by **rhino49** » 21 Sep 2007, 23:51

I used to cross through any unfranked stamps but there are so many now that I have given up as it slows down the sorting. Some days we have whole boxes unfranked and there seems to be a move amongst customers to position stamps so that the franking mechanism misses them. I dread to think what we could be losing on a national basis if only 10% are recycled.

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 22 Sep 2007, 07:30

Only this week a parcel weighing about 2 kilos and about the size of a tray of cat food with absolutely no postage on it at all got through to my sorting area. I wonder how much RM would have lost if I had not taken it over to surcharges to sort out.