Any Revenue Prot bods about? Possible tip off

[theman1]

I know of a large customer posting in the region of 10,000 packets per day, but will be declaring many of those as Large Letter rather than Packet.

I even did a test purchase, paid £2 Delivered.
I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

They are causing huge problems for their competitors, me included due to their advantage of getting away with this.
What can be done, and how do you catch them? With their volumes (trailer loads), how would you sample their mail and still meet cut off times?

[Stella102]

I know of a large customer posting in the region of 10,000 packets per day, but will be declaring many of those as Large Letter rather than Packet.

I even did a test purchase, paid £2 Delivered.
I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

They are causing huge problems for their competitors, me included due to their advantage of getting away with this.
What can be done, and how do you catch them? With their volumes (trailer loads), how would you sample their mail and still meet cut off times?

just red x some sample bags of ppi and let the mail centre check them along with the paperwork.

[glenfiddich]

seems like they are more interested in slapping a surcharge on poor old granny jones's birthday card than anything else these days

[arnold cheshire]

I know of a large customer posting in the region of 10,000 packets per day, but will be declaring many of those as Large Letter rather than Packet.

I even did a test purchase, paid £2 Delivered.
I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

They are causing huge problems for their competitors, me included due to their advantage of getting away with this.
What can be done, and how do you catch them? With their volumes (trailer loads), how would you sample their mail and still meet cut off times?

they regulary check ppi in mail centres

[barrowc]

Assuming that you haven't seen their dockets (sales orders) then how do you know what they are actually paying for? Offering postage apparently below cost can be indicative that something dodgy is going on but that isn't always the case (e.g. Amazon and other companies offering free postage on almost everything).

If the customer is as large as you say they are then there will be some form of checks being made on their mail. The easiest thing to do would be to contact the local RP unit and relay your concerns to them. That will at least make sure this customer is on their radar

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

That in itself means nothing. I was responsible for sending out packets occasionally at a Mail Order firm I worked for 10 years ago and we used 1 st and 2nd class PPI even back then - as long as you complete the paperwork correctly its okay, and you can't tell from the PPI how much they paid anyway.

[arnold cheshire]

I know of a large customer posting in the region of 10,000 packets per day, but will be declaring many of those as Large Letter rather than Packet.

I even did a test purchase, paid £2 Delivered.
I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

They are causing huge problems for their competitors, me included due to their advantage of getting away with this.
What can be done, and how do you catch them? With their volumes (trailer loads), how would you sample their mail and still meet cut off times?

possible tip off hey ? what company is it then and where ?

[theman1]

I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

That in itself means nothing. I was responsible for sending out packets occasionally at a Mail Order firm I worked for 10 years ago and we used 1 st and 2nd class PPI even back then - as long as you complete the paperwork correctly its okay, and you can't tell from the PPI how much they paid anyway.

How do they sell something for £2 delivered when its going to cost around £2.28 to deliver?, and that's assuming an 8 way self sort?

I don't believe the upselling theory, it's not happening, checking this sellers sale history, 98% of buyers are buying a qty of 1, they are not buying 2 or more, and hardly anyone buys more than one product at a time on eBay.

[barrowc]

In what way(s) was the item too big to be a large letter: length/width, thickness and/or weight?

[arnold cheshire]

I know of a large customer posting in the region of 10,000 packets per day, but will be declaring many of those as Large Letter rather than Packet.

I even did a test purchase, paid £2 Delivered.
I received in a parcel too large for Large Letter, bearing a 1st Class PPI.

They are causing huge problems for their competitors, me included due to their advantage of getting away with this.
What can be done, and how do you catch them? With their volumes (trailer loads), how would you sample their mail and still meet cut off times?

do you honestly think companies can get away defrauding royal mail ?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

How do they sell something for £2 delivered when its going to cost around £2.28 to deliver?, and that's assuming an 8 way self sort?

I don't believe the upselling theory, it's not happening, checking this sellers sale history, 98% of buyers are buying a qty of 1, they are not buying 2 or more, and hardly anyone buys more than one product at a time on eBay.

Discount based on volume

even a 20% discount on your own figure of £2.28 (which is a total of £0.456) would mean a unit cost of £1.824.

That means a profit of £0.176. If they are really sending out 10,000 items a day thats a daily profit of £1,760. But if they are sending 10K a day I bet they get a better deal than 20% on £2.28 especially when you consider that companies whose use a franking machine get a 19p discount on a Large Letter <100g (a 21% discount)

Thats just based on postage costs - I bet they also get a discount from the supplier/manufacturer/distributor of the goods based on guaranteed purchase volumes.

[theman1]

In what way(s) was the item too big to be a large letter: length/width, thickness and/or weight?

5cm too long and 5cm too wide, therefore attracting the PACKET rate.

My sums do not take in to account the cost of the stock, packaging materials, wages, VAT, Seller Fee's/Ebay/Amazon Fee's, Payment processing fee's etc.

Can someone tell me how do RP sample an entire trailer of yorks (what is that, 75 yorks?) from one poster and still meet cut off times for the night?

[barrowc]

You get 49 yorks in a standard trailer if you stack them correctly or 45 yorks if you just stack them in rows of three. Obviously you can get more in the double-deck trailers but I'm not sure if any of those are used on customer collections. It would be normal for any customer of that size to have multiple relief collections during the day so you wouldn't get their entire posting in one vehicle.

The customer needs to present their mail separately by class and format. Finding the problem you describe would be as simple as going through the containers declared to be large letters until you found a packet