Royal Mail Signed For 1st Class Stamps - instructions?

[Nycther]

Hello there again,
I have a brief and hopefully straight to the point. I did try browsing the web for quite some time and searched these forums, but I couldn't quite find my question in there. If I am wrong, please do point it out , or carry on reading :)

I was browsing the RM shop and stumbled upon Royal Mail Signed For® 1st Class Stamp Set which includes 1 large and 1 small 1st class signed for stamp in dashing orange. They come to the same total price for signed for delivery if you were to go to the post office, but I can't for the life of me figure out how they would work.

How would you track the stamp to see when it eventually gets delivered and consequently signed by the recipient. Do you need to include some kind of reference for RM to put into the system or is one pre-generated or something else? Perhaps they are purely for philatelic use only?

Thanks again in advance for your help, much appreciated!

[Lounge Lizard]

Hello there again,
I have a brief and hopefully straight to the point. I did try browsing the web for quite some time and searched these forums, but I couldn't quite find my question in there. If I am wrong, please do point it out , or carry on reading :)

I was browsing the RM shop and stumbled upon Royal Mail Signed For® 1st Class Stamp Set which includes 1 large and 1 small 1st class signed for stamp in dashing orange. They come to the same total price for signed for delivery if you were to go to the post office, but I can't for the life of me figure out how they would work.

How would you track the stamp to see when it eventually gets delivered and consequently signed by the recipient. Do you need to include some kind of reference for RM to put into the system or is one pre-generated or something else? Perhaps they are purely for philatelic use only?

Thanks again in advance for your help, much appreciated!

These stamps are only a means of paying the £1.73 ( 63p + £1.10 ) or £2.05 ( 95p + £1.10 ) postage.
The letters bearing such a stamp still need handing in at a Post Office counter for you to be given a proof of posting and a tracking number.

[Nycther]

Thanks. I had no intention of using them, it just puzzled me. Anyway, thank you for clearing that up :)

[wannabeek]

You could still just use them as a normal stamp and put it straight in a post box, but then the only scan the item would get is at the recipient's door. That's all I used to need sometimes if it wasn't convenient to get to the PO in time. There would be no option to claim compensation for non-delivery though, as you'd need the PO receipt for that.

[Snaggletooth]

These stamps only exist because of some weird agreement between the Post Office and Royal Mail by which the PO gets more income for using these than putting the same amount in normal stamps on the item. This wizard wheeze was completely undermined by the PO's computer system making it very long winded to use these stamps in a transaction: I gave up because the extra time involved clearly outweighed the extra revenue. There was no discussion of selling them direct to customers or any customer advantage in using them at their introduction. I'm surprised they still exist!

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

You could still just use them as a normal stamp and put it straight in a post box, but then the only scan the item would get is at the recipient's door. That's all I used to need sometimes if it wasn't convenient to get to the PO in time. There would be no option to claim compensation for non-delivery though, as you'd need the PO receipt for that.

There would be no scan as the stamps he is talking about don't have barcodes so you could only do what you are suggesting if you also had a roll of barcode stickers

[Nycther]

You could still just use them as a normal stamp and put it straight in a post box, but then the only scan the item would get is at the recipient's door. That's all I used to need sometimes if it wasn't convenient to get to the PO in time. There would be no option to claim compensation for non-delivery though, as you'd need the PO receipt for that.

There would be no scan as the stamps he is talking about don't have barcodes so you could only do what you are suggesting if you also had a roll of barcode stickers

Yea, there would be no way to track it unless you could somehow print/attach the required information along with it. Im guessing if you put just the stamp and pop it in the postbox it will be classed as normal first class or maybe RM would set it up to grab a signature but the sender wouldn't have any access to that proof, so from the sender's view it might as well be a regular 1st class stamp.

I too am surprised these stamps exist, which is why I questioned it - in case I was missing some other functionality.

[SpacePhoenix]

Signed for isn't tracked through the system, it might get a scan at the post office brance where it's posted, the next scan will be when delivery is attempted. To get tracking all the way you'd need to go for special delivery

[Snaggletooth]

When you buy Signed For, you are in part paying for an increase in the compensation level from £20 to £50. I don't think that RM will honour this if you don't have a proof of sending because you put it straight in a post box.

[Lounge Lizard]

You could still just use them as a normal stamp and put it straight in a post box, but then the only scan the item would get is at the recipient's door. That's all I used to need sometimes if it wasn't convenient to get to the PO in time. There would be no option to claim compensation for non-delivery though, as you'd need the PO receipt for that.

There would be no scan as the stamps he is talking about don't have barcodes so you could only do what you are suggesting if you also had a roll of barcode stickers

Yea, there would be no way to track it unless you could somehow print/attach the required information along with it. Im guessing if you put just the stamp and pop it in the postbox it will be classed as normal first class or maybe RM would set it up to grab a signature but the sender wouldn't have any access to that proof, so from the sender's view it might as well be a regular 1st class stamp.

I too am surprised these stamps exist, which is why I questioned it - in case I was missing some other functionality.

There are four such stamps ;
- Signed For First Class Letter,
- Signed For First Class Large Letter,
- Special Delivery up to 100g,
- Special Delivery up to 500g.
On delivery I rarely see them so it is surprising that these stamps exist.
Apart from which the Special Delivery ones are rarely cancelled (datestamped) and end up on Ebay depriving Royal Mail of money that it wouldn't haver lost if the normal Horizon labels had been used.