Shame on you Royal Mail!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Every now and again we get one of these:


Postage underpayment – and we pop down to the Royal Mail sorting office and pay the difference – it’s normally about £1 extra to pay and contains a customer order and we just take it on the chin, as you do.

For the past few years in early February we’ve run a doodling competition for National Doodle Day in our Dodo Pad and Acad-Pad diaries in aid of Epilepsy Action to raise awareness and funds for the great work they do in supporting sufferers and their families living and coping with epilepsy.

We invite customers and their families to do a doodle and either post it to us or send it via email. Over the past couple of years, postal entries have declined as the cost of sending an entry is almost as much as the minimum suggested donation, since the ‘large letter format’ came in and the cost to send a large letter shot up in price.

One customer, who missed the deadline for this year’s competition, told us she would send in her entry so it arrived in good time for the 2016 competition. She called to check we’d got last week – no entry had arrived :( We checked the address with her, asked if she had remembered to stamp it (!) and she confirmed that her post office had told her the correct stamp to use…and through a short process of elimination we realised that her entry was languishing in the sorting office waiting for us to pick it up.

At the weekend I collected a ‘large letter’ from the local sorting office in Truro. I explained that this envelope contained an entry to a charity competition, the lady had made a £2 donation, bought a first class stamp (on the advice of her post office) and it seemed harsh that we had to pay almost the equivalent of her entire donation to the Royal Mail in order to accept her entry.

‘It’s more than my job’s worth’ was the explanation given when I asked the chap to waive the fee in the circumstances. I think he was sympathetic but helpless; the Royal Mail has become so rigid and unsympathetic – even when it was a ‘mistake’ by one of their own staff! The upshot is that not only does a deserving charity lose out, but any allegiance we feel to the Royal Mail is further damaged.

So Royal Mail, would you like to redeem yourselves and make an ex gratia donation to National Doodle Day? We’d welcome your doodle entry – entry form available here – but would be pleased to send it on to Epilepsy Action with or without a supporting doodle. That would be nice…but we’re not holding our breath.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I have linked a comment to this board so please keep the comments respectful and polite please.

[wooshy]

Did anyone point out the obvious point that Royal Mail and Post Office are two entirely different entities?

[Glenno]

The Question to be asked is " does a first class stamp cover a Large letter" over to you lot at POL

[5plusbonusball]

The post office is the way in for lots of our work yet they don't seem to want to work with us .

[priority102]

I sympathise with the customers who have to pay a surcharge to receive their item because let's face it it is the fault of the sender NOT the recipient that the error occurs in the first place.
For some reason though most customers think that Royal Mail should let them off the postage shortfall but as those who work in the callers offices know every surcharge now has to be accounted for.
But it has to be said that if you went into Asda to purchase a 4 pint milk at 89p and then went to the till with 60p would the cashier let you have it for 60p and tell you to forget about the other 29p? ABSOLUTELY NOT! You either give Asda 89p or you don't purchase a 4 pint milk - simples!
So, like other businesses, RM has a price on their goods and expects the customer to pay in full.