AIBU to ask why the new stamps of detachable barcodes if they don’t want you to detach them before sending?

I literally googled this due to same confusion arising from serration. Why on earth? Thank you fr clarifying 😃

it's not the same as either of those though as this is so recent.

I'm appalled that people can't remember what the cover of Rio looked like though. Shocking.

My FIL sent me a birthday card/voucher with just the stamp part, didn’t realise he was supposed to attach both parts. He got the stamps directly from the post office. There’s no way he tore a stamp in half. (The card didn’t make it )

The same place as Walkers salt and vinegar crisps packet change.

Crisp packet colour change?

Also the mass belief that Duran Duran's Rio album cover had an 80s design of pastel coloured shapes and lines. (Can't find link to that, but it was discussed somewhere fairly recently!)

The stamps I had were absolutely 100% perforated. I had to peel both bits off separately and stick them separately. I bought them, went to the car and used them so it wasn't even like anyone had messed about with them either.

But it isn't something you'd just imagine is it, so where has the memory come from?

it's weird.

No, the trial was explicitly done with simulated perforations as I mentioned above.

If there were perforated ones in circulation it'd be all over the DailyFail web.

Thing is, all the news releases round the time they were issued explicitly say it's a simulated perforation.

it's really odd! I mean, an actual perforation is not something you imagine is it?

I wonder if the perforated ones were the prototype ones they had a test run with? I can't find any mention of them online though.

I had some "new" stamps when they were first introduced and there seemed to be a proper perforation between the stamp and the code but I just assumed that it was to stop people reusing them - you put them on a letter as one sticker but if you then tried to remove the stamp to reuse it then it would separate from the barcode at the perforation and would then be unusable as the machine would know it had been tampered with (the same way that the "old" stamps have those tabs in the middle that can rip if you try to remove them)

I recently had to buy some more and there is no actual perforation now, just a wavy line on the front separating the stamp from the code, so I just assumed that they had improved the system and no longer needed the added measure of the two parts physically separating if people try to reuse them.

@melj1213 Ah, thanks. As i thought.

I'll let her know but she won't believe me. It'll take someone having to pay to receive one of her letters before she stops.
😂

The qrcode barcode can be used to ensure a stamp isn't reused, as the franking system doesn't always work.

A relative sent me a letter with a reused stamp and I had a card asking for payment to release my letter as the 'barcode had been reused'.

When they were very first issued yes, they were perforated as I peeled a stamp and it separated. I then stuck the bar code portion along side the stamp.

The ones I have now look the same but the line isn't perforated.

I think the early issues one were faulty.

Because you put the stamp with QR code on your letter, as it goes through the machines at the Post Office the QR code gets scanned and that stamp is then marked as "used" in the system, even if there is no physical franking marked onto the stamp itself

If your mum, or anyone else tries, to reuse the stamp a second time then when it is scanned it will flag up that the stamp has already been used and will be treated the same as "no postage paid" letters and the recipient will have to pay the postage.

I would definitely return the perforated ones as none were produced by royal mail, so likely to be fakes. They need to be made aware of this.

We only use one or maybe two stamps a month maximum these days.

A book of 6 sit in my purse for ages.

So - how does the Q code stop the reusing?

My mum is a steamer or unfranked stamps. She'll def still try to reuse. Would a letter with a reused one of these not be delivered?

That's like the book of stamps I remember buying way back that had a couple of the barcodes, it was ordinary stamps, though. Wonder what that lone one is all about!

I think I may have solved the mystery of detachable barcodes ....

I have some Xmas stamps that have one separate barcode on the strip of 6 stamps. The stamps themselves have the integrated weird qr code with squiggle, but then there is a separate barcode like you get on your shopping.

It isn't necessary to attach that to an envelope though.

@EmmaEmerald thank you for this, much appreciated.

No, here's the link...doh!

www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps/swap-out-request

Here's a link to get the form posted to you. So you just swap them, no need to use them up.

@EmmaEmerald I didn't know about this, I better use up my old stamps.

But you can swap them till end July, free of charge. No printer needed. My late father had a huge amount of stamps left over and I heard about this when the deadline was January. I only knew about it because it was on a thread here. If there are tv ads explaining what the point is, were they on last year? Or did they start because so many people were unaware what was happening?

It’s to stop people like me re-using unfranked stamps I imagine.

I thought mine were perforated and was similarly perplexed but they’re not, just a squiggly line.

I am extremely guilty of re-using unfranked stamps. I will have to start writing people letters to use up my stash before July.