Vinted buy , got a fee to pay grey card through the door !

[Ilovebees]

I bought a t shirt worth 3£ and paid postage 3£ from vinted , sender said she sent it next day with evri and I got the the tracking number . It’s been stuck in transit for 3 weeks now , 2 weeks ago I got a fee to pay card , saying sender didn’t pay enough postage . I have to pay 7£ more to get it delivered ! Is this fair ? Can I refuse it and they will send it back to her or will I still have to pay for it for sending it back to sender ? Thanks for any advice

It's unlikely to be a scam as it's through the door, but yes go to the sorting office and they will, well. Sort it out.

I had this as a seller before Xmas. I sold something on ebay for £2 buyer paid postage and selected evri. I chose the selected postage but royal mail do use evri lockers so sometimes the labels print off as evri but also royal mail ( it confuses me if I'm honest ) anyways I paid the correct amount of postage for a small parcel and posted as usual. The buyer got in touch to say they'd had this card and had to pay extra postage on my item. It made absolutely no sense as even if I'd paid nothing for the postage the item would only have cost £3 to post not £7. I contacted ebay and they closed the buyers case and told me to advise the buyer to get in touch with them for a refund on the postage. Ebay have always been really helpful I find but vinted are hit and miss!

Can you put up a picture of the grey card? I agree it's not connected to the Evri package, just a coincidence.

I bet what has happened is (because this happened to me last week). I got a grey card saying I needed to pay GBP2.50 as postage was underpaid. I was expecting a lot of stuff so couldn't tell what it was, so I paid it. It arrived and it turned out it was a bog standard, normal sized Christmas card that someone had sent and used an old style 2nd Class stamp - they were obsolete from last July in favour of bar coded stamps. This relative obviously didn't realise. a standard card doesn't cost GBP2.50 to send however, Royal Mail basically add on a 'fine' as well for using the obsolete stamp. And that goes up in increments depending on the size of the item.
I bet someone has sent you a small parcel, at Christmas, and RM have only just just got round to sending you the grey card, and they used old obsolete non-bar code stamps. The cost of a small parcel should be GBP2.99 but i imagine the extra GBP4.01 is Royal Mail's 'fine'. Definitely go and see what it is if it's not inconvenient. My sorting office is a 20 mile round trip but if i'd have known it was a flipping card I'd have not bothered to pay.

Sounds like a scam. Mark parcel as not received. Don't pay anything. You will have no t-shirt and will pay another £7. If it isn't a scam then somebody might have sent you a parcel for Christmas.

Take the card to the sorting office to check it's actually real and not a scam OP.

What's the Web address that you are being directed to pay on? Surely it should be easy to figure out if its real or not?

I will go to sorting office tomorrow as it’s closed today :)

Royal Mail wanted £5 postage from me for a Christmas card last month where someone had forgotten stamp....

I've had cards that look exactly like that that are genuine, not from abroad. They charge an admin fee on top of normal postage which is why its £7. Unrelated to your vinted issue though so I think your plan to go and see what it is, is the best option.

@Isthatarealname yeha it’s weird how the reciever of the parcel has to pay the postage , like we get punished for the unpaid postage 😂😀

Have you put your details into the RM website yet? That card looks genuine to me.

My sister had to pay a fee on a Christmas card that had an old stamp on.

no it can be. If seller doesn't pay enough postage. It will be the postage, handling and then fees.
its happened to me a few times

@KingsleyBorder yes I tried , it doesn’t confirm if I have a parcel or not , I just have to pay and that’s it :) so that’s why I’ll just go and see what it is in sorting office tomorrow :)

That’s a genuine Royal Mail card. We had 2 over xmas for £3 odd for xmas cards that had the non barcode stamps on. As pps have said go to the sorting office and see if it’s worth paying the £7 for.

Mark the vinted parcel as missing. They’ve lost it. That’s totally seperate to this Royal Mail issue

@Gymmum82 can I really refuse the parcel at the sorting office if I ask to see it ? And I don’t want it ? Won’t Royal Mail lose out on money because they had to handle it and I won’t pay for it , what will they do with it ? X

Yes you can ask to view the unopened parcel first. That card is genuine.

I did once send a vinted parcel and thought it fit into the dimensions for a lower level of postage (it was a squishy parcel) and the buyer informed me that when it arrived they had had to pay to receive it - I was mortified and refunded them. It was an accident. It seems unlikely to have happened that way for a t-shirt, but it could be a genuine mistake of some kind.

I would either mark item as not received today, and go to sorting office tomorrow, then if tomorrow you find out it was the Vinted parcel, you can explain this to Vinted (or not, because at least you'll get a refund covering the fee!)

OR go to sorting office tomorrow, ask about evri details on the parcel or see if you can see anything identifying it as your vinted parcel then either accept it and eat the cost, or refuse it and mark as "item not received" on vinted. Only do this if you won't forget to do the vinted step tomorrow.

OR send a message to vinted seller today asking if they have any idea what the RM parcel is about, then go and investigate tomorrow, pick an option from 2 based on your communication with the seller.

It's not a scam. People are confusing the text/email phishing "parcel held" scams but this is a proper Royal Mail notification.

Interesting. If you didn’t have a parcel then I would have expected it not to be asking for payment after you entered details that were not on their system. Instead I’d expect a “sorry we have no records of any fee payable for that address” message.

But you’re right- I just put in my own name and address (I definitely have not had a card through my letterbox) and it took me straight to a “pay here” page!

What a crap system.

I still think your card looks genuine though.

Don’t pay anything, anywhere.
Go on Vintage, go to your orders, find the item you paid for and click on there’s a problem. You’ll eventually get all your money back tho it takes a few weeks.
I imagine the RM is a scam as their cards are usually white with red RM logo.

You can say you’re not expecting a parcel and ask if you can see it. I doubt they’ll let you open it. But they’ll bring it out for you to see the outside.
Then if you don’t want it they’ll bin it. They can’t make you pay if it’s not something you want, could potentially though unlikely be junk mail

Not the fee to pay ones. Multiple posters here have confirmed receiving the same grey one and it’s on the RM website See sample Fee To Pay Card

Our delivery office allow it.

I remember a few years ago just after Christmas I received one of these post office cards, went up to the delivery office as like you I wasn't expecting a parcel, I wasn't the only one either some travelling a few miles by car to collect their underpaid parcel.
Turned out a restaurant had sent everyone calendars but omitted to pay the postage.

Royal mail payment is due cards are grey.
Sorry we missed you/you were out type cards are red.

I've been and looked at a letter and told them to keep it.

Another time I let the sender know it'd cost me money and he came round to pay me back!