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

You can refuse and it will return to sender. Same with Vinted. I’ve sold something on there before and the buyer didn’t pick it up in time so it was returned to me.

It looks like it's a small parcel with no postage paid or a counterfeit stamp judging by the amount

Post Office card could be a scam!

When you get royal mail or any email like that, do not click the link. Write down the tracking number, and then type in the name and go to the site. You can then type in the tracking number. And you will know if it says no number its a scam email.

They didn't get an email.

Where did she get the tracking number then??

Vinted. It’s the Evri tracking number.
The Royal Mail card is separate and most probably unconnected unless the sender somehow had the parcel returned by Evri, did not notify OP or Vinted then chucked it in the post without a stamp on it.

No it doesn't. A grey card is a 'fee to pay' card from anywhere.

Don't pay it. It will be returned to sender and she will have to pay to get it back or Royal Mail will eventually destroy it.

@Ilovebees I had one of those cards in November. Turned out to be a parcel that UPS had lost with a £109 worth of nail polish in it. The company I'd bought it from sent out a replacement, so this second lot was nearly free! I gave some to my friends and kept a couple as back ups.

Unless it's from abroad, as someone else has said, it can't be that price! I've just posted a 1kg parcel today (quite heavy, fabric/beads/cards etc) 1st class and it was less than £5.
Don't psy anything online until you've checked it out.

Oooh that’s an own goal from the restaurant!

As others have said, grey cards are simply insufficient postage (likely from UK sender) and it’s probably a surprise parcel. I received one recently, was miffed the assumed sender screwed postage up, only to pay the fee online and find it was a family member simply misjudging small vs large letter postage on a small gift. It’s probably not a scam and if you pay via the RM website there’s no reason to worry-it will work if there’s a real parcel and not if there isn’t.

There’s a post at 15:02 which screenshots the Royal Mail’s price list for unpaid postage. It’s not the same as the postage itself, there is a punitive element in it. It’s only a few posts above yours!

I thought that too but I got to a payment screen by putting in details of a non existent parcel as a test.

Wow that’s a bit of a fail by RM! Wonder what happens if you actually try to pay, as it does ask for specific details like address, date on card etc.

It asked for those details first, and I put in false ones. It asks you what the amount payable stated on the card is. The next screen had a button to click to pay that amount by PayPal or card. I didn’t try to go any further.

I haven't read the whole thread so not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, sometimes evri and royal mail work together. I've had a parcel that was sent with evri one end but delivered with royal mail

They ask you to pay as they have your address. Not every sender puts their address on packages.

If you go to the sorting office and be super nice to them, and say you haven't got a clue what the parcel is so thought it might be a scam, so can you see it first before paying.

If you decide not to pay, the parcel will be returned to sender if it has a return address.

£7 means it's a small parcel with no postage paid or a counterfeit stamp.

https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/143/~/ive-received-a-grey-fee-to-pay-card

It's possible that someone used the online parcel service then popped it into the post box and their printed label has come off, but then that would have meant your address wouldn't be on it either, unless they'd written the address on by hand before printing the label (I do that).

I used to work with a woman years ago who admitted that every Christmas she would get the thick edition of the Christmas Argos catalogue and post it in a letterbox and not put any stamps on, just her ex husbands name and address so that he would be inconvenienced in having to go to the sorting office and pay to collect it. Bizarre kind of 'revenge' but apparently he had a terrible aversion to waiting in a queue and at Christmas the sorting office would be busy!

I love this! But surely he’s only have fallen for it once?!

My daughter had the grey rm card.

Her bank was emptied after she paid the outstanding postage fees ☹️

I think we need more information.

1. what was the web address printed on the card?
2. What did her bank say- did they accept it was a fraud?
3. if yes, what was it that made it clear the card was false?
4. Did she actually receive a parcel?
5. How do you know the theft of your daughter’s money and the grey RM card were linked?

It is literally impossible for it to be a scam if payment is made to the Royal Mail’s own website. It may have been something h else, like her bank card being cloned in a restaurant, and the RM card arriving at the same time just coincidence.

The royal mail thing is mostly likely a Christmas card or gift. There's been a big problem lately with counterfeit stamps. My sister fell pray to it after buying some stamps from Ebay (they were slightly cheaper than normal - why she thought stamps were ever discounted is beyond me).

A couple of her cards got through but quite a number didn't. Those people got a "fee to pay" card with £5 owed.

My mum, who got one of these cards, queried it with her postman, and asked him to look what the item was. But apparently they're not allowed to do that any more. So, mum, an aunt, and two sets of cousins are refusing to pay £5 for the sake of a Christmas card. They are still sitting at the sorting office as far as we know!