arghh - I suppose I should be annoyed at the sender - but I'm not - it with the royal mail.......

[FAQ]

I recieved 2 cards in the post this morning informing me that they can't deliver an item because their is a charge to pay. Both are for the same amount, and I am (was? - as it was sent 2 weeks ago!) expecting 2 separate, but identical letters from someone.

Anyhow, there's a payment due of £1.06 on EACH of them - so £2.12 - of which £2 is handling fee for unpaid items!!

Yes maybe the sender should have ensured she had the right postage (presuming they're what I think they are) - but £1 each for handling????

Do we get a refund for all the letters they mishandled and that were never seen again?

They are so useless they should be keeping quiet in hopes we forget about them not demanding more money.

Oh and the extra charge will probably be because they were slightly thicker than the new limit. Unless you have a wooden slot made it's hard to say how thick something is.

the sender should have ensured she had the right postage. don't see a problem myself

They always charge £1 for each item which is underpaid - it happens more frequently now that certain sizes of letter have a different price scale.

It's the sender's fault, not RM's - she should have checked rather than just bunged a stamp on.

LOL. We had to pay a quid for DS's birthday card because it had a badge in it, and the sender had only sent it regular first class. When we went to pick it up, the lady behind the counter was SO mortified on behalf of the royal mail and couldn't apologies enough. She said "some jobsworth....blah blah blah".

Things just ain't what they used to be.

It's royal mail's fault for making the new system so complicated!!

I can't cope with it, so I don't see how little old ladies and the like can when they are used to just sticking a first class stamp on everything.

Get them to send it back to her, and her to resend to you with correct postage.

Cheaper and means you escape their overblown 'handling charge'.

no i've been and picked it up - not sure why it should have been 6p more for each of them - I don't understand the new system - it's an a5 envelope and easily fits through my (standard) letter box

No way was I going to wait for another 3 week for them to send the letters back to her - I've already waited 2 weeks for them to arrive!!

What annoys me is the the postman can't just knock on the door and ask for the extra postage (i.e. the 6p). He has to fill in a card, put it through your door and then you have to go to the sorting office to pay the extra postage and the handling fee to collect your letter.

Apparently it's because they can't ask the postman to carry cash on him/her, but honestly how many letters per delivery round are we talking about?? It's only going to be one or two at the most.

Speaking from experience it can actually be quite a lot of money that has to be collected. Especially if it is an overseas item.

There is also the risk of the postman losing the money, they have no where secure to put the money whilst on delivery.

You dont have to go to the sorting office. You can stick stamps to the correct value of the charge on the same card that is posted through the door and just pop it back into the postbox.
The postman will then redeliver the item the next day.

The handling fee is also meant to encourage people to use the correct postage in the first place.

But just to pee you off a little bit more .. I now work inside in the sorting office and our manager brings us in treats on a Friday, the value of which depends on how much revenue we have created through finding the underpaid postage whilst we are sorting.

For example £1000 of revenue = doughnuts
£2000 = samoasas

So maybe he/she wasnt a jobsworth Scyamore but just someone wanting a treat to brighten their Friday up!

to stick stamps on would have involved a trip into town (3/4 of the way to the sorting office) and up to 45 minutes standing in a queue for 12p worth of stamps [blank look]

I understand about not taking the money from the postman - my brother was a postie for 7yrs and he certialy wouldn't have wanted to be carrying around any cash at all in some of the areas he delivered to.

Hard enough to keep the post safe (one of his colleagues had a bag stolen off him - which annoyingly co-incided with me sending an £80 postal order to my brother.......postal order never turned up so I expect it was in the stolen bag )

Maybe buy a book of stamps next next your in town to keep at home?

I remember delivering once to a lady who wanted me to give her bus fare so she could go into town and collect her parcels

but why would I waste a full priced stamp on something that only needs 6p (I'm a bit tight )

Well I had some good exercise this morning going to collect it - and I'm happy it's come - just think £1 "handling" fee is a rip off - but there you go (oh and to be fair the sender has already offered to refund me the £2 - but I told her not to bother)