Snail mail:I don't believe it...
This morning I received a letter addressed to me from Royal Mail which has a printed first class stamp upon the envelope. On the reverse is the message "Returned to sender by Royal Mail". Below this is some advice "When posting, always remember to:...Send it with correct postage paid".
I open the envelope only to discover the letter and envelope I had posted from Hull to a friend in Scunthorpe, just across the Humber Bridge, and the postmark from this side reads "Hull Mail Centre 24 Sep 2007" and from the other side one reads "Scunthorpe DN15 7AA 28 Sep 2007". Why it should have taken 4 days is anybody's guess, I could have walked across the bridge free of toll charge 4 times and hand delivered it within the same time.
Of course the letter was urgent, enclosing a phone bill due to be paid by 29 September 2007, that is why I put a first class as opposed to a second class stamp upon the envelope. Nevertheless, when my friend failed to phone me to confirm delivery I phoned her and gave her the details and she paid it for me to Kingston Communications over the phone and I promptly forgot about the letter until this morning.
On the envelope I had sent to my friend is a yellow sticker it proclaims: "POSTAGE UNPAID DEFICIENT POSTAGE 6p - Handling FEE £1.00 - TO Pay £1.06 - REVENUE PROTECTION". I thought the whole point of delivering letters involved the handling of them therefore it comes within the price of the stamp?
Below this is a red sticker which reads: "Royal Mail - We were unable to deliver this item because..." and there follows boxes to tick and there is a tick in the box next to "not called for". You're so fucking right it is not called for what you are doing Royal Mail! Instead of delivering the letter which you are supposed to do after I have put a stamp upon it, you deliver a little card through my friend's letter box telling her if she wants my letter which you have held hostage she must visit her local sorting office and pay the ransom which you unreasonably demanded.
Meanwhile, I note that the envelope of the letter addressed to me has a return address in Belfast. I do now seem to recall seeing adverts stating that the Royal Mail had started a new scam involving charging more for larger envelopes and heavier ones. So, size does matter after all. There is only one thing. I noticed that the envelope you sent to me is the same size as the one I sent to my friend, and the postman had no difficulty folding it to get it through my letter box. Therefore, your statement "We were unable to deliver this item..." is not true is it? The truth is you were able to deliver it, but you didn't want to because you wanted to charge my friend £1.06 because I had not measured and weighed the envelope at a post office and bought a first class stamp at the corner shop instead.
Given that you are closing so many post offices lately, does that mean we will all now have to walk around with weights and measures in our back pockets to ensure that on the odd occasion we have to resort to snail mail we can "Send it with the correct postage paid"?
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
We have just been hit with a £1.06 surcharge for a card that was 7mm to wide! The envelope was 173mm X 173mm, so exceeded the 165mm depth. It is also noted that it was well short of the 240mm length allowed!
ReplyDeleteThis is a scam by the Royal Mail to catch out people out. They must be paying people to measure Christmas cards that fall just outside their size range. I thought that the Royal Mail had worked with the card companies to make the cards the right size in the first place.
Because this card had only a standard 1st class stamp, they then surcharge you a £1 handling fee, treat it as 2nd class & then deliver it 6 days later, all because of 7mm!
Do I get a rebate on the 67mm on the shortfall in length!
Royal Mail should be ashamed!