new tamper proof stamps

custardy

omelette451 wrote: »

They can't be bothered making their machines work properly so instead they spend millions on changing the stamp design... Genius!

I can understand the point behind it but I'm one of those people who often sticks stamps on first, then makes a mistake and has to put it on a different envelope. Now I'm going to be charged double for the privilege of posting a letter. Hmmm.

I'm not going to worry too much though. Royal Mail is such a slow-moving old-fashioned waste-of-space beast that it will always be easy to find an alternative solution well before they try to counter it. Indeed people on this thread have already found two clever ways to get round the problem - and did RM really not see them coming?

so which is it?
you complain the have changed the stamp design(you cite spending millions on doing this,where do you get that from?)
then say they are old fashioned?

which two clever ways get around this? given nobody has got their hands on any of these stamps
usung your mentality if i buy a bottle of wine from tesco and smash it in the car park i should still be able to go in the shop and just take another
i paid for the wine and hadnt 'used' it yet after all
you seem happy to pay the envelope seller twice for posting one letter?

custardy

mikey72 wrote: »

If the post office can't manage to get a bit of (water soluable) ink on the top of an envelope, it's a bit sad they have to come up with other ideas to compensate. And I pay for the stamp to post with, not for a one off chance to stick it to an envelope. But ok, I'll just cross out the old address and write a new one on then and see if that'll be acceptable.

thats fine,the machines can charge those just as easily

omelette451

custardy wrote: »

which two clever ways get around this?

1. Cut cleverly just under the perforations, then stick it with glue to the new envelope. (mikey72)

2. Stick a new address label over the old address. (jamineswhiskers)

It's conceivable that no.1 may be prevented by the new design, but there's nothing to stop you doing no.2. Unless the envelope was marked but not the stamp, which can happen, they have no way of knowing whether it was a simple mistake on the part of the person writing the letter (to pick an example out of thin air, how about a grandparent sending a card to a university-age granddaughter, automatically writes the home address but then realises it's term time and has to change it...) or a deliberate attempt to defraud Royal Mail, so they would have to accept it.

Just out of interest, why didn't they work on getting better machines that do mark the envelopes properly? Does that have anything to do with the unions' anti-modernisation campaigns or not?

custardy

omelette451 wrote: »

Just out of interest, why didn't they work on getting better machines that do mark the envelopes properly? Does that have anything to do with the unions' anti-modernisation campaigns or not?

well you would have to ask RM
given the 'new' flat (a4) sorting machines ae churining out at best 20% of their predicted capacity then i would have thought the franking side it less of an issue
seems to be this is a smarter option.
means regardless of hand/mech sorting the franking is less important

omelette451 wrote: »

1. Cut cleverly just under the perforations, then stick it with glue to the new envelope. (mikey72)

2. Stick a new address label over the old address. (jamineswhiskers)

It's conceivable that no.1 may be prevented by the new design, but there's nothing to stop you doing no.2. Unless the envelope was marked but not the stamp, which can happen, they have no way of knowing whether it was a simple mistake on the part of the person writing the letter (to pick an example out of thin air, how about a grandparent sending a card to a university-age granddaughter, automatically writes the home address but then realises it's term time and has to change it...) or a deliberate attempt to defraud Royal Mail, so they would have to accept it.

sticking the stamp on would be deemed a reused stamp
putting a new address label on,is this with or without the letter having been previously posted? bearing in mind franking will still be in operation

quite sad how no matter what RM does people see the negative,isnt it?

GoofyGAT

custardy wrote: »

quite sad how no matter what RM does people see the negative,isnt it?

I suppose what's even sadder is that they're still trying to find ways to bypass the new security measures & defraud them. G

amcluesent

No more Blue Peter stamp appeals at Xmas then.

Will no-one think of the children!

custardy

kids can do scout post

omelette451

custardy wrote: »

putting a new address label on, is this with or without the letter having been previously posted? bearing in mind franking will still be in operation.

Does it matter? I mean in practice, not legally or morally: if there's no way of knowing whether it's an honest mistake or not, I think they'd have no choice but to accept it. 'Innocent until proved guilty' and all that. Plus they've overwritten the excuse they currently have for rejecting a re-addressed letter, i.e. that you could just peel off the stamp and stick it on a fresh envelope if you made a mistake.

quite sad how no matter what RM does people see the negative,isnt it?

I wouldn't say it was necessarily seeing a negative, more that we're making fun of it in a quaintly bemused kind of way. In fact I think the person who came up with this idea should be promoted - regardless of its flaws it shows a level of vision and 'thinking outside the box' that is remarkably rare at Royal Mail.

People have tried to stay one step ahead of RM since the very first stamp was introduced (why do you think they started franking letters in the first place?!), and surely you can see the humour in the fact that after nearly 200 years of trying to perfect ways to mark stamps as used they've given up and have instead redesigned the stamp? Well I think it's quite funny. Though I do wonder though if they've considered their customers in doing it: many companies rely on postmarks on envelopes as proof of posting on a certain day, and if RM is to place less emphasis on making sure letters are marked with the date, will there be unintended consequences later?

custardy

omelette451 wrote: »

Does it matter? I mean in practice, not legally or morally: if there's no way of knowing whether it's an honest mistake or not, I think they'd have no choice but to accept it. 'Innocent until proved guilty' and all that. Plus they've overwritten the excuse they currently have for rejecting a re-addressed letter, i.e. that you could just peel off the stamp and stick it on a fresh envelope if you made a mistake.

never noticed those little red tracking barcodes on the letters?
as for 'does it matter' interesting.so you feel you should have a free redirection service while others pay for this service?
if its been posted then you have had the service you paid for
you will be one of the people demanding RM is run as a business etc etc
but want it like old RM where you just get letters sent all over the shop for no charge?
as for postmark dates,i think you will find most companies who use 'date as postmark' are referring to their own franking date

chja

Re. putting a new address label on the envelope - does the envelope not have some little blue dots or something to show its been through the machine, even if the stamp is not franked ?