Royal Mail

LittleTinker

Absolute disgraceful customer service.

My partner has telephoned their 0845 number for customer services to make a complaint about a card we recieved saying that they will not deliver our letter until we pay £1.06 as the postage was short by.........6p!

Now....I know all these 6p's add up, and Im quite happy to pay 6p but to charge £1 "handling fee" is a bit much!

Anyway....he phoned up to complain about it and about the fact that we now have to wait god knows how long before the letter gets to us and the Royal Mail guy on the end of the phone said.....(quoted by my partner here)

"Really Mr ******, I cant see how you are so bothered about paying the extra because this phone call will be costing you more than that. If you want to complain about it, complain to the person who sent it and not us because I cant be bothered wasting my time with you!"

And he put the phone down!! lol

We dont pay for 0845 numbers either....and neither can we complain to the person who sent it to us because we dont know who it is.

My sweetpea has never known anything like it.....so has phoned again and spoke to someone else.

Absolutely disgraceful Royal Mail......no wonder youre in trouble!

Torby

"and neither can we complain to the person who sent it to us because we dont know who it is. "

hope it doesn't turn out like mine....it was a BIG birthday card from my daughter, who thought a normal first class stamp would do....lol...

if its from a firm who should know better....write back to them to complain and dont put ANY stamps on the letter....if you can stuff it with heavy paper...that works even better....at the end of the day....it isn't Royal Mail's fault....

barnabee

As Torby says, take it up with the sender. However if you don't want to pay then tell Royal Mail that you wish to refuse the item and they will return the item to the sender. It's not Royal Mails fault and the staff in the collections and surcharge offices are pretty fed up with getting it the neck.

~Beanie~

My post office are very good. Last time I got one of those cards saying I had to pay £1.06 postage, I went traipsing down to the sorting office. The man behind the counter said it was only a postcard and he couldn't possibly charge me for it so he held it up against the glass for me to see.

It was from the vets advising that my cats injections were due. I was very happy that I didn't have to pay for that snippet of info and most impressed with the bloke behind the counter who could have been a proper jobsworth and made me pay!!

LittleTinker

Thank you to the people who have replied.

Yes, I know it isnt Royal Mails fault that postages may be short....but it certainly IS their fault charging a £1 handling fee. It also IS their fault in the way that it is organised......why do we have to wait 48 hours to get our letter?

And it absolutely is their fault that their staff were the rudest I have ever known! I dont care how many complaints they get, there is no excuse for speaking to a customer that way and then putting the phone down on them.

If Royal mail are so fed up with all their complaints then they need to find better ways to deal with their issues......because when those new stamps come out, they are going to have 1000's of complaints every day!

custardy

i dont understand why you are waiting 48 hours?
where does it say this on the card? is it grey?

why will there be complaints for new stamps?
quite simply its been IIRC 3 years they new pricing structure has been in place.
every day 000's of items are sent underpaid.if all that happened was RM charged you 6p then what is there to lose by sending all your mail without stamps?
revenue protection is the dept that deals with this and it costs money to run and control

what exactly were you going to complain about? quite simply do as i do with charge cards.i bin them

pinkpig08

I don't understand why charging only 6p means people would send post without stamps - it's the recipient who has to pay, not the sender.

custardy

pinkpig08 wrote: »

I don't understand why charging only 6p means people would send post without stamps - it's the recipient who has to pay, not the sender.

no my point was it only the postage required was charged
so in this case the sender has sent a large letter with just a 1st class stamp
considering RM lose money on nealry all stamped mail those 6p's matter
also bear in mind only a fraction of underpaid items are 'caught' so without the fee many would risk it

just look over my thread on the new stamps to see how some feel reusing stamps is perfectly acceptable

Ivory_Tinkler

OP I sympathise with you about Royal Mail customer services. I have had many dealings through work with their general customer service line and it is pathetic, often with the staff not knowing about Royal Mail products or how to effectively handle a complaint. Occasionally you will get a real gem who is very helpful but generally speaking their customer service staff are pretty useless and sometimes rude.

However, what other service do you know where you can underpay for a service or product and get away with it? I feel that if a letter is underpaid then it should just be returned to sender so that they can send it again with the correct tariff but why should Royal Mail stand the cost of an underpaid item because someone hasn't taken the time to find out the correct tariff or has just chanced it? The current method of recouping the underpayment is perhaps a little unfair on the recipient but other than return to sender I can't see any other way of handling this.

LittleTinker

custardy wrote: »

no my point was it only the postage required was charged
so in this case the sender has sent a large letter with just a 1st class stamp
considering RM lose money on nealry all stamped mail those 6p's matter
also bear in mind only a fraction of underpaid items are 'caught' so without the fee many would risk it

just look over my thread on the new stamps to see how some feel reusing stamps is perfectly acceptable

I was saying that I would happily pay 6p because according to Royal Mail, that is how much the postage was short.

I understand that to 'let it go' they would lose money......I will pay the undercharge without a quibble. But I object strongly to paying a £1 fee for them to tell me about it. If I dont pay, they have to send the card back, and they dont get a £1.....so why charge so much?

If every company charged a £1 to get 6p back there would be uproar!

And the new stamps will cause problems because of the design. If you stick a stamp onto an envelope and make a mistake or forget to post something, you will want to get the stamp off to use on another letter. Why should we have to pay for another stamp because of that? We shouldnt and its wrong.

lol

I posted this on here because of Royal Mails disgraceful customer service chap who was rude and put the phone down....not because of the payment they were asking. Thats a different matter.

custardy

i believe we have to allow the recipient an oppertunity to get the item regardless of payment
eg by sending them the charge card
i think people see this as the odd letter but its a big problem