birthday card too large????

spider125

just a rant sent my mother in law birthday card( standard size) for her 92 birthday never arrived then almost 10 days later she had a card from royal mail saying card to big to fit through letter box and would have to be collected from sorting office with a surcharge of £1+ Right it was a standard size with 1st class stamp? she lives in a shelterd housing complex, it could have been left at wardens office? the sorting office over 6 miles away!!! should I complain to Royal mail??? she doesnt get much mail so was looking forward to her birthday cards, we live over 150 miles away so couldnt see her on her birthday, what is going wrong with mail!!????

soolin

It's nothing to do with the size of a letter box, it needs to go through a small standard slot on the RM measruing guide. The slot is surprisigly small and many standard sized looking cards exceed that size and should go on a large letter stamp.

The size is max 240mm (L) 165 (W) x 5mm (D)

Incidentally the new pricing in proportion rules came in around 3 years ago

ShaneUK

Also I have noticed now that on the back of a lot of cards, it has a little "picture" that indicates whether it is classed a a "letter" (standard size) or "large letter" (more expensive, larger s ize)

mazza111

Looks like you have fallen foul of the pricing. Worse thing that Royal Mail ever did was introduce this pricing structure, it still confuses so many people.

Basically you haven't had paid enough for the postage, therefore your Mother in Law has to pay the excess postage + £1 handling fee. You may find this a bit excessive but it always pays to measure things like this carefully before posting them.

biscit

"Standard size" is roughly A5- a piece of normal A4 paper folded over. Simples. Anything bigger is a large letter, and needs to be paid more.

It's a fairly simple system now - if it doesn't fit the template- every house has one and it was well publicised, it's too big. You can pretty much guarentee that anything small enough to fit the template will go on a normal post because the weight limit has been increased. Unless you're sending a card made of lead!

Before when it was on weight it was hard to judge whether something was over the 60g or not.

Did you check it against your template? Or did you just think it looked "letter" sized.

soolin

As an aside I have noticed that this year there are an awful lot of boxed Christmas cards being sold that will exceed the letter dimensions. There were some pretty cards in Boots that were actually a smidgen too long too qualify so I imagine that many people will get caught out as they will look only at the thickness and not the dimensions. My mother has already bought some from Smiths with a bow thing stuck on the front and they don't go through the slot so she is going to have to keep those for people she can hand them out to rather than post.

The best ones for compliance appear to be charity cards as they tend to be a uniform smaller size and not overlong or with wobbly bits on the front.

pinkshoes

I notice they've re-designed all the charity pens so that they fit with the 5mm thick rule, and badges on cards also seem to be less popular now!

custardy

pinkshoes wrote: »

I notice they've re-designed all the charity pens so that they fit with the 5mm thick rule, and badges on cards also seem to be less popular now!

every year we go through this
the badges are less common now
wedding invitation get caught up a fair bit now as people seem to use noes with fancy stuff stuck to them

spider125 wrote: »

just a rant sent my mother in law birthday card( standard size) for her 92 birthday never arrived then almost 10 days later she had a card from royal mail saying card to big to fit through letter box and would have to be collected from sorting office with a surcharge of £1+ Right it was a standard size with 1st class stamp? she lives in a shelterd housing complex, it could have been left at wardens office? the sorting office over 6 miles away!!! should I complain to Royal mail??? she doesnt get much mail so was looking forward to her birthday cards, we live over 150 miles away so couldnt see her on her birthday, what is going wrong with mail!!????

you could have paid the fee online and it would have been delivered
it could have been paid with stamps and posted to the office and it would have been delivered
what exactly are you going to complain about? you not paying postage?
items don't go out on delivery until the fee is paid so it couldn't 'be left' at the wardens

mazza111 wrote: »

Looks like you have fallen foul of the pricing. Worse thing that Royal Mail ever did was introduce this pricing structure, it still confuses so many people.

Basically you haven't had paid enough for the postage, therefore your Mother in Law has to pay the excess postage + £1 handling fee. You may find this a bit excessive but it always pays to measure things like this carefully before posting them.

wait till zonal pricing comes in

Torby

wait til, Deutsche Post or someone else takes over....mind you they could still probably understand what DO NOT BEND means when its printed on the envelope that was taken to a post office so the correct postage was paid!

custardy

Torby wrote: »

wait til, Deutsche Post or someone else takes over....mind you they could still probably understand what DO NOT BEND means when its printed on the envelope that was taken to a post office so the correct postage was paid!

no please?

spider125

thanks to all replies it wasnt a large card or heavy card!!!! normal size and yes I am aware of sizing,I send mail out on a daily basis from work so need to be aware of right price etc, it was a rant as I was angry it is a large sheltered housing complex where she lives!!!! and I support our postal service they do a great job! I was just angry that day!