Silly Question re: postage

Esoog

Hello,

I have a lot of 2nd class stamps, this might sound totally stupid..but if I wanted to send something 1st class recorded can I use 2nd class stamps in payment for it?

Ie, it costs £1,50 to send - can I take my item to the post office with £1,50 worth of stamps on it or will they laugh me out of there?

Missgiggles75

As far as I am aware thats perfectly acceptable! I had loads of 1p stamps a while ago and I used them!

Crowqueen

Yes to both questions.

Stamps labelled count for the value in pence of a second class stamp at current rates.

tryingtogetsolvent

Dunno if its true but a guy who works in the local Royal Mail sorting office once told me that if a letter had more than one stamp on it, it was automatically sorted as second class regardless of the value of the stamps,

macfly

Nope. It can delay mail at this time of year as it has to be hand sorted for payment rather than the auto sorting method.

soolin

tryingtogetsolvent wrote: »

Dunno if its true but a guy who works in the local Royal Mail sorting office once told me that if a letter had more than one stamp on it, it was automatically sorted as second class regardless of the value of the stamps,

I despair at some of the stuff that people get told. one of my best sellers goes at £1.72 1st class...please show me where i can buy a £1.72 stamp then to make RM happy. Or how about the majority of books under 500g that cost £2.24 1st class, anyone seen a £2.24 stamp.

I use real stamps on all my items, use 2nd class mail and most get there next day.

macfly

custardy will know more about this, but customers are encouraged to either use a post office label or print online from the website for a reason. As far as I know any item with multiple methods of payment is bunged out of the automatic system for hand sorting. This can cause delays, especially at this time of year.
You can buy your postage online soolin. It's not about keeping RM happy, it's about making the system more efficient. The more man hours spent on sorting must actually cause a delay to someone's mail, if not yours. Someone posted that a first class letter took four days to arrive. Do we take that as the norm?

Sambucus_Nigra

Yes, but second class can get there before first......and often does.

And it keeps people in jobs. Bonus!

soolin

macfly wrote: »

custardy will know more about this, but customers are encouraged to either use a post office label or print online from the website for a reason. As far as I know any item with multiple methods of payment is bunged out of the automatic system for hand sorting. This can cause delays, especially at this time of year.
You can buy your postage online soolin. It's not about keeping RM happy, it's about making the system more efficient. The more man hours spent on sorting must actually cause a delay to someone's mail, if not yours. Someone posted that a first class letter took four days to arrive. Do we take that as the norm?

I do not have time to faff around with the RM system. I print out all my labels (or hand write them) then just weigh them add the postage in stamps and take them straight to the mail centre. Using RM online takes me a lot longer and whilst i do use paypal postage for my overseas items it fails to work so often that half the time I have to use stamps on them as well.

As for what is the norm, whilst my mail arrives so quickly I have no reason to change.

Crowqueen

Some people, like collectors/dealers selling stamps, like to use old stamps, sometimes even with 1/2p denominations on them, and they still get through.

Whilst I almost always go to the PO and get a label for most things (I use the new machines in Reading for the most part, which are different to the labels you get at the counter), I hardly think that machines reject anything posted with ordinary stamps.

Esoog

Hmmm, ok here's one then;

could I say I want to send this 1st recorded and then hand over the stamps as payment? Thus not making more work for the postal staff.. They are legal tender after all and you would expect a Post Office to take them...although I suspect they wouldn't