Not enough postage when something gets to the buyer

Strapped

Crowqueen wrote: »

Any number of things could have happened - RM would have still been totally liable so you could have claimed had something gone wrong.

Someone on the official forums said RM have lost a bed in the post before; if they can lose a bed, their machines could rip a label off a package with surprising ease.

A bed! :eek:

Crowqueen

Yes - a bed. The poster always assumed some things were too big to lose until he heard of that issue. Presumably it was stored in the Belfast depot where all the undelivered post ends up.

martindow

Crowqueen wrote: »

Someone on the official forums said RM have lost a bed in the post before; if they can lose a bed, their machines could rip a label off a package with surprising ease.

I think this story is apocryphal - the size limits on RM services would exclude beds I would have thought. But if the packaging was insufficient and the address had come off why wouldn't it be lost? Size is not important in this case!

buggritt

You gotta love the internet. A bed - urban myth.
Stamps coming off envelopes? Who would have thought it?
Machines ripping off labels. It just gets better.

Crowqueen

The latter two are more reasonable than the former, I'll admit. When I posted what the other person said, I did pause to think why someone would send a bed through the post.

But the machines RM use can definitely damage items in the post, and things fall off. If they can lose items, they can mangle them quite easily. From personal experience, on an election campaign we got loads of complaints about election junk mail being received with underpaid postage and recipients not finding out what they were until they had paid a pound plus the underpaid postage for a leaflet from a party they may or may not support (and certainly didn't any more!). It transpired that the leaflets were being processed too fast. Stamps were being stuck on envelopes that had yet to be sealed, and were hanging off the envelope when the lip was being folded back. No-one noticed this was going on - we had thousands to process in a short period of time - until the complaints came in.

After that stamps were only stuck on once the envelope was sealed and addressed.

Goodness knows how many previously safe votes we lost; luckily we were ahead quite substantially in the polls so it didn't affect the overall result.

So - it does happen. In the case of an eBay item, the seller is liable to the buyer and Royal Mail liable to the seller, so the seller has to pay up and claim from RM.

TAG

soolin wrote: »

On a plastic outer bag neither the pre glued or the lick yourself stamps stay on. I always tape some paper onto the envelope and leave enough not covered with sellotape to stick my stamps on so they don't fall off.

Thanks for this.
I'd never thought of the pre glued ones falling off.
Will stick some paper on from now on.

soolin

Strapped wrote: »

A bed! :eek:

I bought a set of armour once, reproduction Saxon (ish) so leather and metal but very very heavy and in a huge packing case.

RM lost it for almost 3 months, even they thought it was amusing. It eventually turned up , the box was tatty, had lots of odd marks n it, but both the address and the return address were clearly showing. I refunded the compensation money and they gave me £10 for the inconvenience.

Mrs_Arcanum

The only thing that may have happened is the Post Office deciding it was first class when you paid for 2nd class. We have had this with large letters sent from one of our offices with blue 2nd class stamps on.

Now they write "Second Class" on the envelope - problem solved.

soolin

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

The only thing that may have happened is the Post Office deciding it was first class when you paid for 2nd class. We have had this with large letters sent from one of our offices with blue 2nd class stamps on.

Now they write "Second Class" on the envelope - problem solved.

I have never heard of that before and it doesn't make any sense. If an item is underpaid they automatically assume it is second class anyway- and there has never been any need to write 2nd class on the envelope, these are machine scanned anyway and I don't think the machines read handwriting.

I send approx 100 items a month in my slow months mostly second class and never write that on the packaging.

custardy

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

The only thing that may have happened is the Post Office deciding it was first class when you paid for 2nd class. We have had this with large letters sent from one of our offices with blue 2nd class stamps on.

Now they write "Second Class" on the envelope - problem solved.

how would that work?
Charge items are charged at 2nd class where possible (eg excluding special delivery)
So if an item was pulled as being underpaid,how could there be anything outstanding to pay?