Worrying amounts of Royal Mail Underpaid mail letters

carrot-cake_2

The company I work for uses a franking machine which I am in charge of. I use the scales to check the amount of postage however every week without fail we get a letter or two from Royal Mail saying we have underpaid for our mail and need to pay a surcharge of £2 each time.

I'm getting a bit suspicious because I don't see how this can happen. We have had our franking machine checked and its weighing correctly and we also use the Postal prices wall chart we have for the current year from Royal Mail.

The most recent letter we received is mail underpaid by 83p I don't understand how as its obviously relating to a large A4 envelope and must have been a really heavy one to have underpaid by that much!

It concerns me because it looks bad to my employer that all these letter keep arriving with a surcharge each time.

Does anyone know how I should handle this? Surely Royal Mail must prove which letter this corresponds to so we can say oh yes actually that would have been a heavy letter as it contained this that and the other and therefore we could just pass it off as a mistake. However as I use the scales all the time I just don't see how this can happen so much. :eek:

Thanks for any advice.

carrot-cake_2

Just noticed this letter also says it was international mail when we don't have any clients overseas

sjbrun

From the underpaid amount it looks like your franking a small parcel as a large letter, Are you sure you have the letter type correct? have you checked the dimentions and the thickness?

sjbrun

carrot-cake wrote: »

Just noticed this letter also says it was international mail when we don't have any clients overseas

Ive had something simillar happen, If your certain its a mistake on royal mail then you can ring up Royal mail to dispute the penality, I had a few come in with the box exemption right after the price change, They just cancelled the payment request over the phone.

LutonGirl

Do you frank all the outgoing mail yourself or can others do their own?

We had a similar situation at my workplace where everyone does their own outgoing mail and folk were franking large letters as normal letters because they didn't know about the changes to the system or could be bothered to read the info stuck to the wall above the franking machine!

We were getting half a dozen or so of these a week, sometimes more. I made up a poster showing a "large letter" and a "normal letter" advising people to check before sending that they were using the right rates. We now only get possibly one every couple of months.

PS: If folk are franking their own, is there a possibility they are sending personal mail? That could account for the overseas items.

carrot-cake_2

sjbrun wrote: »

From the underpaid amount it looks like your franking a small parcel as a large letter, Are you sure you have the letter type correct? have you checked the dimentions and the thickness?

Hi yes, usually if it is over the basic dimensions and thickness it won't fit into the franking machine and a label is used. However I haven't used a label for as long as I can remember as everything has fit through the plastic measurement template we have too.

carrot-cake_2

LutonGirl wrote: »

Do you frank all the outgoing mail yourself or can others do their own?

We had a similar situation at my workplace where everyone does their own outgoing mail and folk were franking large letters as normal letters because they didn't know about the changes to the system or could be bothered to read the info stuck to the wall above the franking machine!

We were getting half a dozen or so of these a week, sometimes more. I made up a poster showing a "large letter" and a "normal letter" advising people to check before sending that they were using the right rates. We now only get possibly one every couple of months.

PS: If folk are franking their own, is there a possibility they are sending personal mail? That could account for the overseas items.

Hi no it's just me that does the franking I collect everyones mail through the day.

LutonGirl

It does sound really odd then. Do you have a RM Account Manager? Probably worth asking them in for a chat.

carrot-cake_2

LutonGirl wrote: »

It does sound really odd then. Do you have a RM Account Manager? Probably worth asking them in for a chat.

We don't. Could you point me in the direction of contacting someone to become our account manager if possible please I wasn't aware of this. Thanks.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

carrot-cake wrote: »

We don't. Could you point me in the direction of contacting someone to become our account manager if possible please I wasn't aware of this. Thanks.

Revenue protection are the ones checking & charging and they should be based at your local mail processing centre which is either where your mail goes first, or the second depot along the way. If you call your local office where the mail goes they should be able to advise further.

custardy

carrot-cake wrote: »

The company I work for uses a franking machine which I am in charge of. I use the scales to check the amount of postage however every week without fail we get a letter or two from Royal Mail saying we have underpaid for our mail and need to pay a surcharge of £2 each time.

I'm getting a bit suspicious because I don't see how this can happen. We have had our franking machine checked and its weighing correctly and we also use the Postal prices wall chart we have for the current year from Royal Mail.

The most recent letter we received is mail underpaid by 83p I don't understand how as its obviously relating to a large A4 envelope and must have been a really heavy one to have underpaid by that much!

It concerns me because it looks bad to my employer that all these letter keep arriving with a surcharge each time.

Does anyone know how I should handle this? Surely Royal Mail must prove which letter this corresponds to so we can say oh yes actually that would have been a heavy letter as it contained this that and the other and therefore we could just pass it off as a mistake. However as I use the scales all the time I just don't see how this can happen so much. :eek:

Thanks for any advice.

Then they would be delaying your mail
RM are (finally) cracking down on underpaid business mail
If you feel its being charge incorrectly then get in touch with RM customer services to get advice on who to contact/contact you.
it could be they are mixing your account with someone else given you ention international items you dont send