Royal Mail stuff me about over £0.01!!!

wary

Here's something that has left me speechless over the sheer pettyness of it ...

The postman put a card through the letterbox today, saying that there was a letter/package at the sorting office to be collected. The reason why they wouldn't be delivering it was because the postage paid was £0.01 too little! Therefore we'd have to go to the sorting office to collect it, and pay £1 administration fee.

I thought this must be some mistake. Surely they wouldn't be so petty over 1 pence. So I phoned the customer services number on the card, and the guy told me that yes, this is the correct procedure. He said that if I wasn't happy with this, I could file a complaint, and he even gave me a reference number. I initially assumed that this meant that a supervisor/manager would follow this up, and get back to me. But no. As he made clear, the correct procedure had been followed and so no one would even be looking at it never mind following it up. When I asked what was the point in a complaint being logged if it was gonna be totally ignored, he seemed stuck for an answer.

Luckily £1, or indeed the cost of the petrol to get to the sorting office, isn't great to us. I feel more annoyed at having my time wasted having to collect this package, and also for the delay in receiving it. I am the innocent victim after all; it wasn't me who paid 1p too little. Yes, I know that it could only be practical for them to follow up the recipient for any insufficient postage, but I would have thought that this should be an additional reason for showing a bit of common sense and discretion.

I don't feel angry with whoever sent it - mistakes can happen. What really makes me angry is the sheer bloody-mindlessness and pettyness of the Royal Mail, and how they quite happy to treat innocent customers in this way over such a petty amount.

I think they deserve some bad publicity over this. Any tips on how I should do this? I may also report them to PostWatch.

Anyone any thoughts? Am I being too hard on them?

southernscouser

I can understand them not delivering the parcel. Even for 1p. Imagine every letter/parcel was 1p under. It would amount to £millions each year!

The £1 charge is a bit of a p!ss take though!

Steph_W

Ok so say they let you off 1p, what about the person that owes 2p tomorrow and the person that owes 10p, where do they draw the line?? If everyone underpaid by 1p it would soon add up to any business. Marks and Spencer wouldnt let customers get away with it so why would RM?? If people didnt do it RM wouldnt need extra staff in revenue protection and wouldnt have to charge you a handling fee. Postwatch cant help, RM have done nowt wrong!!!

deanos

You shoud direct your anger at the person who didnt pay enough postage for the letter in the first place

Andy_L

I'm curious as to how you can underpay by 1p. Stamps have been 1st/2nd class rather than a price for years & the difference between large & std is more than 1p.
Similiar for parcels, the diference between prices is more than 1p, so even if your scales are out you'd expect a larger underpayment.

Either the OP's consigner is a bit clueless (and has a load of old stamps knocking about) or are deliberatly sending out under-stamped mail to save money

Luciferous

I dunno how this has become as rediculous as it has.

It was my birthday last week and i had 3 of these payment due cards came through the door. Thinking maybe i was the lucky recipient of some parcels, i duly set off to collect said mail. I couldn't believe it. They were all simply birthday cards. they weren't particularly large or heave and contained nothing more than a piece of printed, folded cardboard. but apparently they did not have sufficient postage and not only was i charged and additional 27p, but they threw in that good old 'handling fee' for good measure.

I think it's a complete farce. Does this mean now that EVERY time you want to post simple correspondence it has to be weighed and measured? What the hell is the point in keeping post boxes on the streets if you can never be sure of the postage being right?

Nice one RM - good money spinner but very poor customer service.

I've told everyone to email me from now on because I'm not giving RM the oprtunity to extort more 'charges' from me - it's getting worse than the bank!:mad:

eyelinerprincess

Andy_L wrote: »

I'm curious as to how you can underpay by 1p. Stamps have been 1st/2nd class rather than a price for years & the difference between large & std is more than 1p.
Similiar for parcels, the diference between prices is more than 1p, so even if your scales are out you'd expect a larger underpayment.

Either the OP's consigner is a bit clueless (and has a load of old stamps knocking about) or are deliberatly sending out under-stamped mail to save money

Gah my post didn't post! Was gonna say or the stamp fell off in the post or the person at the post office miscounted...

RibAd

wary wrote: »

P.S. Just for the record, the package was from the in-laws. They took it to their post office for weighing/stamping, and it does have 4 stamps on it to the designated amount ... minus 1p apparently! So it would appear that the error actually stems from their post office for putting insufficient stamps on it!!!

Out of interest, would they still have the receipt from the post office?

IvanOpinion

Can I suggest that if they drew the line at 1p then sites like this would be making big headlines about getting people to underpay by 1p to save money because the package would still be delivered. But then, as others say the 2p is now only 1p over so we would see vents on this board saying it was only 2p which because of their concession of 1p is only 1p etc.

ivan

Elmer_Dudd

I think Royal Mail should hang their heads in shame over this.
They lose millions of letters every year-problems with internal thefts etc-sinking us with junk mail and then have the cheek to charge for this.
How the hell can you tell at the post office counter that something is 0.01 pence over the postage limit.
Are they using an digital scale that counts to that many decimal points??!!
I doubt it-this is just a ruthless money grab by a troubled RM who are losing their grip on managing our mail.They want everyone to overpay for postage by frightening them with stunts like this!
Utter disgrace!!:mad:
They are displaying NO COMMON SENSE with this case.
Elmer:cool:

oasisfeverish

Just do what I did.

Had a card that said I owe £1.56, went to sorting office and said happy to pay the 56p but not the £1, they said I have to pay it all. So I replied then you can kindly return to sender as I don't want it, and this will cost you more than £1 to do, or let me just pay the 56p and have done. The latter won.