Post Office overcharging

purpleparrotuk

My husband posted a parcel yesterday for me. I had measured It beforehand and it was a medium parcel size and need extra insurance. The price should have been £27 for special delivery by 1pm. He phoned me to say they are charging him over £40 to post it. I phoned up the post office, which is in a local shop and they said they are only going by the scales. The item weighed just over 6kg. 

I advised them it was definitely a medium parcel not a large one but they wouldn’t budge. 

Anyway expecting my husband to bring the parcel back home I was surprised when he said the post office overrode the till but warned him the recipient may have to pay underpaid postage. Why would the scales be telling them the wrong details?

My other problem is the item is £700. They charged hubby £26 now and said we are insured up to £5000 so he paid it. The price we have now paid is only for £500 insurance so they got that wrong too. If the item gets lost or damaged we will have to pay an extra £200. 

I’m not happy with this whole situation and I am concerned the parcel won’t get there. Do I have any rights here if something does happen to it so it isn’t delivered?

theonlywayisup

purpleparrotuk said:

My husband posted a parcel yesterday for me. I had measured It beforehand and it was a medium parcel size and need extra insurance. The price should have been £27 for special delivery by 1pm. He phoned me to say they are charging him over £40 to post it. I phoned up the post office, which is in a local shop and they said they are only going by the scales. The item weighed just over 6kg. 

I advised them it was definitely a medium parcel not a large one but they wouldn’t budge. 

Anyway expecting my husband to bring the parcel back home I was surprised when he said the post office overrode the till but warned him the recipient may have to pay underpaid postage. Why would the scales be telling them the wrong details?

My other problem is the item is £700. They charged hubby £26 now and said we are insured up to £5000 so he paid it. The price we have now paid is only for £500 insurance so they got that wrong too. If the item gets lost or damaged we will have to pay an extra £200. 

I’m not happy with this whole situation and I am concerned the parcel won’t get there. Do I have any rights here if something does happen to it so it isn’t delivered?

No one can help with whether it was a large or a medium parcel as you are the only one who knows the measurements and how well you measured it.   Although you refer to the scales so I'm not even sure if the weight is correct?

How much did he actually pay as £26 isn't an exact costing service. SD has levels of additional compensation for very little and the difference between £500 and £1000 at that weight is £1. 

Pollycat

Sounds odd.

Medium parcel up to 10kg special delivery by 1pm is £26.60.

The next is up to 15kg special delivery by 1pm is £41.20.

If your parcel weighed 6kg, that's a lot of difference.

Their scales must be out by 9kgs which doesn't sound likely.

How did you weigh the parcel?

Are you 100% sure it was within 'medium parcel' dimensions?

Do you really mean " insured up to £5000" or is that a typo for £500?

From RM website:

Compensation

Your Special Delivery item has a money back guarantee if it doesn't arrive by the guaranteed delivery time. All Special Delivery items are automatically covered with £500 compensation against loss or damage. For a small amount you can increasethe level of compensation to £1,000 or £2,500 and as an added extra you can purchase consequential loss up to £10,000.

So if your husband paid £26.00 (which is not even an exact RM delivery charge) for a 'up to 10kg medium parcel special delivery by 1pm, it won't have £5k insurance).

It sounds unlikely (at least to me) that the Post Office would override the till.

I'm not sure if that is even possible.

I post a few parcels for eBay sales - usually large letter, small parcels.

My receipt from yesterday shows:

2nd class

small parcel

weight 0.228kg

£3.10 - which is the published price for that service.

What does your receipt show?

purpleparrotuk

Thanks for the replies. The amount he paid was £26.60. So medium parcel bit only £500 insurance. The staff member definitely said £5000 because hubby told him he only needs £1000. The parcel was definitely under medium parcel dimensions. When I spoke to them they said it’s 6.5kg so is large parcel. Totally wrong. 

All worked out in the end since was delivered and no questions about sender  having to pay any extra. I’m certainly not using the local po for larger items ever again. I am not sure why they were saying the system came up with that price from the scales. Do the scales have a 3D scanner built in to check dimensions? I’m guessing they just charge everyone for large parcels and get away with it, more money for them. 

davidmcn

purpleparrotuk said:

Do the scales have a 3D scanner built in to check dimensions? I’m guessing they just charge everyone for large parcels and get away with it, more money for them. 

No, but they have rulers and gauges for thickness, and given it's part of their job are likely to more adept at estimating these things by sight than the punters are. Did you measure it?

I don't think they get commission from selling the postage (unless that's changed recently) so not really any advantage in "upselling" for the subpostperson.

Pollycat

purpleparrotuk said:

Thanks for the replies. The amount he paid was £26.60. So medium parcel bit only £500 insurance. The staff member definitely said £5000 because hubby told him he only needs £1000. The parcel was definitely under medium parcel dimensions. When I spoke to them they said it’s 6.5kg so is large parcel. Totally wrong. 

All worked out in the end since was delivered and no questions about sender  having to pay any extra. I’m certainly not using the local po for larger items ever again. I am not sure why they were saying the system came up with that price from the scales. Do the scales have a 3D scanner built in to check dimensions? I’m guessing they just charge everyone for large parcels and get away with it, more money for them. 

I would not use that post office again, not because I think they are trying to rip people off but because they appear to be inept.

I would not want to entrust my parcels to them even if it was only until the postman turned up to collect them.

My lovely lady at my local post office is great.

I took a parcel in that was almost on the small parcel limit of 16cms, it was actually 15cms.

I asked her if it was OK, she looked it over and nodded.

mikb

purpleparrotuk said:

I’m certainly not using the local po for larger items ever again. I am not sure why they were saying the system came up with that price from the scales. Do the scales have a 3D scanner built in to check dimensions?

No they don't have lasers. For letter (up to 5mm thick) and large-letter (up to 25mm thick) they have a plastic gauge to stuff it through to check thickness, and measure length/width by hand. For Small-Medium-Large Parcel it's just a measuring tape.

It's really simple to avoid (or, at least, win) these arguments. Measure the parcel before you take it to the PO. Don't try and cut corners, be honest. Get scales that are accurate. Then, check the easily available published prices tarriff. KNOW what service you want and what price you are expecting to pay. WRITE IT on the parcel, so they know you already have this information.  Otherwise, things will grow in size/weight unexpectedly and you won't be able to defend

My local PO uses a folded-paper tatty measuring tape. The end of it is *missing* so it doesn't start at zero, they have to eyeball it. Honestly, "inept" doesn't cover it, it's shameful.

It's rare I have a problem, as I'm good on measuring/weighing to within a few grammes. Except one memorable time, when the server measured and declared "oversize" and tried to upsell me -- and I pointed out that you are measuring it wrong (it was under the max size, but they swapped over the width and height to make one size too big) 

At one point, they tried to convince me that "length" was measured diagonally corner to corner at which point I asked for the parcel back, or someone that can work a tape measure.

davidmcn

Pollycat said:

purpleparrotuk said:

Thanks for the replies. The amount he paid was £26.60. So medium parcel bit only £500 insurance. The staff member definitely said £5000 because hubby told him he only needs £1000. The parcel was definitely under medium parcel dimensions. When I spoke to them they said it’s 6.5kg so is large parcel. Totally wrong. 

All worked out in the end since was delivered and no questions about sender  having to pay any extra. I’m certainly not using the local po for larger items ever again. I am not sure why they were saying the system came up with that price from the scales. Do the scales have a 3D scanner built in to check dimensions? I’m guessing they just charge everyone for large parcels and get away with it, more money for them. 

I took a parcel in that was almost on the small parcel limit of 16cms, it was actually 15cms.

I asked her if it was OK, she looked it over and nodded.

Doesn't that risk somebody further down the line deciding it's got insufficient postage and slapping a surchage on for the recipient? Or do they regard the only arbiter as being the person at the counter?

[Deleted User]

I’m glad it worked out for you. 

Strangely enough I seen your post on another forum too. 

Pollycat

davidmcn said:

Pollycat said:

purpleparrotuk said:

Thanks for the replies. The amount he paid was £26.60. So medium parcel bit only £500 insurance. The staff member definitely said £5000 because hubby told him he only needs £1000. The parcel was definitely under medium parcel dimensions. When I spoke to them they said it’s 6.5kg so is large parcel. Totally wrong. 

All worked out in the end since was delivered and no questions about sender  having to pay any extra. I’m certainly not using the local po for larger items ever again. I am not sure why they were saying the system came up with that price from the scales. Do the scales have a 3D scanner built in to check dimensions? I’m guessing they just charge everyone for large parcels and get away with it, more money for them. 

I took a parcel in that was almost on the small parcel limit of 16cms, it was actually 15cms.

I asked her if it was OK, she looked it over and nodded.

Doesn't that risk somebody further down the line deciding it's got insufficient postage and slapping a surchage on for the recipient? Or do they regard the only arbiter as being the person at the counter?

 It was 1cm within the limit.
I measured it carefully.
Well within the other 2 dimensions.

Why would somebody further down the line decide it had insufficient postage?

You said:

davidmcn said:

No, but they have rulers and gauges for thickness, and given it's part of their job are likely to more adept at estimating these things by sight than the punters are. Did you measure it?

I guess she was just doing part of her job.

Money_Grabber13579

If they are saying that it has to be a large parcel because it is 6kg, that is incorrect because a medium parcel can be up to 20kg.

Secondly, Royal Mail don’t seem to offer special delivery for large parcels - they have to go parcelforce, so they got that wrong too.

Thirdly, the £40 price they were trying to charge is for a medium parcel in the 10-15kg bracket so if it was only 6kg, that was wrong too.

I would be filing a complaint on the Post Office website, as that is a catalogue of errors.