Royal Mail barcoding stamps - existing stamps valid only until 31 Jan 2023

cx6

Buying books (rather than individuals) will probably easy the process of swapping later on. 

Spoonie_Turtle

RM online have barcoded ones at the current prices.

soolin

Spoonie_Turtle said:

RM online have barcoded ones at the current prices.

Thank you, I didn’t want to put in an order and end up with yet more old ones. 

NBLondon

soolin said:

I went to the PO today and asked if I could buy a few books of the new barcoded stamps. I was told that they were not allowed to sell them before April 4th and they could only sell me normal ones before then. 

That's the individual PO being awkward.  They certainly can sell them (if they have stocks) unless you were after a new £1.85 stamp.   Possibly they are being told by their own management to use up the non-barcoded stocks first.

soolin

NBLondon said:

soolin said:

I went to the PO today and asked if I could buy a few books of the new barcoded stamps. I was told that they were not allowed to sell them before April 4th and they could only sell me normal ones before then. 

That's the individual PO being awkward.  They certainly can sell them (if they have stocks) unless you were after a new £1.85 stamp.   Possibly they are being told by their own management to use up the non-barcoded stocks first.

That particular PO seems to enjoy being difficult. However, after much struggling, websites going offline, servers crashing etc I have managed to order new stamps direct online. I may order another batch next week if my sales are strong enough to give me enough surplus cash. 

DougWeller

My wife found some half price - allegedly the Royal Mail site, but look at the country code.https://newstamp.cc/products/100-pack-self-adhesive-stamp-sheet-4-styles-on-sale-new-years-gift-free-shipping-off-30?fbclid=IwAR0fItakxvS4_4AwHrWkGrdmHMp54vJDH7E39gfe-bDSzeq341yOTo1_Jy8&sku=18053025516970584719563447  I'm not sure where to report this apparent scam. If I'm right, Martin should be warning people. Any suggestions?

soolin

DougWeller said:

My wife found some half price - allegedly the Royal Mail site, but look at the country code.https://newstamp.cc/products/100-pack-self-adhesive-stamp-sheet-4-styles-on-sale-new-years-gift-free-shipping-off-30?fbclid=IwAR0fItakxvS4_4AwHrWkGrdmHMp54vJDH7E39gfe-bDSzeq341yOTo1_Jy8&sku=18053025516970584719563447  I'm not sure where to report this apparent scam. If I'm right, Martin should be warning people. Any suggestions?

That's been doing the rounds , usually via facebook for a while now. It is a complete copy of the RM site- only the web address makes it look like an obvious scam.

soolin

As I  am still faced with hundreds of pounds worth of stamps including several sheet of 1st class letter and large letter that I rarely use I have been looking at how they can be used after the price increase in April. (I am stuck at home waiting for a parcel and a bit bored!)

After the price increase a 2nd class large letter up to 100g will be £1.05 and for that I can use one 1st class letter (95p) plus a 10p stamp.

A 2nd class LL up to 250g stamp will cost £1.65 so for that I can use a 1st class LL stamp (£1.45) plus a 20p stamp.

I am looking forward though to seeing proper details of the sway scheme going forward as realistically unless ebay explodes with new buyers all buying my large letter stuff, I am not going to be able to use this lot by next January.

My mail centre have now asked me to mark clearly on the envelope whether something is 1st or 2nd class as my hordes of stamps are confusing them and they don't know which bags to put them in!

BooJewels

I've been watching this with interest - as I only found out about the new barcoded stamps recently - RM used to send me mailings about such things, like price increases, but haven't had one for a couple of years.

I ordered some of the new ones on the web site, as I was actually short of new stamps (I have a lot of lower value ones stuck onto unused envelopes, but they're not always appropriate to use) and I always try to buy before a price increase.   The new ones have just arrived - they're pretty ugly stamps - not sure what the reason is for the pseudo perforation and the stamp part of it is actually quite a bit larger than normal definitive stamps - maybe that's determined by the minimum size for the QR bit?  1st/2nd class and large are now the same size.

Do RM really lose that much revenue from re-used stamps to be worth the cost of this process?  I can only assume it's some commercial resellers / forgers that affect them to this extent, most of us re-using one or two a year can't surely trouble them that much.  I've thought about this before and wondered why they don't put something on the stamps when franking/sorting them, that renders them invalid for future use - although I wouldn't think that many actually miss regular franking.  I'm obviously missing something.

Money_Grabber13579

BooJewels said:

Do RM really lose that much revenue from re-used stamps to be worth the cost of this process?  I can only assume it's some commercial resellers / forgers that affect them to this extent, most of us re-using one or two a year can't surely trouble them that much.  I've thought about this before and wondered why they don't put something on the stamps when franking/sorting them, that renders them invalid for future use - although I wouldn't think that many actually miss regular franking.  I'm obviously missing something.

The answer is yes, you only have to look at the tonnes of stamps being sold on eBay, which are being sold without any gum and which are clearly going to be reused, to know that it is a huge problem.  The original solution was to post mark all the stamps so they couldn’t be used again and whilst some do get missed, it doesn’t really matter any more because criminals have taken to using chemicals to remove the postmark so there now needs to be a different solution. But the bigger problem is the sheer quantities of forged stamps, some of which don’t even look genuine, but still doesn’t stop people trying their luck.

At the end of the day, reusing stamps and using forged stamps are both fraudulent activities and Royal Mail feel that this is a necessary step to stamp out (pun may have been intended) that practice.