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

HonestJohn

lindylootoo said:

How many people have had their stamps stolen from the swapout scheme? 

It's a concern. I always get a form online and use the pre-printed envelope and have never had a problem.

makethemostofit

Update on my woes - I counted my stamps yesterday and they hadn't sent me the right amount, they'd just swapped my first class stamps and none of the others - £40 was missing. I managed to get through on the phone (15 minutes) and they're sending me the rest. No real apology, and no sign of showing much surprise that there'd been a mistake made. 

johnb2

I sent in a range of 1st/2nd small/large letter stamps to get them barcoded, and the Royal Mail have only sent back small 1st stamps, so they expect me to overpay 27p per letter or faff around making up postage for large envelopes. How can I get the  variety of stamps I wanted?

martindow

lindylootoo said:

How many people have had their stamps stolen from the swapout scheme? 

I think a RM system overwhelmed or uderstaffed explains most cases of missing stamps rather than theft. 

From responses on here, they seem to be well aware of problems taking a customer's word for it when stamps are not received or incorrect stamps returned.

NBLondon

johnb2 said:

I sent in a range of 1st/2nd small/large letter stamps to get them barcoded, and the Royal Mail have only sent back small 1st stamps, so they expect me to overpay 27p per letter or faff around making up postage for large envelopes. How can I get the  variety of stamps I wanted?

As above - chase them up.  If you sent red 1st Large; you should have got blue barcoded 1st Large in return.

03457 740740  

johnb2

I have raised 2 support queries by email. Obviously I'm not going to waste my time in a support queue. They said "We are not always able to replace non-barcoded stamps with their like for like barcoded equivalent, so this time we are sending you 1st class stamps". It seems they have run out of second class stamps..... I am going to fight them.

HonestJohn

Stamp shortages might be due to the change of monarch.

HowardFisher

My problem is that Royal Mail rejected my stamps as counterfeit. Given I bought one book of 12 2nd class stamps in a Post Office and the other of 1st class stamps at a major supermarket some months earlier, the chance of both being counterfeit is vanishingly small. I’m going through their appeals process, but the first appeal wasn’t great - they simply reiterated that they were dud and gave no further details or photo so I can verify this or that they are even the stamps I returned (I kept a photo of the stamps being returned before sending them). They used my house name as my surname in their reply, so I’m not hugely convinced of their attention to detail.

NBLondon

johnb2 said:

I have raised 2 support queries by email. Obviously I'm not going to waste my time in a support queue. They said "We are not always able to replace non-barcoded stamps with their like for like barcoded equivalent, so this time we are sending you 1st class stamps". It seems they have run out of second class stamps..... I am going to fight them.

Are you saying they sent you a pile of 1sts to cover your numerical values instead of a pile of 2nds?  Is it the right total value?  Not sure if that's worth the fight.

Or are you saying you sent Large 1sts and got the same value in standard 1sts but a larger number?  You're right - that's not the agreement.

NBLondon

HonestJohn said:

Stamp shortages might be due to the change of monarch.

Don't see how...  The barcoded ones were printed at the start of the year and probably in millions.  I suspect that RM underestimated how many were going to be sent back from collectors and dealers,