I had to pay to receive my bank's junk mail!

freddyfeet

This takes the biscuit. With this morning's post was a card saying that a parcel could not be delivered due to insufficient postage.

So my wife has to do a five mile round trip to the sorting office. It turns out that it is not a parcel but an official looking letter from our bank (RBS). So she pays the postage surplus of £1.21 and back in the car opens the letter only to discover it is junk mail offering accidental death insurance.

Turns out that there was no stamp or franking on the envelope at all so she had to pay the postage and a handling fee (plus petrol and time).

We are really not happy!

I wondered if I should write to the bank but seems a bit petty for £1.21. Just wondered how many others have had to pay?

Bogof_Babe

I think the bank needs to be told, if only because there might be something wrong with their franking or mailing machines.

They should certainly reimburse the £1.21 to your account, and if they have any decency they should add something on for your wife's inconvenience. I believe they call it a "gesture of goodwill".

Makes you wonder how many other people will be caught the same way, so they need to be made aware.

mrcow

Sorry but lol!!

This exact thing happened to me once, and the steam was pouring out of my ears!

Not in the least because I was actually in when they posted the card through my door, but the postman never bothered knocking.

I didn't do anything about it at the time, but maybe if your bank has a customer services link on their website, then you could always sent off a complaint to them and ask them for the petrol money/postage excess refund? Even if to just make yourselves feel a little better?

Ellie2758

Grrrrrrrrrrr, I'd be FUMING.

Ellie

Claudie

Something similar happened to us a few months ago - I was told you actually pay the difference in missing postage plus £1 handling fee...shame you didn't recognise it was junk mail and send it back!

Wig

Or you could try refusing to accept unpaid postage items. Let them go back to the sender and if it's important it will be delivered again.

aliasojo

I would tell them too. I always think that an error that doesn't actually cost you anything is easily forgotten, but one that costs you should always be brought to the company's attention. Especially given the 5 mile trip.

Fatboy_NSS

In the bank's defence, they were probably using a big automatic franking machine. Mail flies through these at high speed and is automatically weighed and franked. However sometimes the franker misses the item of post. I'm sure RBS aren't setting out to rip you off, and they'll almost certainly give you the money back if you ask them to.

Victors_Bruvver

Royal Mail started this new system a while ago under the heading of "revenue protection". It was alleged at the time that it was to ensure that any fee collected for mail with either missing or underpaid postage would be more secure than giving it to the postman. You can read whatever you like into that; ie do they mean that the postman will probably not get mugged for the £1.21 or is it because they do not trust their postmen??
Either way it further illustrates the incompentance of the Royal Mail, why did they not return it to the sender when it was found to be unfranked? Was it a case of "oh well the customer (muggins) at the receiving end will pay for it, so why should we care?"

trisontana

This happened to me last year with a letter from the Yorkshire Building Society. It was a four mile round trip plus the £1.12 Royal Mail charge. I phoned up YBS, talked to very nice lady and she credited £5 to my savings account. As was stated above, it was either human error or problems with the franking machine. Nobody's perfect!

freddyfeet

Well I took your advice, and instead of feeling annoyed I sent the bank an e-mail via their website. Just doing this made me feel better.
But today I received a really nice apology and £10 credited to my account!
So thank you moneysavers - I would just have let it go!