Spectos/Royal Mail Monitoring and Posting Panel

elsien

I’ve reused the plastic bag the book cans in to return it. Just turned it inside out.

XDA

Antbingley said:

Saetana said:

beanielou said:

I have sent some unwanted books to Spectos using the freepost address.
Win for them & me 

How are you packaging the books please?

I'm reusing the grey plastic wrapping they come in - turn it inside out and then tape it back up.  Stick a sticker on with FREEPOST SPECTOS and then pop it in a normal post box.

That’s exactly what I do as well.

kerri_gt

I saved a load of plastic bags from Kantar, if i can't reuse the Spectos bags, they'll come in handy for books 

Saying that, i received another today that I was quite chuffed with. Will see if I have any others laying about I can send to them instead of a similar ilk.

NBLondon

kerri_gt said:

Saying that, i received another today that I was quite chuffed with. 

Today I got a Scandi-noir thriller.  Which is an author I like but one I've already read    So re-read and pass on.

silvercar

I have a load of old books and a suitcase with a broken handle that is waiting to go to the dump. I wonder if I can put the books in the suitcase and hand it in to the post office???

Antbingley

This morning I've received one of the "parcels" that contains a chunk of polystyrene instead of a book.

Helpfully, the polystyrene is already wrapped up in its own grey plastic wrapper, with a sticker "FREEPOST SPECTOS" - ready to just pop back in a post box. 

Money_Grabber13579

Antbingley said:

This morning I've received one of the "parcels" that contains a chunk of polystyrene instead of a book.

Helpfully, the polystyrene is already wrapped up in its own grey plastic wrapper, with a sticker "FREEPOST SPECTOS" - ready to just pop back in a post box. 

Maybe they should wrap the books up in a similar manner to encourage people to send them back? The problem with the polystyrene is that it won’t fit in a normal postbox and isn’t heavy enough to go in a parcel postbox. Is the transponder inside this package or separate? If separate, I’m not sure many polystyrene lumps will get returned…

Money_Grabber13579

Saetana said:

HonestJohn said:

Saetana said:

Money_Grabber13579 said:

NBLondon said:

Gail333 said:

Unlike the letter bundles though, there are no codes on either of the parcels to report so I don't understand how I am supposed to report that I've posted them. On the letter that came with one of them it said to "remove the band" before posting but there is no band, it's just a box that contains a dvd (says this on the letter that came with it) with five first class stamps on it.

Turn the Posting Plan over Gail.    The barcode to scan at time of posting is on the back (same is it would be on the band round a bundle of letters).  This is the case whether you have a DVD box (cardboard mailer) or a Jiffy Bag or a mailbag.

Gail333 said:

The second one is in a drawstring bag and I have no idea if I'm supposed to open this bag or just give the whole thing to the post office. This one also comes with  documentation that I think I'm supposed to give to the post office staff.

Read Saetana's response above.   The Manifest is the one with RM logo at top left and long barcode at top right.  Look at the red or green tag which is zip tied round the neck of the bag.  If this is blank copy the details from the manifest as Saetana said, if it is already completed or stamped - just take the manifest with you to the PO.   The PO clerk should scan the long barcode from the manifest and then tell you what to do next.   1) They might keep the manifest and tell you where to leave the bag  2) They might ask you to attach the manifest to the bag by tucking under the zip tie (I have a big elastic band ready for this) or do it themselves.

If you have taken the Posting Plan with you, then you can report it like any other bundle.  

OR - if you have a parcel postbox convenient  to you (this is a handy website https://postboxes.dracos.co.uk/parcels/ )   then you can open the mailbag, post the parcels in that postbox, scan the barcode on the back of the Posting Plan to report.   In that case, you discard the manifest and don't need to queue up.   

I never had any intention of taking the sack to the post office as I prefer to post parcels in a post box so no one asks any questions. I therefore opened the sack and it contains 2 books which are small enough to fit into a regular post box. I wonder could I just drop them in my local post box which is about a 10 minute walk from my house rather than driving 5 miles to the nearest parcel box?

No you cannot - parcels have to be posted either at the post office or in a dedicated parcel posting box, they have to track what happens to actual parcels, not just items posted in a regular postbox.

Anybody know if an item posted in a regular postbox is treated differently to an item posted in a parcel box? The only difference will be the way they are paid for. What is the label on these items?

Doesn't matter whether they are handled separately or not, the point is Spectos will be able to tell where the items were posted because the postman/woman scans the box when they empty it, in addition to the panellist presumably correctly reporting exactly where they posted it.  All I know is that anything other than a very small light parcel is delivered separately in a a van rather than by the postman who delivers my letters and packets so I would imagine there is some degree of separate handling.  If we were allowed to post these items in normal postboxes then Spectos would say so but they specify post office or dedicated parcel box so those are the options.

Just received a reply from Spectos on this who have confirmed that if a parcel will fit in a regular post box, it can be posted there i.e. the posting of parcels isn’t limited to only post offices and parcel boxes.

Antbingley

Money_Grabber13579 said:

Maybe they should wrap the books up in a similar manner to encourage people to send them back? The problem with the polystyrene is that it won’t fit in a normal postbox and isn’t heavy enough to go in a parcel postbox. Is the transponder inside this package or separate? If separate, I’m not sure many polystyrene lumps will get returned…

The transponder (and the sheet of paper with the QR code to scan) is separate to the ready-wrapped polystyrene block.

You're right it might be a bit chunky for a postbox, there's a few wide slot ones near me I could try, and give it a bit of persuasion, too

elsien

Had a reply to my item not recognised. It wasn’t for me, came to me by mistake. Please can I return it with the envelope and RFID.
That’ll be a no because although I kept the letter I didn’t keep any of the other stuff. 

Also for future reference, for the items that came when I was in holiday:

, please select any date in the range, and then the app will ask if you are confident of the date, and there you can select NO, this way you'll be able to record the package ID on the app.