Changes to compensation limited on RM signed for

24febstarter

Equally, using postage stamps to pay for postage has been the traditional method for ages, so keeping a supply has always seemed a good idea. Especially with the routine annual or 6-monthly price hikes. Nobody, least of all Martin, pointed out it could be a potential scam in the making. ;-)

Posting an item should be open to anyone turning up at a post office with an item to send, without being punished or having to overcome arbitrary hurdles - smart phone, passport, birth certificate, doctor's approval, etc. - along the way. Inclusivity should be the key.

I don't understand why the Signed For service should be inferior to Tracked and signed, aside from the ridiculous level of compensation provided? Surely items are recorded and tracked either way? The main difference would seem to be that the sender is keying the data and adding in their own. And paying an extra 20p for doing so.

Besides which the T24/T48 service is not priced correctly for letters and large letters (below 500g) even though small items, like old banknotes or coins (or archaic stamps) may often have a value over £20. A 30g item shouldn't incur a 750g rate.

And there is no choice. If RM are no longer providing this basic service other couriers should be allowed to step in and fill the gap.

soolin

24febstarter said:

Equally, using postage stamps to pay for postage has been the traditional method for ages, so keeping a supply has always seemed a good idea. Especially with the routine annual or 6-monthly price hikes. Nobody, least of all Martin, pointed out it could be a potential scam in the making. ;-)

Posting an item should be open to anyone turning up at a post office with an item to send, without being punished or having to overcome arbitrary hurdles - smart phone, passport, birth certificate, doctor's approval, etc. - along the way. Inclusivity should be the key.

I don't understand why the Signed For service should be inferior to Tracked and signed, aside from the ridiculous level of compensation provided? Surely items are recorded and tracked either way? The main difference would seem to be that the sender is keying the data and adding in their own. And paying an extra 20p for doing so.

Besides which the T24/T48 service is not priced correctly for letters and large letters (below 500g) even though small items, like old banknotes or coins (or archaic stamps) may often have a value over £20. A 30g item shouldn't incur a 750g rate.

And there is no choice. If RM are no longer providing this basic service other couriers should be allowed to step in and fill the gap.

Things move on and people need to be aware of services and choices , we have more choice now for postage than we ever did.

As for large letters I use RM48 a fair bit and am not sure what you mean by RM48 not being priced correctly for lower weight LLs? 

RM48 large letter from RM online up to 100g is £2.70 , you can even have it collected for free if you want , that compares to 2nd class signed for which is £3.25. 

RM48 large letter up to 250 g online is also £2.70 , 2nd class signed for is £3.60. 

I can understand the argument that people who rarely post anything might be confused as to services available, but anyone buying large amounts of stamps to beat a price rise is probably a more regular sender of items and surely would be aware of the options and not just trundle to the PO and hope for the best. 

As for competition, RM hold no monopoly , other couriers are free to offer services, but no one wants the lower priced items, even RM doesn’t really want them but they are stuck by statute. 

24febstarter

But choice and exclusivity don't mx well. I'll agree that people who send lots of goods (not me) are probably up to date with the various alternatives but Royal Mail still have a monopoly in letter post and I can't remember receiving any from other couriers.

Thanks, I wasn't aware that there were options below 750g large letter for Tracked. I have cancelled items on sale because I didn't know how I'd send them. Mysteriously, these are not mentioned at all in the latest RM prices booklet. Where do we go to find more?
https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2024-03/our-prices-april-2024-v1-ta.pdf

Perhaps there are more choices than would fit in a services leaflet? Even so, RM could maybe do a better job at publicising them? And rolling out their new systems too, ideally some time later this year.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

24febstarter said:

I don't understand why the Signed For service should be inferior to Tracked and signed, aside from the ridiculous level of compensation provided? Surely items are recorded and tracked either way? The main difference would seem to be that the sender is keying the data and adding in their own. And paying an extra 20p for doing so.

The main difference is that Signed For is just normal post that gets a signature upon delivery, it's treated exactly the same as 1st/2nd class standard except for that signature.

Tracked however is actually tracked.

You should get an acceptance scan whether collected from your home, dropped at the PO or dropped at the DO (not one for a post box drop obviously), a scan at your local mail centre, possibly a scan at the next mail centre and then a scan at the recipient DO to say ready for delivery the morning it goes out.

If you input an email address you'll also get an "it's on it's way" when the first mail centre scans, "ready for delivery" when the recipient DO scans and a third when it's delivered. 

The photo is an issue as the postman told me I'm not allowed to be in the picture so other than a photo of my house/door it doesn't say much but the other couriers use pretty much the same system.

PDAs should be recording GPS data at the point of delivery (which the RM tracking sometimes shows on a little map along).

Online a 2nd Class small parcel is now £3.19 and RMT48 just £3.39, for anything over a tenner I just sent RMT48 simply because that 20p is worth the better service even without considering the compensation issue.

The only downside to RM Tracked is there isn't compensation for it being "late"  so you won't get a book of stamps if it gets stuck and takes 2 weeks to be delivered but that seems rare and I've never bothered claiming for late post in the past anyway.

At one point years ago stuff that was sent Recorded/Signed For only had about an 80% signature rate and on one occasion of claiming that Recorded/Signed For fee, despite all the data sitting in the business Click and Drop account RM wanted a full spreadsheet of names, addresses, date of posting, etc, which certainly felt a tactic to make you not bother. 

24febstarter said:

To be fair, MSE was one of those places where you'll have heard it was a good idea to stock up on postage stamps before yet another 10 to 15% Royal Mail price hike - thanks, Martin! 

I was trying to hint at that without saying it's perhaps not the best advice from MSE  

The whole idea of yearly "a stamp is going up 10p" articles seems pointless given, by the word of the news, letter volumes are declining significantly, articles on parcel prices and services would be of far greater benefit to readers anywhere IMHO. 

I do appreciate the frustration but find life using RM48 to be much easier than years of dealing with standard 2nd class (with or without Signed For added).

The biggest bonus of the online site is they'll collect for free (including from a safe place) and bring a label. Although be wary of leaving more than one unlabelled parcel and relying on someone else not to put the wrong label on the wrong parcel!  

24febstarter

2nd class standard letter signed for was £2.25 in March. The lowest available 48hr tracked/signed rate is now £4.40. So the cost to send has effectively doubled, if you still want both cover and signature.

Tracked on its own appears to start at £2.70. As you say, that may suffice in most cases but it's not really a comparable service.

soolin

This link is useful as you can input your parcel size and weight and it gives you all the options

https://send.royalmail.com/

Once you’ve chosen your weight and size and go to the next screen make sure you open all the more options. 

https://send.royalmail.com/send/youritem?country=GBR&format&weight=&weightUnit=G

also, collection is automatically added, but when you get to the last screen you can remove collection if you wish. 

soolin

24febstarter said:

2nd class standard letter signed for was £2.25 in March. The lowest available 48hr tracked/signed rate is now £4.40. So the cost to send has effectively doubled, if you still want both cover and signature.

Tracked on its own appears to start at £2.70. As you say, that may suffice in most cases but it's not really a comparable service.

I can’t see any reason for requiring a signature, what extra protection does it give you? 

All I need is online proof of delivery and proof of posting in case of loss, a signature from a postie or any family member in my house doesn’t help. 

KxMx

soolin said:

This link is useful as you can input your parcel size and weight and it gives you all the options

https://send.royalmail.com/

Once you’ve chosen your weight and size and go to the next screen make sure you open all the more options. 

https://send.royalmail.com/send/youritem?country=GBR&format&weight=&weightUnit=G

also, collection is automatically added, but when you get to the last screen you can remove collection if you wish. 

I attempted to use Collection + Bring my Label a few months ago, never again, terrible experience there is absolutely no guarantee that the postperson will be able to provide label. 

24febstarter

Thanks for the replies and advice. I will have to give the Tr48 service a go, maybe combine it with collection and 'bring a label' while these are free add-ons.

Eventually I could make use of the same service to get rid of excess postage stamps. I suspect this may be what other Ebay sellers are doing. What goes round gets circulated. ;-)

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

24febstarter said:

2nd class standard letter signed for was £2.25 in March. The lowest available 48hr tracked/signed rate is now £4.40. So the cost to send has effectively doubled, if you still want both cover and signature.

Tracked on its own appears to start at £2.70. As you say, that may suffice in most cases but it's not really a comparable service.

For eBay protection on an INR you only need a signature for orders over £400 (by which point you are in SD territory) so the standard Tracked is sufficient. 

If you buy 1st/2nd online you'll also get delivery confirmation, not as reliable as Tracked but I think by now the posties are in the habit of just scanning everything and again this will cover for INR. 

I assume you get the same when buying at the Post Office but don't know if you do when paying solely with stamps, @soolin probably knows the answer to that one