Fake Stamps Charge

EchoEchoecho

Can the Post Office legally charge (fine) the recipient of an item with a fake stamp? The recipient has done nothing wrong. Can the recipient refuse to pay or refuse to accept the item?

BlueonBlue

The PO (ie. not royal mail) have a pretty good track record of false accusations which have caused jail time, loss of ones home and suicide.
So yea they are not bad at passing blame?

As a recipient of what could be a very low value item or even junk mail I would ask the Sorting office to show me it first ....if thats possible... and decline if its not worth the charge.

p00hsticks

I'm guessing that we are actually talking about Royal Mail rather than the Post office here ? (They are two completely separate organisations). 

And that Royal Mail have contacted the intended recipient of an item with a 'Fee to Pay' card saying they will not deliver it because there is insufficient or counterfeit postage unless the fee is paid ? 

If that is the case then if the fee is not paid within 18 days then the item is apparently just returned to the sender. 
I don't believe the recipient is given the opportunity to look at the item to establish the sender or what's inside prior to paying the fee. 
Pay a fee | Royal Mail Group Ltd

(Historical note - when our postal systems were first introduced, the receiver rather than the sender was expected to pay the postage, which led to people developing clever ways of sending messages via the envelopes. The postman would show the recipient the envelope, the recipient would look at it and then decline to pay, much to the annoyance of the postman. Hence Roland Hill's subsequent introduction of the stamp paid for by the sender and the founding postal system used all over the world today.) 

Ergates

Can Royal Mail legally ask the recipient to pay the missing postage (plus a handling change)?:  Yes

Can the recipient refuse to pay?:  Yes.

Can the recipient refuse to pay AND get the item?: No.  If they refuse to pay, the item will not be delivered - it will be returned to the sender or destroyed.

"The recipient has done nothing wrong":  Irrelevant - it's not a fine.  Something posted with a fake stamp is something posted with insufficient postage.  The recipient is charged because their name/address will always be on the item whereas the sender's may not be.

BlueonBlue

It happened to me a long time ago so its vague now but on visiting the local RM sorting office with the red card the lady showed the item to me which was enough to know if it was important or not ie accept the extra charge or refuse .

So in my case it wasnt a big deal at all refusing it ,the local sorting office staff are generally friendly just busy doing ones work  so couldnt care less what you decide to do .....as thats up to you .
Next customer please!

Alot of fake stamps are about ,sold and used etc but the PO or RM people and machines also make mistakes .

Brie

When I got a card saying I had to pay to receive a letter due to issues with the postage I was not allowed to see it so I could decide whether I wanted it or not.  So I paid the fee and was handed unwanted advertising material that had insufficient postage on it.  

There have been quite a few cases of Royal Mail claiming the barcoded stamps on something are forgeries and so the recipient has to pay.  But then it's been proved that they weren't forgeries but as far as I'm aware they haven't been very forthcoming with refunds.  

lunskoye

This is royal mail taking the easy way out as usual. Its really up to them to find out who the sender is and prosecute them, not the poor recipient?? Apart from that it probably costs more than £5 in admin to process the dodgy thing anyway!!

BlueonBlue

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/08/royal-mail-counterfeit-stamps-scanner-app/

RFW

p00hsticks said:

I don't believe the recipient is given the opportunity to look at the item to establish the sender or what's inside prior to paying the fee.

I don't know if it's pervasive but I had one a while back that I went to the collection office and asked if I could see it before I paid. They showed it to me and I could then see that it wasn't my mistake and, given I knew what was in it, knew it wasn't worth paying for it so I let it go back. I never found out what happened next.

Ergates

lunskoye said:

This is royal mail taking the easy way out as usual. Its really up to them to find out who the sender is and prosecute them, not the poor recipient?? Apart from that it probably costs more than £5 in admin to process the dodgy thing anyway!!

Nobody is being prosecuted for anything - they're just being asked to pay the proper postage, plus an administration fee - which is not unreasonable.

Royal Mail ask the recipient for this because this results in the best outcome for most people most of the time.  Their address will always be on the item (for obvious reasons) - which means RM don't have a implement a two-forked method (one fork for if the sender's address is there, another if it's not), and when the recipient pays at a depot they can simply be handed the item (rather than having to try to link the payment to an item held at a different location which then gets released for delivery) - this keeps costs down (which would otherwise get passed on to the person paying the fee).

Not everything is a conspiracy.

BlueonBlue

Note the word penalty fee below from MSE .
After all this is a money saving site so reasonable or unreasonable fee doesnt come into it as thats just personal opinion.

"Royal Mail has confirmed it will continue to temporarily waive the £5 penalty fee for anyone receiving a letter with a fake stamp on it, adding that this temporary pause will be kept "under review". This means that instead of being charged, the letter you receive will have a sticker on it telling you a fake stamp has been used."

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/08/royal-mail-counterfeit-stamps-scanner-app/

What would have been happening in practise is people would have said forget it  Im not paying anything at all  to receive a letter....keep the letter I dont want it !
So then Royal Mail would have got nothing .