Fake Stamps Charge

Ergates

BlueonBlue said:

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 .

And if they delivered it, they'd also have gotten nothing.  If you don't want to pay the postage, you don't have to - you just won't get the item.  End of story.

BlueonBlue said:

Note the word penalty fee below from MSE

Yes - FEE being the operative word.  It's not a fine, it's a bill.  As evidenced by the fact that if you choose not to pay it, nothing happens.

BlueonBlue said:

After all this is a money saving site

The money saving option here is to ensure you put the correct postage on things you post and make sure you're not buying fake stamps.  That way the person you're sending the item to won't end up having to pay the postage and fee.

The money saving option if you're been sent something with incorrect postage is to either not pay (and not get the item) or to pay it and then ask the sender to reimburse you for their mistake.

BlueonBlue

Few to none will pay a fiver for a unknown letter in a Email world .
The whole idea of conning a receiver into paying a fiver to receive a unknown letter after visiting a sorting office via a red card was never ever going to work for long with the public .

The Telegraph got involved and RoyalMail has soiled its pants .
 
So RoyalMail has now pulled its neck in and are still attempting to tell if a stamp is fake or not which they are not very good at doing .
Who knows they might get better at it one day .

Money_Grabber13579

BlueonBlue said:

Few to none will pay a fiver for a unknown letter in a Email world .
The whole idea of conning a receiver into paying a fiver to receive a unknown letter after visiting a sorting office via a red card was never ever going to work for long with the public .

The Telegraph got involved and RoyalMail has soiled its pants .
 
So RoyalMail has now pulled its neck in and are still attempting to tell if a stamp is fake or not which they are not very good at doing .
Who knows they might get better at it one day .

That’s a risk you have to take though. If it turns out to be a £20 gift card from your granny, then Royal Mail are quids in if you don’t pay the fiver. I assume in most cases, there is no way to trace the sender to get it back to them.

Spoonie_Turtle

Money_Grabber13579 said:

BlueonBlue said:

Few to none will pay a fiver for a unknown letter in a Email world .
The whole idea of conning a receiver into paying a fiver to receive a unknown letter after visiting a sorting office via a red card was never ever going to work for long with the public .

The Telegraph got involved and RoyalMail has soiled its pants .
 
So RoyalMail has now pulled its neck in and are still attempting to tell if a stamp is fake or not which they are not very good at doing .
Who knows they might get better at it one day .

That’s a risk you have to take though. If it turns out to be a £20 gift card from your granny, then Royal Mail are quids in if you don’t pay the fiver. I assume in most cases, there is no way to trace the sender to get it back to them.

Granny is probably of a generation who know to put the return address on the back of the envelope though

BlueonBlue

Granny was probably complaining to her MP and the Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/royal-mail-scraps-fines-counterfeit-stamps/#:~:text=The Telegraph first reported in,when it was%

Royal Mail suspends ‘unfair’ fake stamp fines

£5 surcharge paused as postal company develops app to detect counterfeits

Pieter Snepvangers29 April 2024 • 6:08pm

Royal Mail has stopped issuing £5 penalties for letters sent with counterfeit stamps after a Telegraph investigation raised fears that errors were being made.

The postal service said it would suspend the charges while it investigated concerns with its new barcoded stamps that were introduced to crack down on fakes.

It comes after The Telegraph revealed that China was flooding Britain with counterfeit stamps in what security experts described as an “act of economic warfare”.

Royal Mail whistleblowers also said they feared mistakes were being made – with genuine stamps ruled fakes – and told how staff were using Google to identify counterfeits due to a lack of training.

Letters sent with stamps deemed counterfeit will now be returned to sender or delivered with a yellow sticker informing the recipients that the stamp is a fake. Previously recipients had to pay £5 to collect letters.

The yellow sticker reads: “This item has been identified as bearing a counterfeit stamp. You may wish to advise the sender. A surcharge has not been applied on this occasion.”

However, if a letter does include the return address, the letter will be returned and the sender charged £5 for using a counterfeit stamp.

MPs last week urged the Royal Mail to suspend the charges – claiming it was unfair to penalise those who were sent letters with fake stamps, rather than those who had bought the

Ergates

BlueonBlue said:

The whole idea of conning a receiver into paying a fiver to receive a unknown letter after visiting a sorting office via a red card was never ever going to work for long with the public .

The Telegraph got involved and RoyalMail has soiled its pants .
 

Conning?  Explain how that is a "con".  Also, it's been the policy for years.

BlueonBlue said:

So RoyalMail has now pulled its neck in and are still attempting to tell if a stamp is fake or not which they are not very good at doing .
Who knows they might get better at it one day .

RM having difficulty spotting fake stamps would *reduce* the number of people getting fees for using them, not increase it.

RM pulled the fees because the volume of fake stamps meant that a significant number of people were unknowingly using them.

Ergates

Money_Grabber13579 said:

BlueonBlue said:

Few to none will pay a fiver for a unknown letter in a Email world .
The whole idea of conning a receiver into paying a fiver to receive a unknown letter after visiting a sorting office via a red card was never ever going to work for long with the public .

The Telegraph got involved and RoyalMail has soiled its pants .
 
So RoyalMail has now pulled its neck in and are still attempting to tell if a stamp is fake or not which they are not very good at doing .
Who knows they might get better at it one day .

That’s a risk you have to take though. If it turns out to be a £20 gift card from your granny, then Royal Mail are quids in if you don’t pay the fiver. I assume in most cases, there is no way to trace the sender to get it back to them.

If mail isn't paid for and picked up, it is destroyed.  They don't open it first to see if there are gift cards in there.

BlueonBlue

Its not policy right now ....until further notice .
Not after the Telegraph and MP,s got involved.

Money_Grabber13579

Ergates said:

Money_Grabber13579 said:

BlueonBlue said:

Few to none will pay a fiver for a unknown letter in a Email world .
The whole idea of conning a receiver into paying a fiver to receive a unknown letter after visiting a sorting office via a red card was never ever going to work for long with the public .

The Telegraph got involved and RoyalMail has soiled its pants .
 
So RoyalMail has now pulled its neck in and are still attempting to tell if a stamp is fake or not which they are not very good at doing .
Who knows they might get better at it one day .

That’s a risk you have to take though. If it turns out to be a £20 gift card from your granny, then Royal Mail are quids in if you don’t pay the fiver. I assume in most cases, there is no way to trace the sender to get it back to them.

If mail isn't paid for and picked up, it is destroyed.  They don't open it first to see if there are gift cards in there.

I was of the understanding that it was opened to determine whether there was any way of returning it to the sender but is that just undeliverable mail?