Post Office, Royal Mail, blame each other but......

I_am_a_robot

I ordered a pair of slippers from eBay.

I get a card through the letter box from Royal Mail "The sender did not pay the full postage, pay £3.50".

Contact the seller, they send me the proof of postage from the Post Office, same tracking number, weight stated.

Look up the phone number for my local parcel depot, phone, wait 20 minutes, get answered then find it is a call centre not my depot.

Man says you need to pat £3.39, interesting I say the card says £3.50.  I tell him about prrof of postage.

The man says the Post office is a different company, perhaps they forgot to put the postage sticker on, or it fell off in transit.  Would not budge, you pay us then claim from the Post Office.

1) Shoudn't Royal Mail be trying to claim this money from the Post Office?

2) Should the Royal mail accuse the seller of not paying when they admit the label may not have been stuck on, or had dropped off?  Makes the seller look bad when it may not be their fault.

3) Shouldn't the post office proof of postage with weight sdtated be sufficient to prove correct postage was paid?

Your thoughts......

molerat

It is up to the seller to get the item to you and recompense you for any underpaid postage (or get the item returned to them if their is a return address or possibly item destroyed).  It is then down to them to reclaim from the post office. The item did not have the correct postage attached, end of story as far as RM are concerned, they are not to know that POP was for that item.

savergrant

Have you now received the package?
Presumably it will be marked as having a fee to pay so photograph it and raise a case on ebay with the seller.
Was the label just a postage paid sticker?

ButterCheese

Just do it the way they ask - I've had similar in the past but for vastly greater costs, and I've always got my money back providing you have sufficient proof.

I think mine was a child's toy which I bought off ebay, it never arrived, the seller had proof of postage.  I had to upload the ebay item to show how much I'd paid, and within a week I got refunded.  Funnily enough about a month later the parcel actually showed up

I_am_a_robot

I have told the seller they will have to pay & reclaim, I have also pointed out if Royal mail return the package they may charge them anyway

RFW

I_am_a_robot said:

I ordered a pair of slippers from eBay.

I get a card through the letter box from Royal Mail "The sender did not pay the full postage, pay £3.50".

Contact the seller, they send me the proof of postage from the Post Office, same tracking number, weight stated.

Look up the phone number for my local parcel depot, phone, wait 20 minutes, get answered then find it is a call centre not my depot.

Man says you need to pat £3.39, interesting I say the card says £3.50.  I tell him about prrof of postage.

The man says the Post office is a different company, perhaps they forgot to put the postage sticker on, or it fell off in transit.  Would not budge, you pay us then claim from the Post Office.

1) Shoudn't Royal Mail be trying to claim this money from the Post Office?

2) Should the Royal mail accuse the seller of not paying when they admit the label may not have been stuck on, or had dropped off?  Makes the seller look bad when it may not be their fault.

3) Shouldn't the post office proof of postage with weight sdtated be sufficient to prove correct postage was paid?

Your thoughts......

I'm a bit confused.
If the RM card has tracking on it and that's the same as the proof of postage then there must be some postage on it.

So I think it may be that the sender has underpaid postage, this could have been a Post Office error.

£3.50 is an underpaid postage small parcel surcharge.

https://www.royalmail.com/receiving-mail/pay-a-fee