Mail Deliveries in your area

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

According to this if you refuse to take delivery Royal Mail return the letter to sender, so if it’s important the sender will no doubt send it again with a real stamp, if not important, who cares. If it’s really important, hospital appt or similar, it will no doubt go through a franking machine, so the problem should not arise, unless of course there are counterfeit franking machines out there as well.

[duncan webster 1]

On duncan webster 1 Said:

According to the BBC if someone uses a counterfeit stamp, knowingly or not, the recipient is fined £5. How can this be justice, the recipient has done nothing wrong. With the level of integrity shown by public bodies nowadays it wouldn’t surprise me if Royal Mail have got a batch of duff stamps and are sending them out at random.

This is funny bit. When Royal Mail failed to deliver an item, although I had paid for the postage. I was told it would be down to the sender to reclaim the postage.

Clearly there are two standards operating. Neither one benefits the recipient.

Given that the Post Office and Royal Mail were one some years back, and given the antics the PO has been getting up to I would not put anything past any off them, re “Duff Stamps”. RM don’t even trust the PO to sell their stamps.

Finally the world and his dog knows that RM are breaking the law as regards deliveries, so why is it then that there have no arrests. After all the laws they are breaking carry a prison sentence.

Regards

Gray,

[duncan webster 1]

On duncan webster 1 Said:

According to the BBC if someone uses a counterfeit stamp, knowingly or not, the recipient is fined £5. […]

Mmm … not quite the words that I read, Duncan

Is   that a verbatim quote, or your interpretation ?

What I read was:

Anyone who receives a letter with a fake stamp is charged £5 by Royal Mail.

 

Which is entirely reasonable … because ‘Anyone’ is traditionally offered the choice of whether, or not, to ‘receive’ something that is wrongly stamped.

MichaelG.

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My ref. __ https://apple.news/A1uUgPGZtQ_usNUKzK1-K-Q

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

Surely Royal Mail is quite right in saying that their stamps cannot be counterfeited. After all, they can pick the duff ones out during the sorting process. The problem is that no-one else can detect them – is that information published anywhere? Neither the places that buy them via third parties nor the end customer can tell if they are good ‘uns or not.

[Nealeb]

On Nealeb Said:

Surely Royal Mail is quite right in saying that their stamps cannot be counterfeited. After all, they can pick the duff ones out during the sorting process. The problem is that no-one else can detect them – is that information published anywhere? Neither the places that buy them via third parties nor the end customer can tell if they are good ‘uns or not.

We are not being helped much by presentation like this:

.

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The fake looks much better than the real one !

MichaelG.

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

I think that underlines the point – if a user buys one of those fakes in good faith and has no way of telling it from a real stamp, are they really culpable? I doubt if I could recognise a good fake coin or banknote either, even though I would be guilty if I tried to use one.

Personally, I tend to buy books of “ordinary” stamps from my local village PO (with price rises, a good investment!), and all other postage is bought online. Seems to be cheaper than over-the-counter once you get to small packages as well.

[Nealeb]

On Nealeb Said:

I think that underlines the point – if a user buys one of those fakes in good faith and has no way of telling it from a real stamp, are they really culpable? …

If I remember the advice of a distant legal course my employer insisted I attend, English Law is unusual in that it does not define ‘good faith’.  As the term has no legal meaning in the UK, the parties remain responsible for ensuring all is in good order.   In this example, the customer is responsible for ensuring the stamp is genuine, and the post office are responsible for making sure the customer’s payment is valid.

In practice, an illegally stamped letter is treated in the same way as an unstamped letter.  It passes through the system but the recipient has to pay for it before it’s handed over.  And a business that buys a suitcase full of fake stamps and sells them on cannot claim they were bought in ‘good faith’ – that’s not a defence.

There are a few exceptions; some UK consumer laws were tweaked to meet EU requirements for ‘good faith’.  But I’ve no idea whether these consumer protections apply to individuals buying stamps or not.    Probably depends on the circumstances: an individual customer is unlikely to be held culpable if he bought duff stamps from a Post Office, but could be if they were a cash sale behind the bogs in a pub car-park at midnight!

What are we complaining about?   The Post Office and Royal Mail are both losing money, causing a service we rely on to crumple under the strain.   The new stamps make it much harder to defraud the system, which is good.   What’s bad is the hassle of us getting caught up in this, and discovering that Trading Standards and the Police are busy elsewhere.

We live in an imperfect world, but much of the risk can be avoided by not buying ‘bargains’ from dodgy sources.!

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Postman just staggered up to the house with a huge pile of post, the first delivery for 9 working days (we have a neighbour who runs a business from home who closely monitors!) One of the items was from Precision transfers posted over two weeks ago, and another from Simply Bearings that has taken 11 days, both posted first class.

Don’t know about counterfeit stamps but starting to believe we have a counterfeit postage system, definitely not first class!

Dave

[Graham Meek]

On Graham Meek Said

…….

Given that the Post Office and Royal Mail were one some years back, and given the antics the PO has been getting up to I would not put anything past any off them, re “Duff Stamps”. RM don’t even trust the PO to sell their stamps.

…….

Really? Can’t you buy stamps in a PO? I do know that dropping off a parcel at a PO costs more then having it collected

 

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Why would you buy stamps from anywhere else than a PO or its website???

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

Why would you buy stamps from anywhere else than a PO or its website???

When we submitted our non-coded first class stamps a while ago. They were said to be counterfeit. They had been purchased off Amazon as our in-store PO was closed while Tesco revamped the old Co-op store. Nearest PO was 9 miles away.

Given that these stamps had been used in the past and that letters had reached their destination with no surcharge, it seems hard to believe they were counterfeit. When I asked RM to prove that the stamps submitted were ours, they could not.

This is hardly surprising as they were just put in an envelope and posted.

In my book all the stamps should have been hand franked, so that they could not be used, and a franked receipt given by a PO. That way the stamps could be tracked, unlike most of RM’s tracking. When I asked about where should I buy stamps in future from a “trusted supplier” the PO was not mentioned. When I asked RM specifically about the PO as they were not mentioned, I received no reply. It was not until after I had raised the matter with the PO CEO that I received an RM reply. It was clear from the grudgingly phrased RM response that the PO was “not to be trusted” in RM’s book.

Regards

Gray,

 

[Andrew TinsleyParticipant @andrewtinsley63637]

Well, I am amazed! A small parcel posted in the Wirral yesterday, arrived today and it is Sunday!!!! The parcel was a Royal Mail 24 hour job, but Sunday delivery?

Andrew.

 

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Andrew I think  Royal Mail have delivered  parcels on a Sunday for sometime now, trying to keep up with the competition.

H

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

Why would you buy stamps from anywhere else than a PO or its website???

Because the Post Office is just a high street outlet, providing a variety of customer facing services. Stamps come from Royal Mail, which is an entirely different company.

Things have changed radically since the GPO provided all related functions with a single organisation responsible directly to a government minister.  That simplicity has long gone!

Ongoing change means the customer has to keep an eye on what’s going on.   Apart from a distant historical association, there’s nothing special about buying stamps from a Post Office.  Even if the parent company were completely trustworthy, most branches are franchises, usually operated within another high street business. Not as solid as the GPO was.

In addition. selling stamps has been deregulated, which boosts the economy by encouraging competition.  Unfortunately, deregulation also makes it easier to sell fakes.   Gray is surprised the stamps he bought via Amazon were counterfeit:  I’m not, because Amazon is just a marketplace, and marketplaces aren’t fraud proof.   Buying stamps direct from Royal Mail is safer!

Similarly, Gray believes Royal Mail are obliged by the Postal Services Act to maintain a certain performance level.   I’d be amazed if the Act says any such thing.  UK Privatisation legislation all follows much the same formula by setting up a regulator like OFCOM, OFWAT, OFGEM, or the ORR, and it is these bodies, not the legislation, that set operating targets.   But, huge but, whatever rules regulators set and choose to enforce, the legislation obliges them to keep the service financially sustainable, which Royal Mail isn’t at the moment.  If the underlying problem is that the business is struggling, individual customers receiving poor service are unlikely to get much help from politicians or the regulator.

That’s why OFCOM are ‘consulting’ on reducing Royal Mail’s universal postal targets.  Nothing to do with improving customer satisfaction,  it’s because the ever falling number of letters being sent make it difficult to make the 6 day service pay for itself.

The world is much more complicated than it used to be…

Dave

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

Hi Dave,

I was not surprised by the Amazon purchase. However when someone says something is counterfeit without physically proving the stamps in question were actually mine. That is another matter. Especially when we sent in books of stamps as well.

As regards the Postal Services Act, I am not concerned with “a performance level”. I am concerned however when someone deliberately “interferes” with my mail delivery, (something which is covered by the act and verified by the BBC on more than one occasion). There is no question of staff shortages when it comes to the act. If someone has made a conscious decision to delay my mail because there are no staff. Then they have broken the law as they have interfered with that “statutory delivery”.

There used to be a Postmaster General office, but the last person to hold this office in 1969 went swimming in the USA and got out in Australia. It was about this time the Government meddling in the PO started as this office was discontinued.

It is because the GPO was broken up and fragmented that we are in this position today. As the GPO they provided a service, a very good service. As soon as the need comes in to make an exorbitant profit for the share holders, that is when the trouble starts.

Did you know the tax payer spent two million pounds rebranding Royal Mail to Consignia only for it to revert back to RM within months. Good value for money? I don’t think so.

As far as I can see the selling off of all our Silverware has been nothing but a flop. Thames Water being a prime example.

Regards

Gray,

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Read this journalist’s account of working as a Royal Mail delivery driver for a year and weep. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/08/quit-royal-mail-falling-apart

The short version is: “My year there was marked by crumbling depots, staff constantly leaving and impossible targets. This once-great institution is on its knees”

Then:

The depot looked like it had been abandoned after an earthquake. There was no technology, no machines, no computers, no chairs. I struggled to find a socket to charge my phone. Thousands of parcels sat inside metal cages called Yorks; the mail was shelved in row after row of individual sorting frames, representing areas, roads, estates and shopping districts. Smaller parcels were stacked on the top shelves. It looked chaotic. …

“I was sent out with an experienced driver, originally from Benin, who had been working for Royal Mail for three years. That day, we had to deliver 120 tracked parcels to rural towns and villages in the West Sussex area. My new colleague told me that we would be driving his favourite van today. I laughed out loud when I saw it: it looked a bit like it had been dragged out of a lake...”

No wonder your parcels go amiss or get delivered regardless of missing contents. Its all about meeting gruelling targets in order to keep your miserable job.

Without getting political, it seems it’s time the voting public woke up to what a con privatization has been, across many fields. Yes the private sector is more efficient — at making a profit, not delivering a service.

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I remember when RM management imposed a 3 mph average speed on posties walking their rounds, no allowance for going up and down drives or stuffing things through letter boxes. More than 50 years ago I used to do Xmas post, let me assure you it was hard work. The real posties did the sorting, but I was then dispatched on the bus to our village with 2 huge mailbags. I had to deposit one with a trusted grocer, do half the round, then get the second bag and do the second half, then back to the sorting office by bus to pick up the afternoon round. Thankfully, that was usually only one bag.

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Not really much to do with RM, in fact they had no part of it, but wanted to share my amazement. I ordered a used ( old!) film camera lens from Japan on Sunday evening and it has just been delivered by courier. bought things from Japan before and the delivery has always been quick but I’m astonished by this. ( tempted to say very snappy service, but won’t!)

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

I have had a 48 hour RM Tracked package form Scotland take one month to get to the Forest of Dean. Yet I have had parts from Austria arrive within two days. That includes clearing customs at both end. Plus I had constant updates during the delivery. Can you guess the courier?

There have also been 24 hour RM tracked packages taking longer than 48 hours to arrive, and I am not including weekends. To quote a RM senior CEO aide, “we do not guarantee delivery within the time frame”.

Regards

Gray,

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Ah well, that explains it, they still use packhorses in the Forest of Dean don’t they?

😜

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

The latest twist in the Royal Mail tale:

As per reporting in the Evening Standard

Royal Mail owner IDS accepts £3.5bn bid from West Ham co-owner Křetínský

MichaelG.

[Author]

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