I’m finally turning away from Royal Mail for most of my business carriage. I’ve tried to remain loyal, after all it’s one of those Great British Institutions, isn’t it? But when it’s this painful, you’ve got to wonder… are Royal Mail management really trying to commit commercial suicide? It certainly looks that way from here.
We have been using Royal Mail Smartstamp to prepay and locally print postage labels. It’s an imperfect solution, particularly for tracked services like “signed for” (or recorded delivery as it used to be known) and “special delivery”. Those services have to be completed at a post office where most of the staff either don’t know how to handle them or really can’t be bothered. That’s if you can find a post office that’s open when you need to post something. Many were closed in major cuts during 2008. I went to four of them one Wednesday afternoon & found all closed. All are in roads with parking problems and not at all easy to use. On my fifth attempt on the following day I was told my package was too big for their window & should be taken to a main post office. So not wanting to give up before the sixth attempt I went to the nearest main post office only to be told that my item was 11cm too big to be sent as a signed-for item. And still my customer is waiting.
Part of the problem seems to stem from the split of the Post Office from Royal Mail years ago. It created a complete disconnection between the two halves of the process. Neither really knows what the other half is doing, or cares about the customers caught between the two halves.
So it’s off to a courier company for me, and RIP Royal Mail, once it finally breathes its last and dies.
21st May 2010 at 11:14 am
I totally agree,
I used smartstamp for years & suddenly found money going missing from my online account. In fact they stole hundreds of pounds from my business.
what happens is if the laser size guide sees your package as being over the size for a XL letter you get fined & they automatically steal money from you account without putting any entry in the logs.
So basically if your sending a flat item & it gets squashed out of shape by their system then you get fined, they then automatically take money out of your smartstamp account leave no entry on the log (which i must say they are legally obliged to do).
at first it was the odd 50p that went missing but in the end £5-20 pounds was going missing each time i used it.
they admitted liability by refunding me £80 which was not enough I do not know how much in total was thieved as there has been no entry as of yet updated on the logs.
Royal mail also promised to send me pictures of the offending packages & dated for the entire total of fines which I am not surprised to never have received.
To boot if an item is posted late or goes through the system late (this could be their fault if an item is left in the bottom of a mail sack) you are charged again. YES CHARGED AGAIN straight from your account without consultation, knowledge or it even being recorded.
Hey even if some other person sends your item back to you as a return & leaves the original smartstamp on guess what? Yeah you right you are charged again the same way. THIS IS DEFINATLEY NOT RIGHT
Even worse if some unscrupulous person decides to photocopy your stamp & use it you are charged for the postage, it is not logged & not recorded the cash just disappears from your account. This is aiding fraud in my eyes.
Read the small print on your agreement they have it all in there, but I am sure small print should not cover gross misconduct or even unlawful acts.
This is just blatant theft but what can a small person do about such a big company?
Surely there must be others that have had the same thefts by royal mail.
My advice is to record & log your prices every time you finish, add funds & before you update your account.