Post in the UK

[Ally]

I'll let you know Molly..myself and mum want to know now.

Oh..and just for good measure..the note attached said she if wanted to collect on Monday the depot will be open 6am-10am.

Then closed until the 3rd.

[JoM]

I think it'll be from the UK too - part of that fee she's being asked to pay will be a handling charge.
It might just be something as silly as a Christmas card with an adornment on it that makes it thicker than Royal Mail allow for standard 1st or 2nd class.

[Workingman]

Hmmm, I find this surprising, especially if it is an overseas posting.... or maybe I don't!

When I worked for the PO it had reciprocal agreements with overseas post offices. The sending office charges its rates based on those agreements and the PO used to accept them as being correct at time of posting and post them on - unless they were so obviously wrong as to be suspicious, but then a different system kicked in. Osc might be able to verify.

With UK mail there was an element of "use your loaf" for the sorters. If something was slightly off then it might get routed second class, as to attempt to recover a few pence was more costly than it was worth.

Nowadays, however, technology has taken over and a lot of primary hand sorting has gone. Unfortunately machines do not have brains. If an item is a millimetre oversize or a milligram overweight it is "wrong" and the sky has to fall in on the miscreants involved.

[miasmum]

I must be the only person that things Royal Mail actually do a good job. Yes some of the posties are lazy, I have seen them shove cards through the door without knocking, but the actual system I think works well. When you think how many card and parcels they deliver over the festive season

[TheOstrich]

The office I work in is on the second floor of the building. There's a communal letter box on the ground floor by the entrance door.

We were finding, two years back, we were getting lots of "couldn't deliver coz you were out" cards left by the post-office - for two reasons. Firstly, clients posting back bulky tax returns after approval and signature invariably just stuck a 1st class stamp on it and the returns were too large and too bulky to qualify. Secondly, the postman couldn't be assed to climb up the stairs and knock on our door, where we'd happily have paid the excess. (Well, perhaps not happily, but we would have done.)

We challenged the postal authorities on the last point, they were sort of non-commital. Another problem was that if the letter was addressed to the boss, she had to go in person to collect the offending items from the sorting office, and take proof of identity, she couldn't send one of the staff. Not a happy bunny ...

Now, we send the bulk of our letters out by email and scan enclosures. We tell the client to just return (or email back) the signature pages where needed. Since all tax returns - most Government stuff these days in fact - are geared up for on-line filing these days, we no longer post these items to them either.

The loss in revenue to the postal services must be enormous.

[debih]

It's ridiculous how much it costs to post anything now.

We had noticeably less cards this year - even though the Post Office hype said that they had handled more this year than ever before. I don't believe that for one minute as everyone I know said that they had less.

[cruiser2]

I have a letter size guide which I got from the post office several years ago. This shows the different sizes and charges. There is also a slot. If the envelope will not pass through it ill go into the next price brand.
If I am not sure I take it to our local post office to make sure I have the correct postage on it.
Rodo, Have been round the large sorting depot at Preston. All the normal letters are sorted by machine after being franked. Any without stamps are automatically rejected. At present only large bulky items are sorted by hand but this may become automated.
Fortunately we usually have the same post man who is very obliging. We have taken parcels in for neighbours to save him taking them back.
Had a parcel delivered before Christmas at 7.00 a. m in the morning. I had just got up but had to unlock the front door. So there are some good points about the post office.
I wonder how much is made with the £1.00 handling charge.

[Rodo]

Well they aren't getting two quid out of me.

[Ally]

I also think the Royal Mail do a good job on the whole.

I know some people like my mum will always go to the post office and get any mail correctly sized, weighed and properly paid for.

But what about the people who don't do that and the receiver has to cough up because of it.

When posting a letter or card from here, unless it's monster sized, it costs 70 cents.

It seems to keep things on an even keel.

Rodo..

[JoM]

I use Moonpig quite a lot for personalised photo cards. John does too. We noticed over time that the ones he orders and has delivered to his office arrive the next day - if you order by 2pm Moonpig send out the cards that day by 1st Class - yet any I order to come to our home address take around 3 days, once it took 5 days.
John's office is served by a different delivery office to our home address so I tried a little experiment a couple of weeks ago. I needed two cards from Moonpig so rather than placing them in one order I ordered them separately (though at the same time) with one going to John at work and one to home. As usual they were dispatched that afternoon but whereas the one to John arrived the following day, Tuesday, the one to our house didn't arrive until the Thursday.

I also noticed at our old house (which was just a short distance from the delivery office which we still get our mail from) that if our regular postman was on his holiday then we used to get hardly any mail and anything that looked to be of any importance was delivered by van yet once he returned there would be a bulk delivery by him on his first day back. I used to talk to him quite often and while he couldn't say much he said that in all the years of working from that delivery office (he was close to retirement) he'd never seen it in such a disorganised mess.