Wrong organisation! The PO may be a shop that you buy stamps at or take parcels to. RM is the organisation that collects, sorts and delivers letters and parcels.
@@colinlambert882from what I read they were not pre 2012 seperate entities which was when the bulk of horizon happened so I don't really buy that just because on paper today they are separate the corruption, coverups and incompetence has changed
It is weird. Royal Mail have been looking into technologies to make sure stamps aren't being resold considering using old stamps can still be used in the system, hence the technology. What Royal Mail are quietly saying, the Post Office must be photocopying the stamps but hadn't thought about how Royal Mail put their protection on those stamps. That's what Royal Mail are simply saying!
I don't think its faulty, its probably flawed and subject to fraud. I suspect the reason why the stamps were flagged as counterfeit is because the system had seen those barcodes before. So either the system has been deciphered and frausters have been printing stamps with genuine barcodes and then the real ones get flagged. Either that or small shop owners are taking images of the barcodes and they get cloned before the real ones are used.
possably the same one, the fact that we dont have that information one way or the other sucks thats basic and intrinsic information and the fact that they dont even know that and are not even asking that question shows very week news coverage. we get all the info regarding the drama but none of the vital facts.
A friend of ours sent two different cards to us, both intercepted with the £5 "penalty charge" as being "forgeries". I paid the first one but refused the second and challenged it at the local sorting office, the guy just said "Nothing to do with us, the regional mail centre put these on" It turns out our friend exchanged over a 100 first class stamps for the new barcoded ones FROM ROYAL MAIL DIRECT....! So the "forgeries" came from them!! Another Royal Mail denial.....!! 😞
That’s a complete fabrication. There has not been one single stamp purchased directly from Royal Mail which has been proven as a forgery. There have been a couple they have been incorrectly flagged as forged, but when all is said and done, they have been correctly re-identified as legitimate. The underlying issue is that these post office “agents” (corner shops and convenience stores) who sell stamps are run by unscrupulous individuals who don’t give a damn about the law, and will purposefully buy fake stamps to increase their bottom line with absolutely no hesitation.
The stamps probably aren't counterfeit. There is more than likely a fault in the printing system or possibly a flaw in the reader. They are calling them barcodes but they've QR codes and the tiniest bit of dust or dirt causes trouble with the IR readers.
Due to the checksum a misread of the code is next to impossible. The most likely explanation is faults in generation of the database of valid stamps as the stamps are printed. Another possibility is that someone has printed counterfeit stamps with the barcodes of valid stamps, a bit like having the number plate on your car cloned. Then when the legitimate owner of the stamp uses it they get flagged as already used.
Royal Mail seem to be committing commercial suicide once again accusing their customers of fraud this time. They really need to be investigated properly this time
Does that mean that if I send 100 letters of complaint to Jeremy Vine or Gary Lineker that they will have to pay £500 on top of receiving the complaints? Almost seems to good to be true.
To truly eliminate counterfeit stamps from circulation, give the public the ability to scan and validate the barcode themselves at point of sale or before use. A simple phone App would do the job, instead of asking the recipient to cough up £5 for a fake stamp that's already in circulation and worth only £1.35.
you wouldn't have thought a few years ago they would be worth counterfeiting, but now they are ridiculously expensive, and it sometimes takes days to deliver first class. the PO is another institution gone down the pan.
Post office is not Royal mail, they are two different companies. And how many times was BBC investigated for fake reporting, compared to GB News? Asking for a friend.
Been saying this for over a year now. the next mail ripoff scandal, cause their system is flawed (again). I had 2 "fee to pay" letters in March 2023, one from a gentleman who had bought 200 stamps direct from RM, to send birthday cards to his business customers, when contacted he said that, so far, he had received over 30 complaints from his customers about having to pay for their mail. Of course, the RM have a series of standard email replies to escalated complaints, to deflect the blame from themselves and make the claim process impossible to negotiate. So much for "reform"!
Thanks for the comment. Most interesting, and potentially damning. Who the hell's in charge anyway ? We used to have people appointed 'Postmaster Generals' : Tony Benn springs to mind.
The post office have been printing their own counterfeit stamps for quite a few years. I bought stamps from the central post office in Nottingham and the recipient was forced to pay the the letter saying the post office had declared their own stamp counterfeit. After producing the receipt and the book I was refunded and they took the rest of the stamps away. No saying sorry or explaining why they are selling counterfeit stamps having first tried to blame local shops who were selling counterfeit stamps. I’m afraid this is just another example of the reasons why there are so many independent postal couriers.
I'm old enough to remember the times when we had two deliveries per day! The price was not exorbitant and all worked smoothly. These days stamps are not far short of needing a mortgage,service appalling and the system utterly dysfunctional. You should see the amount of stamped mail I receive,especially padded bag mail,where the stamps have remained unfranked-no wonder they can't make a profit. Computers are CRAP-creation of ridiculous amounts of paperwork.🤣
Classic case of modern technology being not up to the task. It's why bank fraud is at an all time high-why we have to tolerate ever more self service tills that are just a pain-the appalling cases of Post Office sub masters being wrongfully convicted of fraud-the list goes on and on. Time we went back to tried and tested systems that were simple and effective.
Too right. I'm not convinced that, as a nation with crucially vulnerable infrastructure, we employ a sufficient number of skilled and experienced IT specialists. Or has it all simply become too complicated to work reliably in large-scale, day-to-day use ? The NHS has shown itself time and again to be a shockingly wasteful, yet utterly hopeless, basket-case in trying to implement such a massive dataset between Trusts. Civilisations have collapsed for less !
@@ngc4486diane I'd like to think so, but perhaps by getting involved, a few politicians might be enabled to improve their 'real-world' standing in advance of the general election !
These people seem completely crooked. I sent my stamps for exchange but they've refused, saying they're counterfeit, used or fake. I bought them from my local village post office. I went to see the woman there and she says there have been lots of similar complaints from other villagers. No wonder people aren't posting letters. I thought it was just postmen who were thieves. It's actually the whole business.
The equipment used to scan the stamps have been described as ‘Robust’. I seem to remember that ‘Horizon’ was also described as ‘Robust’. Make your own mind up.
Why should the recipient have to pay the fine if they didn't put the counterfeit stamp on the letter in the first place? A good lawyer should be able to challenge that that concept. The post office should just return the letters back to the sender, just like they would be for insufficient postage. Hopefully the gov't will force an inquiry.
What annoys me is my son's birthday card was treated in this way. I PAID for the stamp, the card was well within the posting description and then a charge of £5.00 on top. Like a lot of people this was the last stamp in a book of 8 stamps and no other problem with any of the others letters sent out.
It is a criminal offence to delay mail that is lawfully stamped. It is also a criminal offence (demands with menaces, i.e. blackmail) to withhold or threaten to withhold a service unless an additional excess charge is paid, when the service has already been fully paid for. A stamp is effectively a receipt.
Royal Mail and IT systems... It's either the barcode printing systems or the barcode reading systems - either way Royal mail needs to have all of it's upper management IT staff sacked with immediate effect.
No barcode involvement here they use QR codes instead. Barcode readers aren’t far off infallible, QR readers notoriously struggle whenever there is dust or grime in the lightpath.
@@KevinK-gk4wt thats not true - QR Codes where specificly developed to be a more robust Barcode that could deal with (at a high redundancy setting) 30% of it beeing damaged or obsucured, even the low setting can deal with 7%.
@@fishevans6417 yes, that was the lab finding. Real world experience is contradictory. Fine dust on protective plain glass at Morrisons, Brentford, (for example) puts misreads into “I can’t believe it” territory - come along and try it yourself!
Royal Mail don’t care about making stamps secure because they get more money this way, £5 per letter. Remove their ability to fine until they show that they have a secure solution, that would motivate them to fix the problem.
Techology and the Royal Mail just dont seem to work. Whose software is this? At least the Post Offices reputation isnt at stake, they havnt got one. Shame they didnt take the Postmasters seriously.
I had this problem. Royal mail said stamps wer counterfeit. I refused to accept the parcel & was returned to sender. Sender proved stamps were sold at the time by POST OFFICE when sending the parcel
The royal mail is a arms length corporation responable to the department for business and trade under the civil service and it doesn't get more blame shifting than that. All that money gets divied up between private share holders and HMRC. I wouldn't buy a stamp if you paid me!
This has been happening for sometime. My Sister sent 2 cards to my Daughter a birthday and get well card last October. My Daughter went to collect them was told that the stamps were counterfeit and had to pay £5 per card handling fee. The person explained that the bar code was smooth and should be raised and that this was quite common. My Sister was very upset as she had sent other relatives cards and the stamps had been bought from the local post office. Someone knows this is going on
I suggested that local failing was the problem when I received 2 "fee to pay" cards, of course RM declared that this was "impossible" as their computerised system was infallible (is it a Fujitsu, I wondered)
To be fair, they have to get the money for the compensation for the unfairly convicted podcasters from somewhere. Let's just frame someone else to pay for it. Oh! And I can't wait to see how they explain how they have fake stamps and non fake stamps IN THE SAME BOOK OF STAMPS!
If you're late paying a bill or go overdrawn you are fined and penalised before you can blink. It's time the same automatically applied to firms that mess up. Saying sorry is a start but there needs to be penalties paid to the victims (not fines by a regulator that go into government coffers). The Royal mail and Post post office have proved time and again they are not fit for purpose anymore and should be disbanded, at the very least they should lose the royal seal.
If some stamps from the same book and classed as valid but others counterfeit, I'd wager they are just making it up and pretending some are invalid to get £5 out of us 🤷🏻♂️
Their a joke, my wife sent two identical small parcels first class back in January to different parts of the country, both took two and a half weeks to reach their destination! Disgusting service!!
I had this happen at christmas ,ordered some Lego from a store in Norwich to be delivered to Ipswich (50 miles ) the package went to Peterbrough , Edinburgh,back to Peterbrough , then down to Chelmsford back to Peterbrough and 2 weeks later arrived at Ipswich . i could have walked to Norwich and back quicker
It's good news that Royal Mail will investigate !!!!Seriously? How many innocent recipients have been ripped off and where are the records of these people paying the £5 'fine' kept so they can be reimbursed?
The Post Office doesn't want you buy stamps. They want you to either: 1. Go to the post office counter to buy the postage as weighed by their (uncalibrated weighing machines) or 2. Use their app, your own scales and your own printer ink to print the postage. You accept all the risk for the weight being correct. Either way, the Post Office can change you more for a worse service.
So only some stamps in a book are counterfeit? That would mean there's a problem at the source then wouldn't it? Judging by the reputation the Post Office has got recently I wouldn't be at all surprised if this isn't deliberate so they can charge twice for these deliveries.
Why can the PO not issue on their app a scanning section to check if the stamps that people buy are fake. That way the supplier be it a shop, supermarket or post office, will have to take them back! OR is it a way to increase the PO's revenue, now they have shut loads of post offices and can no longer point the finger at the post masters, after PO's Horison scandals have been exposed?
Not as baffled as i was yesterday. I usually order my postage online and pay £3.39 for a 2 kilo parcel on 48 hour tracked service. The buyer asked is i could post it that day instead of waiting until the next day for RM to pick it up so i nipped over to the local post office and asked for the exact same service as i use online. I was shocked when they tried to get over £12 from me! claiming this is the post office, not royal mail and the service is parcelforce. no mention whatsoever of 2nd class small parcel recorded delivery, only the £12 service and she was adamant that that was the only service that gave tracking. What a shambles! It's about time the Post Office were retired, they have been nothing but a shambles for the last decade and the Horizon scandal has solidified that! Just a few weeks ago they were bleating on Facebook about supporting your local post office too. why support them when all they try to do is rip you off with their prices and shoddy part-time service!
So instead of looking at their own system that detects counterfeit stamps as being at fault or not up to standard, the Royal Mail’s stance is these are counterfeit stamps even if you bough them from a post office and you’re in the wrong for buying counterfeit stamps? Dejavu anyone?
This five pound thing is really a bad idea if you hate someone you can swam them with a large amount of fake stamp and it can rack them huge amount of fines letter
If Royal Mail ask ME to pay a charge because of insufficient postage (which has happened), or a counterfeit stamp (which hasn't), I tell them to shove the letter in their "opening," and chase the SENDER for money and NOT ME! ... I didn't post the bloody letter to myself! 😠 You can't fine the recipient! ... It's the SENDER who is Royal Mail's customer! Use email folks, and let Royal Mail go bust! 🤣
I'd suggest that 'foreign actors' might go to the trouble as part of an orchestrated plan to undermine western democracies, particularly as a crucial election looms. It would appear to be working. When you think about it, there are so many soft targets in our society which could, and probably are, being targeted by hostile entities. If they are patient, the means to accomplish this goal are myriad. 👽✝
Bearing in mind an acid trip was 50p in 1984, 75p for a second class stamp these days seems a fraud in itself. Point being, small profit mounts up when sold by the thousands, and nobody cares about spending small amounts. Post office makes a fiver? Gangsters. At least we had 12 hours of fun from the 50p acid.
Those stamps are NOT from the same book, those 4 on left are genuine, those 4 on the right are different and are fake. The barcode is flat and the same colour as the stamps
The important point is that these aren't counterfeit stamps. This is a fault with Royal Mail's prodcution or their system that checks for counterfeit stamps. Royal Mail just keep going on about counterfeit stamps when probably none of these stamps are counterfeit at all. They're also making a profit from selling these stamps to people and then charging the recipients of the mail a £5 fine which may not even be strictly legal. Royal Mail seem to be corrupt to the core.
If I were the suspicious kind, I'd imagine that this is being used by the Post Office to surreptitiously generate extra income. My family had to pay £20 in December to retrieve 4 undelivered Christmas cards from relatives via the sorting office (expensive and inconvenient). In that case, though, it was relatives not understanding at first that the barcode was actually part of the stamp, and that both therefore needed to be put on the envelope when posting a letter! I'm sure I can't be alone in this experience.
I remember years ago, a letter turned up under stamped. The post office wanted xx amount. I told them just to bin it. And same again, if something turned up with a £5 charge for a dodgy stamp, I would just tell the post office to bin it, or return to sender.
It’s clear from these comments that most people don’t realise that the Post Office and Royal Mail are totally separate organisations, and have been for about 12 years.
As something of a programmer, I have a sneaking suspicion this may be a case of the infamous offby1 error. This could result in one or two stamps per book being duplicates, or whole books being duplicated. Once a stamp barcode has been scanned once, that stamp is recorded as used, so a duplicate stamp with the same barcode would be flagged as fraudulent.
When you orders online if the companies are using Post Office couriers. If it is say No, tell them you don't want PO as your couriers. So, then Post Office must go bust!!!
The (re)sellers of stamps should be given the means to identify the fakes, and the public should be made aware of what to look for to identify fakes when they buy stamps.
Had this happen to a Mothers Day card sent by my son who works for ParcelForce ,posted with stamps he received as part of a christmas package ...the card was 163mm x 163mm x 3mm the post office wanted £1.50 TO DELIVER .. I complained and was promised 6 first class stamps an a SORRY ,THIS WAS 5 WEEKS AGO AND STILL NOTHING ...i bet there lost in the post ....or i`ll have to pay £1.50 for delivery ....
Here we go again! The Post Office using dodgy technology and blaming ordinary citizens!
Wrong organisation! The PO may be a shop that you buy stamps at or take parcels to. RM is the organisation that collects, sorts and delivers letters and parcels.
Don't trust royal mail to investigate itself.
@@colinlambert882from what I read they were not pre 2012 seperate entities which was when the bulk of horizon happened so I don't really buy that just because on paper today they are separate the corruption, coverups and incompetence has changed
Nope, not the Post Office. It's Royal Mail in this instance. They are spearate. Still just as incompetent mind, but they are not the same.
It is weird. Royal Mail have been looking into technologies to make sure stamps aren't being resold considering using old stamps can still be used in the system, hence the technology. What Royal Mail are quietly saying, the Post Office must be photocopying the stamps but hadn't thought about how Royal Mail put their protection on those stamps. That's what Royal Mail are simply saying!
They can't frame the postmasters any more so now they are trying it on with members of the public.
They've actually said some postmasters could be selling counterfeit stamps. Here we go again.
It's the Royal Mail, different company, not even under the same umbrella. Get your facts straight before commenting.
They should just blame the WEF and immigrants. 😂
Only separated since 2012. Given the royal mail has been around since 1516 this is a pretty recent thing in the Royal mail's timeline.
@@ghosthorse77 Get your facts right they're saying it's the postmasters again, SAME AS BEFORE.
The Post Office are to be admired for their blatant disregard for truth and decent behaviour.
and this is exemplified when you try to complain to their email contacts
Sounds a bit like London Underground, if my personal experience is anything to go by...
not realy everyone is doing it.
@@stephenmeinhold5452 not everyone seems as happy to jail innocent people and resulting in ruined or ended lives. Try to get some perspective here.
@@brendamuirhead483 have you overdosed on steriods ? where did i say or even imply that?
So they've got another faulty system.
I don't think its faulty, its probably flawed and subject to fraud. I suspect the reason why the stamps were flagged as counterfeit is because the system had seen those barcodes before. So either the system has been deciphered and frausters have been printing stamps with genuine barcodes and then the real ones get flagged. Either that or small shop owners are taking images of the barcodes and they get cloned before the real ones are used.
@@user-em4hm9lu2s Or... their printing system is flawed. It's a possibility with their level of competence.
possably the same one, the fact that we dont have that information one way or the other sucks thats basic and intrinsic information and the fact that they dont even know that and are not even asking that question shows very week news coverage.
we get all the info regarding the drama but none of the vital facts.
A friend of ours sent two different cards to us, both intercepted with the £5 "penalty charge" as being "forgeries". I paid the first one but refused the second and challenged it at the local sorting office, the guy just said "Nothing to do with us, the regional mail centre put these on" It turns out our friend exchanged over a 100 first class stamps for the new barcoded ones FROM ROYAL MAIL DIRECT....! So the "forgeries" came from them!! Another Royal Mail denial.....!! 😞
I'm not surprised. My personal thoughts are this is all RM and hiding behind fraudsters because that's easy and more cost effective an excuse.
That’s a complete fabrication. There has not been one single stamp purchased directly from Royal Mail which has been proven as a forgery. There have been a couple they have been incorrectly flagged as forged, but when all is said and done, they have been correctly re-identified as legitimate.
The underlying issue is that these post office “agents” (corner shops and convenience stores) who sell stamps are run by unscrupulous individuals who don’t give a damn about the law, and will purposefully buy fake stamps to increase their bottom line with absolutely no hesitation.
The Post Office investigating? Ha ha. They couldn't figure out the bad guy in Scooby Doo.
'They would have got away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids!'
They would conclude that Shaggy and Scooby were guilty.
Don't forget Fred, Velma and Daphne
No, they already know who the bad guy is, it's going to be them, probably, same as last time.
Post Office: "We would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for those pesky postmasters and post mistresses!"
The stamps probably aren't counterfeit. There is more than likely a fault in the printing system or possibly a flaw in the reader. They are calling them barcodes but they've QR codes and the tiniest bit of dust or dirt causes trouble with the IR readers.
Or an error in a database between creating and printing the QR code and reading it's once posted.
Due to the checksum a misread of the code is next to impossible. The most likely explanation is faults in generation of the database of valid stamps as the stamps are printed. Another possibility is that someone has printed counterfeit stamps with the barcodes of valid stamps, a bit like having the number plate on your car cloned. Then when the legitimate owner of the stamp uses it they get flagged as already used.
FYI they are not QR codes they are "Data Matrix" codes
If I get told I owe money on a letter sent to me I tell them to keep the letter, I will not pay it.
Even if it was your hospital appointment?
@@D.von.N Arrives via already franked mail, no stamp required.
@@D.von.N you don't know what it is. Just that you owe money
Punishing innocent people seems to be a thing for Royal Mail, how dare they?
Royal Mail seem to be committing commercial suicide once again accusing their customers of fraud this time. They really need to be investigated properly this time
Don't forget : The Post Office and Royal Mail are NOT the same company.
Royal mail need renationalising. They are definitely an example of failure of a privatised business and they are a necessary utility
Good riddance
@@Dilbert-o5k indeed, and water supply, and railways. We have been fleeced for overseas gains enough.
Does that mean that if I send 100 letters of complaint to Jeremy Vine or Gary Lineker that they will have to pay £500 on top of receiving the complaints? Almost seems to good to be true.
They just wouldn't accept the delivery.
Get some crowd-funding to sponsor you. Might be worth a try !
A couple might get through 😂@@DarkDanjamin
maybe these stamps are printed by Horizon under contract of Fujitsu for the Royal Mail.
here we go again then
To truly eliminate counterfeit stamps from circulation, give the public the ability to scan and validate the barcode themselves at point of sale or before use. A simple phone App would do the job, instead of asking the recipient to cough up £5 for a fake stamp that's already in circulation and worth only £1.35.
you wouldn't have thought a few years ago they would be worth counterfeiting, but now they are ridiculously expensive, and it sometimes takes days to deliver first class. the PO is another institution gone down the pan.
I think they added the barcode because of genuine unfranked used stamps being sold on ebay.
So the Post Office is degenerating to the level of the BBC. Now there's a surprise. Who's going to be next?
need a licence to use thier stamps
@@apiscator444 HM Government
Post office is not Royal mail, they are two different companies. And how many times was BBC investigated for fake reporting, compared to GB News? Asking for a friend.
Been saying this for over a year now. the next mail ripoff scandal, cause their system is flawed (again). I had 2 "fee to pay" letters in March 2023, one from a gentleman who had bought 200 stamps direct from RM, to send birthday cards to his business customers, when contacted he said that, so far, he had received over 30 complaints from his customers about having to pay for their mail. Of course, the RM have a series of standard email replies to escalated complaints, to deflect the blame from themselves and make the claim process impossible to negotiate. So much for "reform"!
Thanks for the comment. Most interesting, and potentially damning. Who the hell's in charge anyway ? We used to have people appointed 'Postmaster Generals' : Tony Benn springs to mind.
Post Office has gone down the toilet 🚽 and I'm expressing my self as a refined lady.
„Royal“ Fail truly are a load of 💩¹ nowadays, aren't they? 😇
(¹ - Read as „Poo“ or any stronger word of your choice. 👍)
The post office have been printing their own counterfeit stamps for quite a few years. I bought stamps from the central
post office in Nottingham and the recipient was forced to pay the the letter saying the post office had declared their
own stamp counterfeit. After producing the receipt and the book I was refunded and they took the rest of the stamps away.
No saying sorry or explaining why they are selling counterfeit stamps having first tried to blame local shops who were selling
counterfeit stamps. I’m afraid this is just another example of the reasons why there are so many independent postal couriers.
So this is a previously known problem with Post Office printing stamps, who would have known.
Duh, The Post Office
I'm old enough to remember the times when we had two deliveries per day! The price was not exorbitant and all worked smoothly.
These days stamps are not far short of needing a mortgage,service appalling and the system utterly dysfunctional. You should see the amount of stamped mail I receive,especially padded bag mail,where the stamps have remained unfranked-no wonder they can't make a profit. Computers are CRAP-creation of ridiculous amounts of paperwork.🤣
Classic case of modern technology being not up to the task. It's why bank fraud is at an all time high-why we have to tolerate ever more self service tills that are just a pain-the appalling cases of Post Office sub masters being wrongfully convicted of fraud-the list goes on and on. Time we went back to tried and tested systems that were simple and effective.
Too right. I'm not convinced that, as a nation with crucially vulnerable infrastructure, we employ a sufficient number of skilled and experienced IT specialists. Or has it all simply become too complicated to work reliably in large-scale, day-to-day use ? The NHS has shown itself time and again to be a shockingly wasteful, yet utterly hopeless, basket-case in trying to implement such a massive dataset between Trusts. Civilisations have collapsed for less !
Everyone fined should not pay, pass the envelope to the police and let them investigate properly, after all the recipient has done nothing wrong.
you have to pay to get your letter....
I suggest that you have too much misplaced faith in the willingness and ability of UK police forces to do anything much to assist their communities.
@@ngc4486diane I'd like to think so, but perhaps by getting involved, a few politicians might be enabled to improve their 'real-world' standing in advance of the general election !
The Post Office is up to its tricks again.
Ha Ha Royal Mail investigating, I'm rolling around the floor laughing.
If Royal Mail can put a card through your letter box, demanding money, then why not deliver the letter as they have made the journey anyway
I'm surprised they're not charging the sender with a criminal charge!
These people seem completely crooked.
I sent my stamps for exchange but they've refused, saying they're counterfeit, used or fake. I bought them from my local village post office. I went to see the woman there and she says there have been lots of similar complaints from other villagers. No wonder people aren't posting letters. I thought it was just postmen who were thieves. It's actually the whole business.
The equipment used to scan the stamps have been described as ‘Robust’.
I seem to remember that ‘Horizon’ was also described as ‘Robust’.
Make your own mind up.
The post office need to sort their shit out....
Why should the recipient have to pay the fine if they didn't put the counterfeit stamp on the letter in the first place? A good lawyer should be able to challenge that that concept. The post office should just return the letters back to the sender, just like they would be for insufficient postage. Hopefully the gov't will force an inquiry.
They don't even do that for onsufficient postage now. I received a letter that was 50p short on postage, and had to pay 2 quid to receive the letter
Who on earth is going to pay for a solicitor compared to a £5 bill? Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you, but it's just not going to happen
What annoys me is my son's birthday card was treated in this way. I PAID for the stamp, the card was well within the posting description and then a charge of £5.00 on top. Like a lot of people this was the last stamp in a book of 8 stamps and no other problem with any of the others letters sent out.
Something else from the post office where they punish people for their own IT failings
It’s a short term policy that will have a long term impact on their business and ultimately they will fail miserably.
It is a criminal offence to delay mail that is lawfully stamped. It is also a criminal offence (demands with menaces, i.e. blackmail) to withhold or threaten to withhold a service unless an additional excess charge is paid, when the service has already been fully paid for. A stamp is effectively a receipt.
And they lie about delivery times. The few letters I still receive never arrive in less than 5 days (2nd class).
Royal Mail and IT systems...
It's either the barcode printing systems or the barcode reading systems - either way Royal mail needs to have all of it's upper management IT staff sacked with immediate effect.
No barcode involvement here they use QR codes instead. Barcode readers aren’t far off infallible, QR readers notoriously struggle whenever there is dust or grime in the lightpath.
Problem ! Not barcodes they are. QR code different reader & not as accurate
@@KevinK-gk4wt thats not true - QR Codes where specificly developed to be a more robust Barcode that could deal with (at a high redundancy setting) 30% of it beeing damaged or obsucured, even the low setting can deal with 7%.
@@fishevans6417 yes, that was the lab finding. Real world experience is contradictory. Fine dust on protective plain glass at Morrisons, Brentford, (for example) puts misreads into “I can’t believe it” territory - come along and try it yourself!
Royal Mail don’t care about making stamps secure because they get more money this way, £5 per letter. Remove their ability to fine until they show that they have a secure solution, that would motivate them to fix the problem.
Techology and the Royal Mail just dont seem to work. Whose software is this? At least the Post Offices reputation isnt at stake, they havnt got one.
Shame they didnt take the Postmasters seriously.
or maybe if bought from a Post Office there could be a claim of deception...
RIP Post Office Ltd.
It would appear that this really is a corrupt institution. It certainly seems that way to me.
I had this problem. Royal mail said stamps wer counterfeit. I refused to accept the parcel & was returned to sender. Sender proved stamps were sold at the time by POST OFFICE when sending the parcel
If you buy Stamps, get a reciept!!
still no proof though, could have been bought anywhere
@@lozziel9662
Don't be silly.
Bye-Bye Royal Mail, once upon a time you served the country well. Those days are long gone!
The royal mail is a arms length corporation responable to the department for business and trade under the civil service and it doesn't get more blame shifting than that. All that money gets divied up between private share holders and HMRC. I wouldn't buy a stamp if you paid me!
This has been happening for sometime. My Sister sent 2 cards to my Daughter a birthday and get well card last October. My Daughter went to collect them was told that the stamps were counterfeit and had to pay £5 per card handling fee. The person explained that the bar code was smooth and should be raised and that this was quite common. My Sister was very upset as she had sent other relatives cards and the stamps had been bought from the local post office. Someone knows this is going on
and maybe in 20 years time there will be an investigation.....
Who on earth sends post in this day and age?
@@dlarge6502 people who send cards!
It’s the sorting offices sticking the notices on the letters. It’s makes the PO money. It will do anything to save and make money! 🤮
I suggested that local failing was the problem when I received 2 "fee to pay" cards, of course RM declared that this was "impossible" as their computerised system was infallible (is it a Fujitsu, I wondered)
I've certainly had experience of my local sorting office in Chichester making similar 'errors'.
To be fair, they have to get the money for the compensation for the unfairly convicted podcasters from somewhere. Let's just frame someone else to pay for it. Oh! And I can't wait to see how they explain how they have fake stamps and non fake stamps IN THE SAME BOOK OF STAMPS!
If you're late paying a bill or go overdrawn you are fined and penalised before you can blink. It's time the same automatically applied to firms that mess up. Saying sorry is a start but there needs to be penalties paid to the victims (not fines by a regulator that go into government coffers). The Royal mail and Post post office have proved time and again they are not fit for purpose anymore and should be disbanded, at the very least they should lose the royal seal.
Re-nationalising the Royal Mail would be better.
A middle man attack can only occur some where along the supply chain.
They take "illegal production of counterfeit stamps" seriously as opposed to legal production of counterfeit stamps.
I work for royal mail and I think it's disgusting that they charge customers this inappropriate fee
If some stamps from the same book and classed as valid but others counterfeit, I'd wager they are just making it up and pretending some are invalid to get £5 out of us 🤷🏻♂️
I suspect these stamps are not actually counterfeit. I have a stamp that came directly from the royal mail swap out scheme that has a smooth barcode
Their a joke, my wife sent two identical small parcels first class back in January to different parts of the country, both took two and a half weeks to reach their destination! Disgusting service!!
I had this happen at christmas ,ordered some Lego from a store in Norwich to be delivered to Ipswich (50 miles ) the package went to Peterbrough , Edinburgh,back to Peterbrough , then down to Chelmsford back to Peterbrough and 2 weeks later arrived at Ipswich . i could have walked to Norwich and back quicker
It's good news that Royal Mail will investigate !!!!Seriously? How many innocent recipients have been ripped off and where are the records of these people paying the £5 'fine' kept so they can be reimbursed?
The Post Office doesn't want you buy stamps. They want you to either:
1. Go to the post office counter to buy the postage as weighed by their (uncalibrated weighing machines) or
2. Use their app, your own scales and your own printer ink to print the postage. You accept all the risk for the weight being correct.
Either way, the Post Office can change you more for a worse service.
I wouldn’t really describe the post office as “reputable” right now
So only some stamps in a book are counterfeit? That would mean there's a problem at the source then wouldn't it?
Judging by the reputation the Post Office has got recently I wouldn't be at all surprised if this isn't deliberate so they can charge twice for these deliveries.
I would say look at the ethnicity of the shops being raided for counterfeit cigs & the ethnicity of the people running some post offices.
@@lestercranmer2631British, i.e. English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, plus EU citizens and many others who have come to the Mother Country.
Why can the PO not issue on their app a scanning section to check if the stamps that people buy are fake. That way the supplier be it a shop, supermarket or post office, will have to take them back!
OR is it a way to increase the PO's revenue, now they have shut loads of post offices and can no longer point the finger at the post masters, after PO's Horison scandals have been exposed?
obvious why, it'll let you check if your fake stamp will be accepted
seems nothing works now in the UK...fined for being legal lol what next?
SOLVED. its not working as the area is VERY SMALL and the slightest variation in printing the QR code makes it invalid...SOLVED
Not as baffled as i was yesterday. I usually order my postage online and pay £3.39 for a 2 kilo parcel on 48 hour tracked service. The buyer asked is i could post it that day instead of waiting until the next day for RM to pick it up so i nipped over to the local post office and asked for the exact same service as i use online. I was shocked when they tried to get over £12 from me! claiming this is the post office, not royal mail and the service is parcelforce. no mention whatsoever of 2nd class small parcel recorded delivery, only the £12 service and she was adamant that that was the only service that gave tracking. What a shambles! It's about time the Post Office were retired, they have been nothing but a shambles for the last decade and the Horizon scandal has solidified that! Just a few weeks ago they were bleating on Facebook about supporting your local post office too. why support them when all they try to do is rip you off with their prices and shoddy part-time service!
We have a COUNTERFEIT post office .
So instead of looking at their own system that detects counterfeit stamps as being at fault or not up to standard, the Royal Mail’s stance is these are counterfeit stamps even if you bough them from a post office and you’re in the wrong for buying counterfeit stamps?
Dejavu anyone?
Not another horizon rip-off
You really couldn't make this s**t up
Maybe the post office has come up with a plan to collect additional revenues
The whole thing is now a con..the prices are now just ridiculous
This five pound thing is really a bad idea
if you hate someone you can swam them with a large amount of fake stamp and it can rack them huge amount of fines letter
never, never ever pay to receive a withheld letter - then they have to try to return it to sender
If Royal Mail ask ME to pay a charge because of insufficient postage (which has happened), or a counterfeit stamp (which hasn't), I tell them to shove the letter in their "opening," and chase the SENDER for money and NOT ME! ... I didn't post the bloody letter to myself! 😠
You can't fine the recipient! ... It's the SENDER who is Royal Mail's customer!
Use email folks, and let Royal Mail go bust! 🤣
Who the fuck would counterfeit stamps
Albanians Turks take your pick
I'd suggest that 'foreign actors' might go to the trouble as part of an orchestrated plan to undermine western democracies, particularly as a crucial election looms.
It would appear to be working. When you think about it, there are so many soft targets in our society which could, and probably are, being targeted by hostile entities. If they are patient, the means to accomplish this goal are myriad. 👽✝
Bearing in mind an acid trip was 50p in 1984, 75p for a second class stamp these days seems a fraud in itself. Point being, small profit mounts up when sold by the thousands, and nobody cares about spending small amounts. Post office makes a fiver? Gangsters. At least we had 12 hours of fun from the 50p acid.
Who the hell sends post these days?
I believe that it's still a lifeline for most charities. They're always inviting me to buy prize draw tickets !
Did I hear her say, It’s good news that Royal Mail will investigate ? 😂😂😂
It is illegal to interfere with the Royal mail! Report to the post office to police. All the fines might help pay the horizon compensation money..
Yet again, the post office accuse others for wrong doing when it's their own system that's at fault.
It is bad enough that they brought this system in the first place. But to instigate a system that doesnt even work is criminal.
There at it again.
The real con is they won't let you look at the letter before paying, ive had to pay for junk mail before, ,£5 is to much.
I had this ages Ago! Royal mail put a note through my Door! It said unpaid delivery...
It will be ok because the post office is going to investigate this,
OK, I stop using the Post Office. I refuse to deal with fraudulent organisations.
She didn't say how you are, if possible, to be able to spot fake stamps.
You cannot tell the difference, only the Royal Mail can say whether they are fakes or not, how convenient for them, it is a scam.
Those stamps are NOT from the same book, those 4 on left are genuine, those 4 on the right are different and are fake. The barcode is flat and the same colour as the stamps
I’ve had this problem before and blamed the seller!
Why is the receiver being fined? They didn't buy the fake stamp to begin with.
The important point is that these aren't counterfeit stamps. This is a fault with Royal Mail's prodcution or their system that checks for counterfeit stamps. Royal Mail just keep going on about counterfeit stamps when probably none of these stamps are counterfeit at all. They're also making a profit from selling these stamps to people and then charging the recipients of the mail a £5 fine which may not even be strictly legal. Royal Mail seem to be corrupt to the core.
If I were the suspicious kind, I'd imagine that this is being used by the Post Office to surreptitiously generate extra income. My family had to pay £20 in December to retrieve 4 undelivered Christmas cards from relatives via the sorting office (expensive and inconvenient). In that case, though, it was relatives not understanding at first that the barcode was actually part of the stamp, and that both therefore needed to be put on the envelope when posting a letter! I'm sure I can't be alone in this experience.
Absolutely !
australia post ran this racket for a few years
I've found a way of avoiding this. I've stopped sending mail altogether. Simple.
I thought everyone did that more than 15 years ago.
@dlarge6502
You are right but I just wanted to get my say in.
I had one of these - a letter with a stamp on it which I had to pay for - absolute joke
I remember years ago, a letter turned up under stamped. The post office wanted xx amount. I told them just to bin it.
And same again, if something turned up with a £5 charge for a dodgy stamp, I would just tell the post office to bin it, or return to sender.
A Royal Mail computer system not working properly? Who’d have thought!
It’s clear from these comments that most people don’t realise that the Post Office and Royal Mail are totally separate organisations, and have been for about 12 years.
Except one's sending the other data. Nice theory, rubbish in practice.
Post Office FAIL again
As something of a programmer, I have a sneaking suspicion this may be a case of the infamous offby1 error.
This could result in one or two stamps per book being duplicates, or whole books being duplicated. Once a stamp barcode has been scanned once, that stamp is recorded as used, so a duplicate stamp with the same barcode would be flagged as fraudulent.
When you orders online if the companies are using Post Office couriers. If it is say No, tell them you don't want PO as your couriers. So, then Post Office must go bust!!!
The (re)sellers of stamps should be given the means to identify the fakes, and the public should be made aware of what to look for to identify fakes when they buy stamps.
but the ones highlighted here are sold by royal mail themselves....
One problem with QR codes is - they all look the same: i.e. ILLEGIBLE to the naked eye !
Said this right at the start, useless Royal Mail using useless tech.
Obviously the computer generated barcode system is glitching.
i sent many items 1st class, they take a week to be delivered, 2nd class 2 day delivery same address. ROYAL FAIL is a JOKE
How can they justify a £5 charge ? Those yellow stickers must be expensive
Why the heck is the PO fining the RECIPIENT?
It's not them putting the stamp on the letter!
It’s the only person traceable…🤬
I've seen comments to Bricklinkers over this time period about not having sufficient postage. I'm thinking this is what happened here too.
The ability to do anything except deliver mail needs to be stripped from the Royal Mail. They are not fit for anything else.
Had this happen to a Mothers Day card sent by my son who works for ParcelForce ,posted with stamps he received as part of a christmas package ...the card was 163mm x 163mm x 3mm the post office wanted £1.50 TO DELIVER .. I complained and was promised 6 first class stamps an a SORRY ,THIS WAS 5 WEEKS AGO AND STILL NOTHING ...i bet there lost in the post ....or i`ll have to pay £1.50 for delivery ....
How many people have committed suicide from this PO scandal?