What do you think?

[northepaul]

A recent seed swap between another vine member and myself has not been the best experience I have ever had. The reason?
Bl**dy Royal Mail!
I was sending several packets of seeds in return, so popped my stamps on an envelope and proceeded to load the seeds into it. Unfortunately the envelope tore, and not wanting to waste the stamps (52p) I took them off and re-enveloped them and stuck the stamps on to the new one.

I got a message from the very (understandably) irate member because she had to go to the sorting office and collect the envelope and pay a fine!
The reason was not an undervalue of the postage, but they told her the stamps had been re-used which was not allowed. Even though they had actually not been through the postal system, and were unfranked.

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought as long as they had not been through the system & were unmarked, you could use them whenever you liked???


(NB Out of interest, I, not wanting the member to be out of pocket, sent them some stamps as compensation)

[Florence Fennel]

Apparently it is illegal to reuse the stamp if you steam it off and reapply. If you had cut out the stamps still intact from the envelope and glued this on to another envelope, it would have been perfectly legal. I've done this with unfranked post simply by putting another address label over the original address - if you know what I mean?

[northepaul]

If you had cut out the stamps still intact from the envelope and glued this on to another envelope, it would have been perfectly legal.

Thats what I did do!!

[Florence Fennel]

Sorry Thea, the way I read it I thought you had peeled the stamps off! Have a google, you may be able to challenge the PO

[OllieMartin]

If only you could e-mail seeds...one day...one day.

[weekendwellies]

at the last place i worked one of my duties was to deal with the incoming and outgoing post. Royal Mail started sending us letters saying that items had been sent by us which didnt have enough postage on them. We used a franking machine which weighed the items and automatically put the right value stamp on them, and a record was kept of each letter sent out each night. So after checking up on the post register which items had gone on the day they specified, I sent their letter back without the payment in stamps that they wanted with a letter explaining about the franking machine and the records we kept, and I heard no more about it. I think RM just send these things out to companies, assuming that everyone is too busy to check or to big to not care about a pound or two. We didnt get any more of these demands for payments after that.
The moral of this rather long winded story is its worth challenging these things sometimes.

[northepaul]

Hmm thanks for that, WW. Unfortunately I didnt receive the parcel, (only sent it) and didnt know there was this problem until the poor vine member told me. However its a hard lesson learned.