Cunning rascals

After blogging on the Royal Mail scam, whereby they charge you an £8'international handling charge' to receive your parcel if customs decide to levy VAT on it, I thought that I would try complaining. The industry is regulated by PostComm, so I went to their web site. This said:

• Contact Royal Mail
  
• If you get no joy, try Postwatch
  
• Otherwise you can sue (ha ha)

So you cannot, in fact, complain to Postcomm. It looks as if it is just a quango.

Anyhow I complained to Royal Mail who sent me a long canned email suggesting that I complain to HM Revenue and Customs. This, of course, was disingenuous -- it is Royal Mail who impose this charge -- indicating that Royal Mail know full well that they're engaged in a scam.

I then complained to Postwatch. I got back a long canned email from them, which was interesting in that it retailed the Royal Mail line and then added:

"Issues relating to customs and excise is outside Postwatch's remit therefore we cannot become involved in disputes regarding this matter."

In other words, because Royal Mail claim that this is to do with customs, they can charge us what they like?!

Clearly this is a loophole in the law, which Royal Mail have discovered and are abusing for profit. Nasty, nasty stuff.

One other interesting snippet:

"Customers can refuse to pay these duties and charges, in which case the goods will be returned to sender at Royal Mail's expense."

If only we could all do that, and specify that another operator be used.

Royal Mail "International handling fee" scam

This is a good one!

I'm rarely in when Royal Mail deliver, so I often come home to a little red card on the mat telling me to come down to the sorting office and collect it.

In January I ordered some software on Ebay from a US supplier for $150, or about £75. Postage was $19, or about £10.

Then I came home to find a grey card on the mat. This demanded £21.45 in charges. The duty is merely VAT, at 17.5%, or around £12, so I scratched my head a bit at this.

Down I go to the sorting office. I query the charge, and they shrug and say 'nothing to do with us'. The parcel is presented, plus a sticker on the side, which says that the Royal Mail have added their own 'international handling fee' of £8!?!

And so it proves. A look at their web site reveals that a year ago they imposed this charge -- almost equal to the cost of international parcel post.

Clearly this is a rip-off. They've been paid to deliver the mail. If they want to put a sticker on it, that costs nothing. If they take money for the government, that costs almost nothing either. So the fee is just profit.

Is it really legal for Royal Mail to invent charges of any size, as a ransom demand, on mail for which postage has already been paid? Really? But who can afford lawyers in our country?

I don't much appreciate having to pay Gordon Brown £13.45 out of money which he has already claimed tax on at 46% (22% income tax + 11% 'national insurance' tax + 13% 'employers' -- as if! -- 'national insurance' tax). But Royal Mail are taking the p***.

Interestingly the sticker has two different telephone numbers on it; one is for HMRC about the VAT. But the other, added to the bottom, reads "Queries about contents or handling fee should be referred to Royal Mail International Tel: 08457 740 740". I imagine that HMRC got tired of getting irate phone calls, and insisted on Royal Mail printing this number as well. So they know, and Royal Mail know, that a scam is being perpetrated.

Adam Crozier, the CEO of Royal Mail, who thought this one up, is paid over £1m a year to invent ways to steal from the public like this. I don't know where he lives, but I hope his neighbours make his life hell.

See also:

http://paulm.com/inchoate/2005/04/customs_royal_mail_clearance_scam.html

The regulator is Postcomm. Their website is mainly about referring you to someone else! I've emailed a complaint to Royal Mail, so when they ignore it I can escalate it through their tree of people.

Royal Mail -- robbing the public?

I've just come across a new scam! It's a beauty.

Remember when the Royal Mail was established, set up by Rowland Hill? There was a single stamp, at one penny, for a letter to go anywhere, for next day, with weight categories. In the 1960's they introduced 'first class' and 'second class'. This of course made it more complicated.

This year they introduced tariffs by size as well. I've just been caught by it.

You see, all businesses tend to send out mail in A4 envelopes. That the standard size of printer paper; the standard size of photocopier paper.

I just did my trading accounts for the year, and posted them to Companies House, to the taxman, to the accountant, and so on; in A4 envelopes with a nice first class stamp on it.

Today I was in the post office, looking at their complicated letter-size measuring template, and realised with a sick feeling that all those letters would not arrive. Instead the recipient would have to go and collect them from some dingy mail office, and pay some huge sum to do so. I have some doubts that anyone from government offices bothers to do this. So I have been forced to send the items again, again in A4. So the Royal Mail gets two lots of payment for each item!

Nice scam, eh? Does anyone believe that this isn't intentional?

But there is more. No-one has any idea what the new rate for these might be, except that it is more than a first-class stamp, and less than two. No-one keeps stamps of varied denominations, anyway; and no-one is going to queue in some smelly post-office behind people trying to register their car. So most of us will just put TWO first-class stamps on the letter, and get on with our lives. Thus the post office can overcharge us for our mail again. Again, does anyone believe that this isn't intentional and foreseen?

In post offices around the country undelivered mail must be piling up. Items sent, paid for, and never arrived, diverted silently so that the Royal Mail can make just a bit more money in fines. The loss to everyone, the nuisance, the interference with the postal service -- there must be a huge cost in time and money to the community. All this, just to squeeze out a bit more short-term profit.

I don't know who runs the Post Office. I don't wish him very well, somehow. The post should be simple and easy to use. To make it complex so as to fine people for failing to follow the rules is the quintessence of third-world officialdom.