Royal Mail OBA Charging for Bogus 'Unreadable Barcode / Label Incorrectly Applied' Surcharges

[theglo-68]

Starting from January 2025 we started seeing charges on our each and every invoice from Royalmail C&D.  Raised this with Royalmail finance several times and been informed machine cannot read my barcodes. 

We replaced our printer and started putting labels on large envelopes for our 2nd Class Large Letter and other posts. 

But issue is not fixed. We still see large amount of charges on each and every invoice. 

Please can  someone share their findings to see if there is a better way to fix this issue.

Came here because we've been having the same issues. I think there's something shady going on. Something is definitely wrong!!😥

[bzmotman]

I did have a few but it has, fingers crossed, died off in the last few months. I didn't change anything but did take a bit more care to make labels didn't have creases or such like.

There is another thread that I can't find at the moment on this subject which must therefore have gone quiet. It might be worth trying to find it as I believe some people were having some success challenging the surcharges.

[darth_baggins]

I'm in a running battle with them over this. One bill had 10 of these bogus charges on it. The response is always nonsense cut and paste about checking your printer settings and other such rubbish.

I started scanning each one before putting it in the sack with the RM app and they all scanned perfectly. One of my complaints, they responded to with images of my items. I put my phone to the screen and scanned their low quality images of my 2D barcodes and each one scanned perfectly.

I asked them if my 10 year old phone can scan them perfectly (second hand images too), how come their hi-tech expensive scanners can't? The answer was that because my labels were 'low quality', then a lower quality camera (my phone) would be better at scanning them than their high quality scanners. You really couldn't make this up.

I seem to have at least one a week still. They must be raking in £10s of £1000s on this and it's 100% a scam.

The only thing I can recommend is to challenge every single one and don't let it go. If enough people complain they might actually realise it's their equipment and not ours.

[padanpcparts]

Royal Mail are terrible when it comes to billing. I've started using E-bays labels INSTEAD of paying RM business direct because of how nefarious they are with billing. All of the extra charges for labels not scanning, wrong weights, wrong size, wrong service...as a company they are scammers of the highest order...I guess that should be obvious by now judging by recent scandals. Note: I have a RM plastic template for parcel and letter sizes, given to me by the owner of my Local Post Office so for them to charge me for incorrectly sized items really gets on my nerves.  

One thing to note...Are you using Adobe Acrobat for print outs? If you are, delete it and use something else, Adobe creates unreadable Barcodes when printing manifests. GJ Adobe. 

[into-healthsupplements]

Same.

Every week I get one or two of these unreadable barcode charges on my invoice. Literally one or two, out of hundreds of items.

I use a Zebra thermal printer and thermal labels supplied by Royal Mail.

Either all of the labels should be unreadable or none should be. How can >99% be fine and somehow <1% not be?

It's just made up problems, in a small enough quantity that most people won't notice. It's theft, like every other bogus surcharge that sometimes appears.

And there is literally nothing you can do if you do notice.

On another note, I notice they've put prices up again for business sellers, it's twice a year now, and every increase is always well above the rate of inflation. We're just getting rinsed over and over. Rinsed by Royal Mail, rinsed by eBay promoted listings, rinsed by the government.

[direct.gifts]

I had the unreadable barcode issue and every barcode I scanned with my mobile phone was fine. I was getting 10 or more on some invoices.

Royal Mail told me that my barcodes were grainy and I compared them with other companies barcodes and I could see the quality wasn't as good. My printer required me to decrease the speed to increase the print quality. Not had an issue since.

My printer was using the default settings so I just assumed it was fully optimised for printing shipping labels.

It appears Royal Mail cant cope with lower quality barcodes. This may not be your problem but it was mine. 

They are sneaky though the way they charge for these issues, no notification just a line on the invoice which can easily be missed. They could also be more helpful in resolving but maybe they like the extra revenue it generates 

[padanpcparts]

It is theft in my opinion. I have the same problem, every now and again they just stick a charge on for something. Royal Mail do have prior so what do we expect really. 

[jolly-chef]

We went from a Royal Mail business account pack to PAYG Click and drop as you don't get random surcharges!

They used to surcharge us for oversize/overweight items, after moving to click and drop we got around 1 in 200 large letters have red cards. We were getting 5/6 PER MONTH billed to us due to Royal Mail crusing boxes etc, then claiming they are now oversize due to thier mis handling.

I couldn't recommend enough closing your business account and moving to Click and Drop. It's fully integrated. Most posties will take surplus parcels for you, just pay 1 x 30p collection charge and the jobs a good'um.

[maldon-jewellery]

Just seen this directed from another thread.

One thing you can do if you raise a complaint with RM 

https://help.royalmail.com/s/contactfinance

is request photos of the offending items.

When this was discussed on Tamebay, a reader suggested double checking RM's photos of the overlabelling as they sometimes don't actually do it, despite saying the machine and a human checks them!!

I literally had one just now that I challenged and they refunded me the charge as there was NO overlabelling.  A complete waste of time for me but it is the principal but where I never used to bother looking every month to see what I could claim, now I do meticulously.  Anything I can claim for is claimed for.  

Usually the IPROL charges come at the end of the invoices but the whole invoice is just full of green surcharges, peak season surcharges, fuel surcharges and more.

As soon as anyone finds a way of scamming the scammer, let me know.

[maldon-jewellery]

This below is one of their ridiculous replies to my challenges.

This attached is one of the proofs from RM that my label barcode was unreadable.

I have had the same experience as someone above.  In the early days I challenged as the postie had collected and scanned the packet, so my challenge was that the label became unreadable once it was in RM's care.

Their response was that the handhelds the posties use can scan multiple times at a slower rate, whereas the expensive machinery can't.  

Thinking about it, maybe when they apply these IPROL charges it's a double whammy in that RM get some free dosh but maybe the packets are then not counted towards RM's poor performance, due to the unreadable barcodes.  If that's the case, their £21million fine (was £30 million but discounted) would be much higher!  Even my postie, who collects the mail,  shakes his head at the stories, but he's not surprised.

 

[ed_58611]

You may wish to edit that image as I have been able to scan it with my ancient free-to-download QR Code Scanner app and read off the details... just to check, might an address in Lewes be any part of the equation? EDIT: I promise not to reuse what looks to be the identical image and have you charged and surcharged twice!

[maldon-jewellery]

Oh Poo.

Thank you.  I never realised they were not encrypted in some way.

I can't seem to edit the message now

Is there a way to edit the existing message ?

Thanks for the heads up.

If no way I'll ask for a removal

Kind regards Simon

[maldon-jewellery]

I've just requested the image to be removed by a mod.

[ed_58611]

Hello Simon. 

You are correct - there is a time limit on editing.

I only tried scanning the image myself in an attempt to nullify RM's ridiculous claims.

While I don't imagine that anyone could actually reuse the image you should contacy support or tag one of the mods for removal.