Royal Mail Tracked 48 + Age Verification Option Missing?

[reecfranci-4]

We've sold an item that requires age verification and usually do so through the above service. Issue is that it is missing on the Royal Mail website. Also tried to get the label at a post office and it had been removed from the system there as well. Post office worker had no idea why it wasnt coming up. Does anyone know what is happening with this service? Parcel needs to be shipped by tomorrow.

Thank you!

[mel-500]

Same problem.  Again I have an item which needs to be sent by tomorrow morning.

I only used the service last week, when it worked fine.

I have no idea what the problem is.  There has been no notification of a withdrawal of the service - indeed the Royal Mail website suggests that it should still be operating normally - https://www.royalmail.com/royal-mail-age-verification only, as you say, it isn't there.

I am on the phone to the Royal Mail now - there is a long wait, presumably other people have the same issue.

[reecfranci-4]

Hopefully it is a known issue & they get it back online asap! I was going to ring in the next hour or so but do let me know if you get an answer from them. Thanks for replying!

[mel-500]

I keep trying to reply to your message but for some reason my reply doesn't seem to be posting?

[reecfranci-4]

Yeah I can only see this reply. Options still not available so guess I will have to wait until tomorrow and may need to cancel the order. Very frustrating as we've just stocked a bunch of restricted items that will need age verification.

[mel-500]

Right, try again.

I eventually got through to the Royal Mail Helpline only to be told that I need to call the Royal Mail Click and Drop Helpline on ************. Fortunately the wait on this line was only 5 mins, not the 40 minutes I was originally told.

[mel-500 · Accepted solution]

It seems that in order to use the Age Verification Service, you need to open a Business Account with the Royal Mail. With no other option available, and with the help of the lady on the Helpline, I went ahead and did this. It was quite a bit of hassle which was a pain but eventually I was able to print off the Tracked 48 with Age Verification labels at a cost of £6.43 [the advertised rate].

[mel-500]

Fortunately, I don't normally send many items which require Age Verification, so I will be returning to the standard Click and Drop service which doesn't require an account. If you require Age Verification on a regular basis, it would seem that currently at least, there is no other option is through a business account. Presumably, the system becomes easier to use with practice.

[reecfranci-4]

It's really frustrating that they made no service update (to my knowledge) in regards to this. Have sent items in the last month absolutely fine as a personal customer (age verified tracked 48). Only recently I dropped out of the process of creating a royal mail business account as it didnt appear to be worth the hassle & some of the rates were more expensive than here on eBay which didnt make much sense to me. Oh well, I guess I'll have to revisit the process again now, thank you for all your help! Glad you managed to get it sorted!

Reece

[mel-500]

Sorry for the delay in my reply [zero].  This appears to be because [three] ebay didn't like me writing out the Royal Mail [four] Click and Drop Help Desk number.  I couldn't even write it in words [five] so what I have [six] done instead is to try and hide it in this message.

[one] I hope that this is some help to you [one]. If you have any problems [three], I would recommend [four]  calling the above Royal Mail Click and [two] Drop Helpline.

Good luck [five]

[evildacat7]

Hi, 

Did you meet the requirements that Royal Mail have on obtaining a business account? Such as the volume of parcels you will send a year or the money you will spend.

Can you do this if you are not a business? 

[triple512]

Just hit same problem! and as technically (legally) my item doesn’t need age verification (only eBay seems to think so) I will be sending it tracked with signature instead.

Like others I used this service just a couple of weeks ago without issue.

If RM can’t support the service, they shouldn’t offer it!

I can only imagine RM are struggling to get thousands more signatures/proof of age now because since the law change, eBay is categorising so many listings as needing it?

[marjorog]

Hi,

Thanks for the information in this thread. I wanted to add my recent experience just as a warning to the community to beware.

On a recent listing, ebay recommended the Royal Mail Tracked 48 Age Verification for £6.43. I made a sale with this postage option and my buyer paid. However, when I came to purchase the postage, this service was not available (as noted by other community members on this thread). The only alternative was UPS Standard with Age Verification at £6.78.  Since my buyer was happy to pay the difference, I took ebay's recommended course of action and cancelled the order, relisted immediately. Maybe unsurprisingly, the Royal Mail option was still recommended, so I chose the only other Age verification service instead from the list available and set the postage to £6.78, knowing this would be the UPS Standard service. My buyer kindly rebought the item after a few minutes and I arranged postage: sure enough, it was UPS standard with Age verification at £6.78. And then the kicker: scroll down to 'Purchase' and see the little addition: 'age verification +£4.23' = £11.00. 

I gave up and bought this postage anyway, to avoid my buyer any further hassle.

Raising a complaint with ebay produced no useful information nor any recognition that ebay are recommending services that don't exist and services at incorrect pricing. I'm just glad the amounts were, in the end, quite small. But that's not the point.

[bizzy-lizzy99]

Me too. Just coughed up £11 to post a cut throat razor. Fortunately I've sold most of them and just ended the remaining listings for razors. Some warning off eBay that the service had been stopped would have been handy. Also I've used it previously so Royal Mail could have sent  a block email to people who had previously used the service. I don't want a business account with RM as I would only use it for age verification. Another fine mess.

[nuffinbutanumber]

I had the same problem with the Royal Mail age verification postage the option to purchase this had disappeared checking the Royal Mail website it states that tracked 24/48 use age verification so I have been posting restricted items via this postage - then would you believe it a buyers parcel has been sent to Belfast with a suspect prohibited goods label 

si where do we stand and what do we do?

[nuffinbutanumber]

that’s tracked 24/48 with signature 

[triple512]

I’m doing same on my business account. I sold a steel lawnmower blade yesterday and sent it via RM 48 tracked with signature. The only problem is that as far as I know RM get a signature but I don’t think check age?

[nuffinbutanumber]

I think it would help if there was stickers marked age verification required the best I cold get was caution sharp object inside and caution tape they come up with all these rules with no backing

[nuffinbutanumber]

I’ve applied for a made up sticker ( your logo here type) I hope this will suffice 

[nuffinbutanumber]

the parcel was returned to me ( sender) with seller asked to stop and return which I didn’t - I tried to resend but couldn’t get a label printed ( theres a tick box  marked no restricted item allowed ???) So why age verification 

fed up with all this I forked out the £11.09 to send via UPS  traveled 3.5 miles to drop off  -so be it if this is what we have to do - then listing similar items I find that the UPS option is no longer in Ebays options however the Royal Mail tracked 48 with age verification is still there even though we cannot get it - wot a palava!