Royal Mail overcharge

[suzy_mum_of_3]

I sent a small parcel (15x15x15cm) and Royal Mail sent a card through the buyers door telling them that I didn't pay enough postage. I paid £3.45 postage online (Royal Mail app), printed the label and even dropped it off at post office.

They charged the buyer £6.50!!

Can I claim that back from Royal Mail? 

I paid the correct amount (tracked 48) 

[reservoir_dogs_74]

🤔What does the tracking show? Any discrepancy on delivery would / should be shown when it reached your buyers local MC, Has the buyer sent you a photo of the RM card? With evidence that it was your item they were charged for.

[tressygirl]

Now I cannot be sure this has happened, but it could be the most likely scenario.

When you took it to the Post Office paid the correct price, they may not have stuck the stamp on correctly, an edge(s) were not stuck down firnly,  when placed (thrown) into those rough grey sacks,  it's easy for them to then, be peeled off.

My PO lovely master told me in a previous PO they worked in,   there were several stamps stuck to the bottom of those grey sacks, so sent of with ' No stamp'.

Nothing you can do, this may or may not have happened,  but to keep your buyer ' sweet'  you need to refund the excess paid.

Do you have a proof of postage?  This may help with any claim you can now proceed with to show you had paid the correct postage for the item.

[4_bathrooms]

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@suzy_mum_of_3 wrote:

I sent a small parcel (15x15x15cm) and Royal Mail sent a card through the buyers door telling them that I didn't pay enough postage. I paid £3.45 postage online (Royal Mail app), printed the label and even dropped it off at post office.

They charged the buyer £6.50!!

Can I claim that back from Royal Mail? 

I paid the correct amount (tracked 48) 

---

I can't see a £6.50 "fee to pay" charge on Royal Mail's website. Has the buyer sent you a picture of the "Fee to pay" card? What does Royal Mail's tracking show? 

The buyer might actually be a victim of fraud/attempted fraud if they've had a fake FTP card pushed through their letterbox. 

[reservoir_dogs_74]

🤔The way I read the OP question is that they printed their own label and applied it to the item? Not PO counters, Question is did the stamp label include the buyers address or was it hand written?

[suzy_mum_of_3]

Yes firstly when I tracked it was saying rejected by machine at mc

then they sent the card, it is my item as he sent me a picture of the card and the parcel he received. It was definitely my parcel

[suzy_mum_of_3]

I printed it

[suzy_mum_of_3]

I called RM to ask why it's saying that I haven't paid enough. As I was tracking it online and wondering why it hadn't been delivered yet. They said it was put through the machine and rejected because it was too big to be a small parcel. I have sent boxes this exact size before without any issue as I have measured them and it was definitely a small parcel

[suzy_mum_of_3]

Yes I have proof. My original question was how do I go about making a claim? When I try to do it online it's only for list or damaged parcels. Mine is neither lost nor damaged. It has been delivered and buyer was still very happy with the item. But I'd like to get that £6.50 back

[4_bathrooms]

Did it weigh 2kg or less? 2kg to 20kg is Medium Parcel.

Normally once the Post Office accepts the item the sender is not held liable for any discrepancies. Do you have the proof of postage showing the weight, service recorded and reference number? You need to give a picture of this to Royal Mail as it shows the PO counter agreed the item was within the limits.

According to RM's website insufficient postage on a small parcel attracts a surcharge of £3.50 for the recipient and £7.00 if no postage was paid (i.e. stamps were deemed to be fake). Medium parcel attracts £1.50 plus 10p increments up to the postage value which would be £1.50+(6.29-3.45) = £2.84 (£2.90 rounded to the nearest 10p). If they were surcharging the recipient the full cost of MP up to 5kg it would be £1.50+£6.29 = £7.79 (£7.80 rounded up to the nearest 10p). I can't make the fee charged add up based on what RM have published.

Also, as you purchased the postage online the address and postage paid are shown on the same label so it's not like a stamp fell off!

[missdollydaydream]

What did the parcel weigh?

[4_bathrooms]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

Medium parcel attracts £1.50 plus 10p increments up to the postage value which would be £1.50+(6.29-3.45) = £2.84 (£2.90 rounded to the nearest 10p). 

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Sorry, that should have been £4.40 (I didn't add the £1.50 on). Still...I can't get it to add up!

[vikkipollardanddafyddthomas]

You say you paid £3.45.

The price of an online, UK traced small parcel 24 hr up to 2kg is £3.99 and for 48hr it's £3.29

£3.45 is the online price of a signed-for first class, large letter up to 100gm.

Are you 100% sure you selected the right postage option?

[rjwilmsi]

£3.45 is the correct price for Tracked 48 Small Parcel if you pay the 16p surcharge for Post Office drop off (on top of the £3.29 online price).

If Royal Mail are right that £3.45 was underpaid for a 15x15x15 parcel then the only reason would be it was over the 2kg limit for Small Parcel. The Post Office receipt should show item weight - I believe PO should weigh all RM parcels.

If Royal Mail have got it wrong then it was presumably human error.

I have had Large Letters have the "rejected by machine at mc" message and they were delivered fine without any surcharge, so I'm not sure that message tells you anything - the parcel sorting machines should accept Medium parcels up to 64x46x46 and 20kg so clearly your item fits within those limits.

If OP is sure that the item was that size and under 2kg then as there is no option within the Royal Mail online claim form covering this I would use "contact us" to submit a complaint to RM requesting a refund of the surcharge or further explanation/evidence. However I expect Royal Mail will be unlikely to respond with anything other than "postage was underpaid...case closed".

[the-nutwood-collection]

A tracked small parcel is £3.29 plus 16p surcharge (£3.45) if you hand it in at a PO (i.e. don't have it collected by RM).

[the-nutwood-collection]

I doubt that there was any problem with the size/weight.  RM are on a revenue-gathering exercise.  They do it every now and again.

I sent 50g of fibre, LL, recently.  I've sent out hundreds of these as LL.  Buyer was charged £3.50 because, according to RM, it was a parcel.  It wasn't a parcel.  It was A4 and nowhere near 2.5cm in depth.

I've had maybe ten or more packages where I've had to refund the surcharge, and none of them were oversized.

It's an easy way for RM to raise revenue.  The buyer pays, the seller refunds the buyer.

The only way you might get your money back is if the buyer refuses to pay and the package is returned to you.  You can then take it to the DO, and show that it isn't oversized.  However, the buyer wants the item, so they pay - evidence is gone - and you have to refund.  

[suzy_mum_of_3]

It was just under 1kg so nowhere near that

[suzy_mum_of_3]

£3.29 but I wanted to drop it off at post office so they charged me 16p more

[suzy_mum_of_3]

So no chance of making a claim to RM. Great. I won't be using them any more. I wanted the customer to receive it quickly so I sent it with RM obviously a huge mistake and I'll stick to couriers in future

[rjwilmsi]

I've never had RM apply a surcharge on anything I've sent. I would assume simple human error here rather than a cynical underhanded tactic. If you have the Post Office receipt then send that to Royal Mail and see what they say. In my experience Royal Mail tend not to agree to any claims/compensation unless you have good evidence - in this case the Post Office receipt could count as good evidence if RM say overweight. But if RM say item was oversize then you have no good evidence to the contrary, so I don't think they'll pay up (even if you are right and they got it wrong).

I have used RM and all the main couriers and I can tell you that every one of them has let me down in some way at some point. It's up to you what services/providers to use, though I would say that RM Tracked has for me overall been better than any of the couriers as a balance of reliability, customer service, cost, convenience.