£100’s worth of surcharges on invoices for unreadable barcodes. Some weekly invoices have no surcharges, others have a tonne. Labels are applied meticulously, flat, and scannable - we’ve even taken parcel by parcel photos before they have been picked up (perfect condition and scannable), yet had parcels from these batches show as un scannable on the invoices. I hate to imagine it’s a scam, doing small businesses out of cash to line their pockets.
You're not the only one. We've followed all their guidelines to the letter, use the labels they provide and the recommended printer.
Something I've noticed is that it always works out at around 0.3% of invoice value. Not quite enough for most people to challenge them, but multiply that by every business account customer over a year and it's probably a very tidy bit of free profit for them.
Part of me thinks I should just lump it in with the fuel surcharge when I do my calculations, treating it as just another surcharge on top of the fuel surcharge, green surcharge, seasonal surcharge etc. But the principle annoys me.
We've starting sending a lot more by Evri. Despite the poor press they get, statistically they lose or are late on a lower percentage of deliveries than Royal Mail, and (at least so far) we haven't had any surcharge issues from them. Plus they do actually pay out on loss claims (unlike Royal Mail, who don't scan Tracked deliveries until they get unloaded at Jubilee Mail Centre, and anything lost or stolen before then is met with "well you obviously didn't send it").
Royal Mail have forgotten who their customers are.
Replaced printer, scanner, labels but to no avoid - still wasting £10 to £15 on average weekly basis.
Please share your thoughts.
