Unnecessarily high postage costs?
Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 8:47 am
Is it really necessary for vendors to send low and medium value cards by "signed for"? Royal Mail has now reverted ("post Lockdown") to requiring a signature on delivery, which can be inconvenient if I'm out. The sorting-office is a miserable three-mile trek from house with limited opening hours and hardly any room inside, though I know that I can request another attempt to deliver to my address or, I think, arrange for it to be left at the sub post office a mile away. Not that one can have much confidence in Royal Mail - people in several nearby localities have complained of no deliveries for a week or more.
Last week I moaned along these lines to a vendor from whom I'd bought a card for £9 and wanted to send it by second-class signed for. She agreed to send it by standard post at my risk. I've just looked at a £15 card that has a first-class signed-for charge of £3.50.
Surely in some cases a free certificate of posting would suffice, giving "insurance cover" up to £20?
Three hours after posting this, the postman delivered a postcard that cost me all of £9.99 including postage, the vendor having sensibly got a C of P. And it was a genuine photo c1912 of a biplane in flight - many such scenes were faked with images imposed on a scenic card - and I must be one of the very, very few people who knows where the "anonymous" location was. (Smug emoji.)
Last week I moaned along these lines to a vendor from whom I'd bought a card for £9 and wanted to send it by second-class signed for. She agreed to send it by standard post at my risk. I've just looked at a £15 card that has a first-class signed-for charge of £3.50.
Surely in some cases a free certificate of posting would suffice, giving "insurance cover" up to £20?
Three hours after posting this, the postman delivered a postcard that cost me all of £9.99 including postage, the vendor having sensibly got a C of P. And it was a genuine photo c1912 of a biplane in flight - many such scenes were faked with images imposed on a scenic card - and I must be one of the very, very few people who knows where the "anonymous" location was. (Smug emoji.)