I decided not to have a rant yesterday – trying to keep the whole Christmas thing uplifting and cheerful. It was a great day.
paying the penalty for the wrong stamp
My rant was formulated the day before – when we had a card posted through the letter box telling us that there was a delivery for collection at the Post Office. So off we dutifully set – to collect a Christmas Card. It cost me £1.17 to collect. The card cost 99p – it said so on the back.
I had thought it was because there was no stamp – but not so, there was a second class stamp. The reason – the card was oversize – so the 17p was to make up for the shortfall – £1 for administration. No account of my time in collecting the card (or driving there!) And what of handling all those £1.17′s?
The world really has gone mad – the friendly postie did tell me that he had 200 cards to write (collecting £1.17 each time). Of course these were yet to be delivered…
My grumpiness is that people have innocently bought cards and put stamps on – only to be caught out by the new (stupid) rules about letter sizes.
My firm this year did not send cards through the post – we paid for a card to be made electronically with a game and sent it to 4,000 people. We would have perhaps sent 3,000 cards previously! I blogged before about the Postal Strike and my dim view of it. The card companies also ought to take note of the new rules too – I am sure many people have bought cards not realising that they are larger than the maximum size for the basic cost.
One of my resolutions for the new year is to use the post less. And the reason is the inconvenience that it now puts me to. A shame but true.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:47
[...] to write and ring rather than text people. Royal Mail could do with the business anyway as my mate Tim Garratt has stopped using [...]
December 29th, 2009 at 20:02
[...] think they do have a place, but as I blogged about before we do need to sort our postal system! My Christmas Card episode and the Postal Strike do put me [...]