Royal Mail’s making a right royal mess of its pricing system. Many of us are paying too much or too little to send our mail, forcing people to cough up at the other end.
Sending a letter seems pretty complicated to me since Royal Mail introduced its pricing in proportion system four years ago.
Even a visit to their website doesn’t really clear my confusion. First class letters have no maximum weight limit; second class has a weight limit of 1000g. So far, so good. But prices are from 41p for first class and 32p for second class, all based on weight and thickness of item. Now you’ve lost me.
There’s no obvious information about how weight and thickness applies to price. Ok, in the post office you can use those handy letter box card thingies to see if your letter’s too thick. But really, how many of us are organised enough to have one of those to hand every time we stick a stamp on a letter?
Not many, if the 66% increase in Royal Mail’s revenue from underpaid mail (from 06/07 to 08/09) is anything to go by. And now our research shows that three in ten people are charged when they receive their mail because their kind friends at the other end didn’t cover the postage costs properly.
We also found that one in ten people add extra stamps to a letter, just in case. That sounds familiar. Gah – come on Royal Mail, sort your stamps system out so simpletons like me can worry about bigger things.
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