Royal Mail suspends ‘unfair’ fake stamp fines
Royal Mail has stopped issuing £5 penalties for letters sent with counterfeit stamps after a Telegraph investigation raised fears that errors were being made.
The postal service said it would suspend the charges while it investigated concerns with its new barcoded stamps that were introduced to crack down on fakes.
It comes after The Telegraph revealed that China was flooding Britain with counterfeit stamps in what security experts described as an “act of economic warfare”.
Royal Mail whistleblowers also said they feared mistakes were being made – with genuine stamps ruled fakes – and told how staff were using Google to identify counterfeits due to a lack of training.
Letters sent with stamps deemed counterfeit will now be returned to sender or delivered with a yellow sticker informing the recipients that the stamp is a fake. Previously recipients had to pay £5 to collect letters.
The yellow sticker reads: “This item has been identified as bearing a counterfeit stamp. You may wish to advise the sender. A surcharge has not been applied on this occasion.”
However, if a letter does include the return address, the letter will be returned and the sender charged £5 for using a counterfeit stamp.
MPs last week urged the Royal Mail to suspend the charges – claiming it was unfair to penalise those who were sent letters with fake stamps, rather than those who had bought them.
The change, which is in force from April 29, is expected to be in place until the end of July but insiders believe it could be extended.
Royal Mail will also introduce an independent expert to its “highly trained team of specialists” to verify whether a stamp is genuine, as part of an escalation process for customer complaints. The decision will be fully independent of Royal Mail and the judgment binding.
It also said it will develop a new counterfeit stamp scanner in its app to allow customers to scan stamp barcodes and check whether it is a recognised counterfeit.
The company said it will also be increasing its partnerships with retailers and online marketplaces to help stop the sale of counterfeit stamps.
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake said: “It’s good news. I definitely would pay tribute to The Telegraph for the work it has done on this, a key part of making sure those concerns were heard and then acted upon.”
Royal Mail has faced criticism in recent months after the switch to the barcoded stamps system in July last year led to a spate of customers being issued with penalties.
The Telegraph first reported in August that it had seen 40 instances of customers claiming that stamps bought from Post Offices or the Royal Mail website had been flagged as counterfeit.
The price of a first class stamp in Britain has doubled since March 2019 when it was just 67p. Since then, there have been seven price rises, culminating in this month’s rise to £1.35 for a first class stamp and 85p for a second class stamp.
It comes as Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky attempts to buy the Royal Mail. The investor, known as the “Czech sphinx”, is expected to increase his offer after his initial £3.1bn bid was rebuffed by Royal Mail’s parent company International Distribution Services.
The firm, which is regulated by Ofcom, previously said its processes for detecting fake stamps were “secure” and that all stamps marked counterfeit had been verified by a member of staff.
Despite this, a senior executive admitted to The Telegraph earlier this month that its machines were not always able to scan new barcodes correctly. They said machines used to scan barcodes were “overly sensitive” and were wrongly flagging genuine stamps as being potentially fraudulent.
Nick Landon, chief commercial officer of Royal Mail, yesterday said: “The combination of new barcoded stamps with added security features and Royal Mail actively working with retailers, online marketplaces and law enforcement authorities, has led to a 90pc reduction in counterfeit stamps.”
