Ban on non-barcoded stamps is delayed until next summer after Royal Mail climbs down

The ban on old ‘unencrypted’ stamps has been postponed until next summer in a stunning victory for The Mail on Sunday and letter writers across the UK.

Climbing up the Royal Mail also sees free forms and envelopes available at post offices, making the process of swapping out old stamps for new ones that much easier.

Royal Mail is rolling out encrypted stamps, which it says will help tackle fraud and make mail tracking easier.

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But the abrupt discontinuation of old stamps on January 31 led to fears that Britons – especially the 12 million British pensioners, who publish far more than young people – could be left with tens of millions of unused and useless stamps.

Deputies, observers and customers last night welcomed the Postal Service’s move in response to The Mail on Sunday campaign.

We’ve urged Royal Mail to extend the looming deadline and have called on the company to make it easier for those who need to change their old stamps for new barcode stamps.

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Before our intervention, clients had to download and print a form from the internet, which is unpopular with many seniors who prefer to do things face-to-face.

The Royal Mail said last night that it had listened to the Department of Science and its clients and agreed that the deadline, at less than three months, was too early. Matthew Parks, Managing Director of Stamps at Royal Mail, said: “In order to give our customers more time to use any remaining unencrypted stamps, we have decided to introduce a six-month grace period starting from the original deadline of January 31, 2023, during which delivery of unencrypted stamps will continue. As usual.

To make things easier for our customers, we have also agreed with the Post Office to include forms to enable customers to exchange stamps along with envelopes of free mail at its branches.

“This means that customers will be able to fill out a form, enter it in a free mail envelope with any remaining stamps unencrypted, and have it delivered for posting at the Post Office branch.”

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The Royal Mail already changed its mind about banning pictorial stamps, such as Christmas stamps, earlier this year. As a result, stamps with images – even those without a barcode – will still be valid.

‘The Mail on Sunday must be congratulated for standing up for the rights of Royal Mail and Post Office customers across the country,’ said Conservative MP Alexander Stafford, deputy chair of the All-Party Philatelic Group in Westminster.

The January deadline was inevitably going to leave many people with stamps they had bought with their hard-earned money that had suddenly become completely useless.

“I still think the system of exchanging old stamps for new ones could be easier, but I’m glad the necessary forms and free envelopes will now be available at post offices.”

Labor MP Kevan Jones, vice president of the All-Party Post Office Group, said: “It is very good news that the Royal Mail has now made sense and given people more time to swap out their old stamps for new issues.

The original January deadline was completely ridiculous. Thanks to pressure from The Mail on Sunday, the actual process of exchanging old for new stamps at post offices has become much easier.

Caroline Abrahams, director of charitable organizations at Age UK, said: ‘We hope this extension will give seniors extra time to ensure they do not find stamps they cannot use.

“With so many seniors now conscious of their spending, we know every penny really counts.”

‘Well done to The Mail on Sunday for keeping the pressure on the Royal Mail and doing a good job for the Royal Mail to make sense of it,’ Baroness Altman, co-chair of the all-party group Seniors and Seniors and former pensions minister, told The Mail on Sunday. this is. Making refund forms available at post offices and extending the deadline for change are very good improvements for millions.

‘It’s good that the Royal Mail has seen meaning because so many people have faced being left out of their pockets because of stamps that could have ended in squander,’ said Rina Seuraz, Witch’s Money and Shopping Editor?

“These changes must now be clearly communicated to ensure that people use the unencrypted stamps before the new deadline.”

Former Minister Anne Wydecombe said: “It’s a triumph of common sense. I don’t really understand why there would have to be such a big campaign for the Royal Mail to see the light of day.

Customer Jan Tiverson, 82, of Ashford, Surrey – who has stamp books she uses to send letters and birthday cards to her friends and extended family – also welcomed the move. It’s really good news – you made Christmas,” said the retired hairdresser, who doesn’t use the internet and doesn’t own a smartphone.

“I’m glad someone saw meaning and saw our point of view.”

After the deadline, which is now July 31, any letter sent with an unencrypted stamp – except for picture stamps – will be fined. The Postal Service will unload the items at the sorting offices and impose fines of up to £3.50 to retrieve each piece of mail.

Fines for letters sent without postage have recently increased from £2 to £2.50 for regular letters and a pound more for larger letters. The Royal Mail was expected to receive £5m of these fines if the January 31 deadline remained.

How the Royal Mail was finally delivered

• The deadline for using old stamps has been extended by six months from January 31 to July 31 next year. Without this, messages or cards sent after January 31 without a barcode would have been treated as having no stamp at all and recipients would have had to pay £2.50 to receive it. We wanted to extend the deadline by a year, but six months is a fair compromise.

• Providing free forms and envelopes at post offices to replace old stamps with new ones. This means that customers don’t have to be online to download and print them like they did previously, and they don’t risk making a mistake in the address to send them to. And most importantly, any member of the post office staff can answer any questions – and then take the envelope without a prescription. In a perfect world, employees at post offices would exchange stamps there and then. But the Royal Mail says the checks needed to ensure that postage stamps are not fake cannot be done right away, and we have to believe them.

This juncture explains why a free press is so important

By Mail on Sunday Comment

How sad it was to watch the decline of our postal services.

From a respected, efficient and popular national enterprise, they have become a cold business, notorious mainly for shutting down counters and the vile treatment of postmasters and honest postal administrators who have fallen into error with an apparently flawed computer system.

The behavior and reputation of these national bodies is vital in any society, and everyone suffers when they err.

So The Mail on Sunday is pleased that Postmasters have listened to our campaign to make it easier for customers to return unencrypted stamps.

The arrangements that were now left out were inconvenient, overly bureaucratic, and were not working well.

Were some cynics hoping that customers wouldn’t bother sending barcode swaps? People would have reasonably bought stamps before need as a reasonable act of thrift. The introduction of the barcode came out of nowhere.

It is still difficult to see why the same post offices, which used to handle money and stamps, did not make the exchange at once.

The shift in the opposite direction occurred only because of a press campaign. In fact, without free and independent newspapers, bureaucrats and employers would be able to mistreat the public with impunity for a good portion of the time.

This is why the powerful are often the enemies of press freedom. Beware of their constant attempts to silence that crucial freedom.

“I’m out of my pocket, out of stamps – and I’m so angry”

By Molly Clayton and Daniel Jones for The Mail on Sunday

The Royal Mail’s chaotic “swap” scheme has left fraudulent branded customers and others waiting weeks for their replacement stamps.

This is a service provided by Postmasters where customers can exchange old stamps for new stamps with barcodes.

Before the deadline was extended last night, dozens of Royal Mail customers – fearing they won’t be able to use their old stamps before the end of January – sent them for the exchange.

However, some were described as scammers, while others waited for a month without any contact from the Royal Mail, and even postage stamps were stolen in the mail.

Those accused of sending forged postage stamps left hundreds of pounds out of their pockets.

Patricia Edwards, 79, from north London, was told her stamps could be fake – no explanation was given.

“I sent in a new book of 12 unused, first-class stamps that I bought from the local post office,” she said.

A week later, I received a letter stating that the stamps I sent were used or not original.

I was told that stamps cannot be exchanged or returned to me either. It certainly wasn’t used, and of course I assumed it was real and not deceptive.

“I am very upset about this and upset that I lost the cost of the stamp book, which I cannot afford.”

Jennifer Beck, from Warwick, contacted The Mail on Sunday after finding that stamps she had sent out worth over £100 had been lost.

She said: “When I saw the news about having to change your stamps, I immediately completed the form and put it in an envelope with the £120.72 stamps attached.

Four days later, I received a Royal Mail sealed plastic bag with my envelopes attached, with a handwritten note saying “Incomplete Address” with a slit in the top left corner. Stamps were missing.

The stamps “disappeared” while I was in the care of the Royal Mail and still in my pocket, I ran out of stamps and I am very angry. “

Valerie Ellis waits about four weeks to replace 92 stamps.

“I’m retired and I can’t afford to lose the money involved,” she said.

“I have no idea where my stamps are now.”

A Royal Mail spokesperson said there is no deadline for the exchange of stamps under its ‘swap’ scheme, so no customer will ever go out of pocket.”

The spokesperson added: ‘We are confident that the checks we have performed correctly identify counterfeit stamps and understand that people who have obtained them in good faith may be disappointed to learn that they are counterfeit.

“We are deeply sorry if any of our customers have been upset to learn of this news.

“We recently more than tripled the number of colleagues working on order processing and are looking to return all stamps to our customers as quickly as we can.”