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

A ban on old ‘non-barcoded’ stamps has been delayed until next summer in a remarkable victory for The Mail on Sunday and letter writers across the UK.

The Royal Mail’s climbdown also sees forms and freepost envelopes being made available at post offices, making the process of swapping old stamps for new ones much easier.

Royal Mail is rolling out barcoded stamps, which it says will help tackle fraud and make it easier to track post.

But an abrupt cut-off of January 31 to use old stamps led to fears that Britons – especially the UK’s 12 million pensioners, who post much more than younger people – would be left with tens of millions of unused and useless stamps.

MPs, watchdogs and customers last night welcomed the move by the postal service in response to The Mail on Sunday’s campaign.

We had urged Royal Mail to extend the looming deadline and called for the company to make it easier for those who need to change their old stamps for the new barcoded ones.

Before our intervention, customers had to download and print a form from the internet, which was unpopular among many elderly people who prefer to do things face to face.

Royal Mail said last night that it had listened to the MoS and its customers and agreed that the deadline, in less than three months, was too soon. Matthew Parkes, managing director of stamps at Royal Mail, said: ‘In order to give our customers even more time to use up any remaining non-barcoded stamps, we have decided to introduce a six-month grace period starting from the original deadline of January 31, 2023, where non-barcoded stamps will still be delivered as normal.

‘To make things even easier for our customers, we have also agreed with the Post Office to include the forms to enable customers to swap stamps alongside freepost envelopes in its branches.

‘This means that customers will be able to fill out a form, insert it into a freepost envelope with any remaining non-barcoded stamps and hand it over for posting in a Post Office branch.’

Royal Mail had already changed its mind on a ban on pictorial stamps, such as Christmas ones, earlier this year. As a result, stamps with pictures – even ones that don’t carry a barcode – will continue to be valid.

Tory MP Alexander Stafford, vice-chairman of Westminster’s all-party philately group, said: ‘The Mail on Sunday is to be congratulated for standing up for the rights of Royal Mail and Post Office customers across the country.

‘The January deadline would have inevitably left many people with stamps that they had bought with their hard-earned cash and which would suddenly become completely useless.

‘I still believe the system for swapping over old stamps for new ones could be made easier but I am glad that the necessary forms and freepost envelopes will now be available at post offices.’

Labour MP Kevan Jones, vice-chairman of the all-party Post Offices group, said: ‘It is very good news that the Royal Mail has now seen sense and given people more time to swap their old stamps for the new versions.

‘The original January deadline was utterly ridiculous. Thanks to pressure from The Mail on Sunday, the actual process of exchanging old stamps for new in post offices has been made much easier.’

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: ‘Hopefully this extension will give older people extra time to ensure they don’t find themselves with stamps they can’t use.

‘With so many older people now conscious of their spending, we know that every penny really does count.’

Baroness Altmann, co-chairwoman of the all-party ageing and older people group and a former Pensions Minister, said: ‘Well done to The Mail on Sunday for keeping up the pressure on Royal Mail and well done to Royal Mail for seeing sense on this. Making reclaim forms available at post offices and extending the changeover deadline are very good improvements for millions.’

Reena Sewraz, money and shopping editor at Which?, said: ‘It is good that the Royal Mail has seen sense as many people faced being left out of pocket for stamps that could have ended up going to waste.

‘These changes should now be clearly communicated to ensure people make use of their non-barcoded stamps ahead of the new deadline.’

Former Cabinet Minister Ann Widdecombe said: ‘It is a victory for common sense. I don’t really understand why there had to be a major campaign for the Royal Mail to see the light.’

Customer Jean Teverson, 82, from Ashford, Surrey – who has books of stamps she uses to send letters and birthday cards to her friends and large family – also welcomed the move. The retired hairdresser, who does not use the internet or have a smartphone, said: ‘It’s really good news – it’s made my Christmas.

‘I am pleased that somebody saw sense and saw our point of view.’

After the deadline, which is now July 31, any letter posted with a non-barcoded stamp – with the exception of pictorial ones – will incur a fine. The postal service will dump items at sorting offices and charge fines of up to £3.50 to retrieve each piece of post.

Fines for letters sent without postage have recently increased from £2 to £2.50 for normal letters and a pound more for bigger ones. It has been expected Royal Mail would pocket £5 million in such fines had the deadline stayed as January 31.

How Royal Mail finally delivered    

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

•  Provided forms and freepost envelopes at post offices to swap old stamps for new ones. This means customers don’t have to go online to download and print them as they did previously, nor risk making a mistake with the address to send them to. And, crucially, a member of Post Office staff can answer any questions – and then take the envelope over the counter. In an ideal world, staff at post offices would swap stamps there and then. But Royal Mail says the necessary checks to ensure that postage stamps are not fake cannot be done on the spot, and we have to believe them.

This U-turn shows why a free press is essential

By Mail on Sunday Comment

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

From a respected, efficient and popular national institution, they have become chilly businesses, mainly famous for closing counters and for the despicable treatment of honest postmasters and postmistresses who had fallen foul of an obviously faulty computer system.

The behaviour and reputation of such national bodies are vital in any society, and everyone suffers when they go wrong.

So The Mail on Sunday is delighted that postal chiefs have listened to our campaign to make it easier for customers to return non-barcoded stamps.

The now-axed arrangements were inconvenient, overly bureaucratic and were not working well.

Did some cynic perhaps hope that customers would not bother to send off for barcoded swaps? People had reasonably bought stamps ahead of need as a sensible act of thrift. The introduction of barcodes came out of the blue.

It is still hard to see why post offices themselves, which are well used to handling both money and stamps, should not make the exchange on the spot.

The U-turn has happened only because of a press campaign. Indeed, without free and independent newspapers, bureaucrats and jobsworths would be able to mistreat the public with impunity for much of the time.

This is why the powerful are so often the enemies of press freedom. Beware their unceasing attempts to muzzle that crucial liberty.

‘I’m out of pocket, out of stamps – and very angry’ 

By Molly Clayton and Daniel Jones for The Mail on Sunday

Royal Mail’s chaotic ‘swap out’ scheme has left customers branded fraudsters and others waiting weeks for their replacement stamps.

This is the service offered by postal bosses whereby customers can exchange old stamps for the new barcoded ones.

Before the deadline was extended last night, scores of Royal Mail customers – fearful they would not be able to use their old stamps before the end of January – sent them off to be swapped.

However, some have been called fraudsters, with others enduring month-long waits with no contact from Royal Mail, and more even having stamps stolen in the post.

Those accused of sending in fake stamps have been left hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

Patricia Edwards, 79, from North London, was told that her stamps could be counterfeit – and was given no explanation.

‘I sent a new book of 12 unused first-class stamps which I had bought from the local post office,’ she said.

‘A week later I received a letter which stated that the stamps I sent in were either used or not genuine.

‘I was told the stamps could not be replaced or sent back to me too. They certainly had not been used, and naturally I assumed them to be genuine and not fraudulent.

‘I am very disturbed by this and upset to have lost the cost of a book of stamps, which I can ill afford to do.’

Jennifer Beck, from Warwick, contacted The Mail on Sunday after she found that stamps she had sent back worth more than £100 had gone missing.

She said: ‘When I saw the news about having to change your stamps, I immediately completed the form and placed it in an envelope with £120.72 worth of stamps enclosed.

‘Four days later, I received a sealed plastic bag from Royal Mail enclosing my envelope, with a scribbled note saying that it was an ‘incomplete address’ with a slit in the top left-hand corner. The stamps were missing.

‘The stamps ‘disappeared’ while in Royal Mail’s care and I remain out of pocket, out of stamps and very angry.’

Valerie Ellis has been waiting about four weeks for 92 stamps to be replaced.

‘I am a pensioner and cannot afford to lose the money involved,’ she said.

‘I have no idea where my stamps are now.’

A spokesman for Royal Mail said that there is no deadline on swapping stamps under its ‘swap out’ scheme ‘so no customer will be out of pocket’.

The spokesman added: ‘We are confident our checks correctly identify counterfeit stamps and understand that people who acquired them in good faith may be disappointed to learn that they are counterfeits.

‘We are very sorry if any of our customers have been upset on learning this news.

‘We have recently more than trebled the number of colleagues who are working on processing applications and are looking to return all stamps to our customers as quickly as we are able.’