Apologies if this has already been discussed in another thread such as the Royal Mail discussion, but I was wondering what is the best thing to do if you're sending an item of mail that's borderline between two different postage rates, for example between a standard letter and a large letter or between a large letter and a small parcel.
A few years ago one of my colleagues received a package with a yellow insufficient postage paid label on so he had to pay the difference between what the sender had paid and what they should have paid plus a handling fee. When my colleague contacted the sender to complain, the sender said the staff at the Post Office where he had dropped it off had told him that the lower rate would suffice, but it appeared that the staff who had processed the item at the sorting office (or maybe the postie who had delivered it) had taken a different view and decided that he should have paid the higher rate.
I would guess that the only way to avoid this risk when sending such an item is to pay the higher rate, and to insist on doing so even if the staff at the Post Office where you drop it off insist that the lower rate will suffice. Even if the scales in the Post Office show it to be, say, one gram below the maximum weight for the lower rate, the scales in the sorting office where the item is processed might give a slightly different answer and show it to be, say, one gram above the relevant limit.
A few years ago one of my colleagues received a package with a yellow insufficient postage paid label on so he had to pay the difference between what the sender had paid and what they should have paid plus a handling fee. When my colleague contacted the sender to complain, the sender said the staff at the Post Office where he had dropped it off had told him that the lower rate would suffice, but it appeared that the staff who had processed the item at the sorting office (or maybe the postie who had delivered it) had taken a different view and decided that he should have paid the higher rate.
I would guess that the only way to avoid this risk when sending such an item is to pay the higher rate, and to insist on doing so even if the staff at the Post Office where you drop it off insist that the lower rate will suffice. Even if the scales in the Post Office show it to be, say, one gram below the maximum weight for the lower rate, the scales in the sorting office where the item is processed might give a slightly different answer and show it to be, say, one gram above the relevant limit.
