I don’t know whether I should post this as it may be an ongoing case, but not so long ago I sent off my old stamps to the official “swap out” service to have them replaced by the new barcoded ones. A few days later, I did indeed receive equivalent new stamps back — in an envelope that had clearly been tampered with, being roughly cut open all down one side and having the paperwork accompanying the stamps obviously bent and having been pushed back in awkwardly.
I immediately contacted Royal Mail via their online system and noted the problem and my concern that this could mean the stamps had been replaced with fakes before reaching me. I asked if there was any way I could verify that they were legitimate before I used them.
A few days later, I received a bizarre email back from someone at Royal Mail, saying they were sorry to hear that I wasn’t happy with their response (what response?!) and can certainly understand my frustration but we are not able to progress any further (than what?!), along with various other words that seemed designed to try to appease me while not actually saying anything of substance, and a recommendation to contact some other part of Royal Mail, which I may yet do.
It was a surreal experience, but having been prompted to do it by seeing several reports of people who’d sent their stamps in and either never received the replacements or had problems with them, and having received such an obviously tampered delivery, with the entire process from collecting the stamps from my local post box to delivering the replacements to my home being under the control of Royal Mail, I can’t say I was particularly reassured by the response so far.
I haven’t yet tried to send anything using the new stamps…
Some mail machines cut thick or oversized envelopes by accident sometimes. So this might not have been tampered with.
The right way to deal with anything you receive by mail is to return to sender, as long as it has a return address. Cross out your address, clearly write RTS on the front and in small write e.g. "item not sealed on arrival / tampering" or something, then stick in a post box. The sender has more recourse to deal with issues in transit anyway. Generally refuse anything sent that arrives like this.
Unfortunately, in this case the item was delivered by Royal Mail themselves and left in our mail box, so there was no opportunity to do anything like that.
I might have bought the idea of a mechanical issue causing the opening if it had been a clean cut and the contents had been otherwise undisturbed, but with a very rough tear and the contents having apparently been shoved back into the envelope, it seems rather less likely.
>I might have bought the idea of a mechanical issue causing the opening if it had been a clean cut and the contents had been otherwise undisturbed
When an envelope gets jammed in a sorting machine and some postal worker has to quickly clear the jam, stuff the contents back, and restart the machine, what you receive will look like a complete mess.
There are certainly other plausible explanations for what I received. If there were some way I could check those stamps were legitimate, the question would be academic anyway.
The whole process is pretty daft if you think about it, though. Many of us had perfectly good stamps before. Royal Mail decided not to honour them — itself an ethically dubious policy, given how those stamps had been marketed and sold — and effectively forced us to swap them out.
To enable that, they set up a system where you had to send them old stamps collectively worth up to (IIRC) £200 without any verifiable proof of what you’d actually sent, in an envelope clearly recognisable as containing that type of stamps. Then they’d send you back replacement stamps, also in a clearly recognisable envelope, which ironically should now be voidable in the event of a problem, but evidently without any willingness on their part to actually do so. For as long as I can remember, the public have been advised never to send cash by post, so the postal service forcing everyone to send a cash substitute in clearly identifiable packaging both ways was an… interesting… strategy.
In a surprise to seemingly no-one except Royal Mail, there are now widespread reports of the clearly identifiable, untraceable, fungible value tokens going missing on the way in or their replacements themselves being replaced by counterfeits on the way back. There also seems to be a not-at-all-dodgy secondary market now, where you can buy the aforementioned replacement tokens for less than their “face value”.
However, based on my experience, Royal Mail don’t seem to think there is any problem here. Based on reports such as the one we’re discussing today, a significant number of innocent people might already be out some extra money as a result, and that money seems to be ending up with Royal Mail. A cynic might think someone had set up a scheme openly inviting theft and counterfeiting, forced a country full of people to use that scheme or lose money, ignored the obvious problems even when they were explicitly reported, and then directly profited from the criminal activity.
There actually is a return address on the back of the envelope that was open. However, given the story so far, it seems remarkably generous to trust that anything sent back there would firstly arrive at all, secondly result in a valid replacement for the affected stamps being sent, and thirdly result in that valid replacement reaching us properly.
(For avoidance of doubt, in my previous comment, I meant that we had no opportunity to refuse the delivery.)
well ... it's the royal mail which happens to be identical to the royal mail from the post office scandal. that's about the reassurance you got to expect.
The Royal Mail and the Post Office are not the same thing! They are completely separate businesses. The Fujitsu/sub-post master scandal has nothing to do with the Royal Mail.
There is a good argument against 2. - it means people the CPS do not want to prosecute become above the law. Private prosecutions are a mechanism for prosecuting people the establishment does not want to prosecute.
The CPS can already stop a particular private prosecution - take it over and then drop it.
I agree with 1. The Royal Mail is a de facto monopoly for sending letters (less so for parcels).
The article credits a docuseries I've never heard of for making this a widely known issue:
> A four-part television drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, was broadcast on ITV in January 2024, after which the scandal became a major news story and political issue.
I swear I read some long form journalism on this issue years ago. Anyone know what I might have found? For the Brits who have previously heard of this scandal, did you know about it prior to January of this year?
>For the Brits who have previously heard of this scandal, did you know about it prior to January of this year?
Yes, I've been aware of it for about 10+ years, it's been covered on-and-off in the mainstream media for years. I think the (excellent) ITV series was well-timed to coincide with the current investigations and has improved understanding of the industrial scale of the injustice.
Thinking about all the mistreated sub-postmasters and mistresses and how for some of them it ended, ruined, or dominated their lives is heartbreaking. To be honest, even just thinking about those shunned by their communities and neighbours because everyone was told they were criminals is awful, never mind the lives cut short.
I do hope that now there is such clear evidence of the injustices available that people can be compensated properly and have their reputations restored.
>A seventh postmaster, Alan Bates, refused to sign his weekly accounts, saying it would have made him liable for any losses. He has called for a public inquiry.
I immediately contacted Royal Mail via their online system and noted the problem and my concern that this could mean the stamps had been replaced with fakes before reaching me. I asked if there was any way I could verify that they were legitimate before I used them.
A few days later, I received a bizarre email back from someone at Royal Mail, saying they were sorry to hear that I wasn’t happy with their response (what response?!) and can certainly understand my frustration but we are not able to progress any further (than what?!), along with various other words that seemed designed to try to appease me while not actually saying anything of substance, and a recommendation to contact some other part of Royal Mail, which I may yet do.
It was a surreal experience, but having been prompted to do it by seeing several reports of people who’d sent their stamps in and either never received the replacements or had problems with them, and having received such an obviously tampered delivery, with the entire process from collecting the stamps from my local post box to delivering the replacements to my home being under the control of Royal Mail, I can’t say I was particularly reassured by the response so far.
I haven’t yet tried to send anything using the new stamps…