Lacking in Christmas spirit
Thursday 24th December 2009, 3:00PM GMT.
From Trevor Lister.
SCROOGE is alive and well at Jersey Post.
A few days ago I received a Christmas card from the UK. However, I had to pay the postman £1.17 to receive this. It looked like an ordinary card, square in shape and slightly larger than the norm perhaps but very ordinary in nature.
I racked my brain as to why I needed to pay £1.17 to receive this when it had a perfectly legitimate 2nd class UK stamp on it. I weighed it and measured it and then checked the UK postal charges website.
The card was 170 mm x 170 mm x 2mm and weighed 24 grams. Now I realised why Jersey Post felt the need to affix £1.17 worth of stamps and why the postman had to ring the bell and collect the £1.17. While the card length, thickness and weight was fine, the card was 5 mm (1/4″) too wide to be classed as a UK standard letter.
Obviously the goodwill Jersey Post engenders will have us all signing up to the new mobile telephone service.
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Rules is rules – as was all too evident in Jersey from 1940 to 1945.
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I think you will find the charge was raised by Royal Mail NOT Jersey Post.
The yellow stickers are their way of getting extra revenue.
If you didn’t want to pay you could have refused and saved your money.
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Well how mercenary is that whether raised by Royal Mail or Jersey Post.At Christmas people don’t have time to measure their cards.Also how many people would refuse to pay for a card that came from an ageing relative?The Post Office are just taking advantage of that.SAD!
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It is the card manufacturers who should know better.
Years ago the “Post Office Preferred” sizes were publicised.
This year we have received a large number of cards which look more like bookmarks. Plus the usual spate of dinky little square ones.
Business letters almost always use either DL size or A5.
I can see no good reason for cards not doing likewise.
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When the postal service originally came in, in the UK postage was calculated by distance. The thinking behind this was presumably that it would cost more for a Londoner to write to their giddy old Aunt in the Hebrides than if she lived three streets away.
This was until some bright spark pointed out that it actually is more expensive to calculate these kind of postage fees than it does to simply charge a fixed rate – an average price for all letters.
On the plus side, the Jersey Post website says that island children can send letters to Father Christmas free of charge and even receive a reply from his elves. Just make sure your Christmas wish list isn’t too thick. Ho Ho Ho.
NJ.
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If I send anything from the UK now I put my name on the back, I’d encourage others to do this also. I’ve had people being asked for extra postage when I’ve clearly put enough on (it’s been done by the post office AT the post office). I always ask to see the envelope and try and work out whether it’s important or not, and I have refused to take something and, therefore, didn’t have to pay!
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Well my father sent my brother a xmas card and forgot to put a stamp on it and it arrived at his house with a “need to pay” thing attached but as the card was already on the doormat I guess the Jersey Postie just thought “well nobody is home and I’m not coming out here again so merry chrimbo” and my brother didn’t have to pay for it.
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Here’s a tip if you think the card may attract additional charges.
Always write the senders address on the back and make it the same as the delivery address. That way when you reject the charge they will have to return it to the senders address, which is yours anyway. Simples
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I think we get great service and value from Jersey Post. The Royal Mail seem to be a bit jobs worth and I can never understand the difference between 1st and 2nd class as it all comes into Jersey on the same flight.
As Paul no2 mentioned this was Royal Mail not Jersey Post
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This year I and many friends sent Christmas emails and donated a sum to charity
Dead easy to personalise them with a photo and deserving causes rather than the post office prosper.
I am thinking of doing similar for other occasions that should reduce my carbon footprint a little ?
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