Why is there no longer a proper ticket office or information desk at South Kensington Underground?
Can London Underground take any satisfaction from the sight of foreign tourists or our 'country cousins ' milling around trying to find their way to the museums or to buy a ticket or day pass from the distinctly user-unfriendly ticket machines?
And, along with everyone else l must speak out against both Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. - everywhere post offices are being squeezed into corner shops unable to cope with demand at peak times thus causing us to queue for hours like babushkas looking for onions in Brezhnev's Russia.
How many other people received a card from Royal Mail over the Christmas period informing them that they were holding a package for me with 'insufficient postage'.
And, along with everyone else l must speak out against both Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. - everywhere post offices are being squeezed into corner shops unable to cope with demand at peak times thus causing us to queue for hours like babushkas looking for onions in Brezhnev's Russia.
How many other people received a card from Royal Mail over the Christmas period informing them that they were holding a package for me with 'insufficient postage'.
When l went to redeem my 'package ' l was disappointed to discover that it was just a Christmas card with a green stamp showing the late Queen's head. But what was intriguing was that it had been franked with a notice stating ' forged stamp'.
But to find out which of my friends was dealing in counterfeit stamps l was forced to pay Royal Mail an additional charge of £5 !!.
My fury at this outrageous charge to an entirely innocent party was only slightly mollified by my amusement when l opened the card to discover that it was sent to me by a highly respectable Royal Borough Councillor and former Mayor !!! ( l always suspected that he got rich through his connections with developers with planning problems.
My fury at this outrageous charge to an entirely innocent party was only slightly mollified by my amusement when l opened the card to discover that it was sent to me by a highly respectable Royal Borough Councillor and former Mayor !!! ( l always suspected that he got rich through his connections with developers with planning problems.
Now l discover that he apparently also has a side line in dodgy stamps ! )
(Name and Shame, please...The Dame)
I have since come across 3 other examples from friends of people forced to pay £5 because of alleged 'counterfeit postage stamps' . I simply do not believe the stamps to be forgeries but far more likely that the Royal Mail franking machines have been adjusted prematurely to accept only King Charles stamps and to reject those, still legitimate, stamps of the late queen .
What exasperated me though was the lack of interest by sorting office staff in tracing the franking error (or even the possible existence of a skilled conspiracy to foist fake stamps on us ) Suffice to say that all the postal service staff at the Fulham Road Sorting Office were interested in was collecting the £5 additional revenue from holding legitimate Christmas cards for ransom.
I have since come across 3 other examples from friends of people forced to pay £5 because of alleged 'counterfeit postage stamps' . I simply do not believe the stamps to be forgeries but far more likely that the Royal Mail franking machines have been adjusted prematurely to accept only King Charles stamps and to reject those, still legitimate, stamps of the late queen .
What exasperated me though was the lack of interest by sorting office staff in tracing the franking error (or even the possible existence of a skilled conspiracy to foist fake stamps on us ) Suffice to say that all the postal service staff at the Fulham Road Sorting Office were interested in was collecting the £5 additional revenue from holding legitimate Christmas cards for ransom.
If anyone else wants to join me in protesting about this daylight public service robbery please note that the service counter is now only open on weekdays between 8 & 10 am.
( l still have the envelope with the supposedly fake stamp & the printed allegation by Royal Mail that it is a forgery)
( l still have the envelope with the supposedly fake stamp & the printed allegation by Royal Mail that it is a forgery)
Ever yours, dear Dame
Dear Dame,
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you say about the Post Office and the Royal Mail.
A £5 excess charge to obtain a letter with either incorrect postage paid or a stamp that the Royal Mail has decreed is no longer valid, is, excessive.
When Royal Mail was publicly owned, postage stamps were like a five pound note and remained valid forever, to be used whenever just like any banknote - a bearer bond.
This new practice of Royal Mail saying we will not accept a postage stamp without a barcode, or a postage stamp with the former monarch's head on it, is a money making ploy.
Just how many people know or have the time to jump through Royal Mail's latest bureaucratic hoops. In order to redeem postage stamps that the Royal Mail no longer accepts, it is now necessary to affix those stamps to a special form, downloadable on-line, and to send them off to Royal Mail to obtain valid stamps to replace the old stamps. Woe betide the recipient of a letter with an old, perfectly good stamp, for which the Post Office has received payment albeit some time ago, with a £5 excess charge. Vince Cable MP never told us any of that when he sold off Royal Mail for a fraction of what the Company was really worth at the time. Now that the Royal Mail is making a loss, the service user is being conned with fancy £5 excess charges. Conned, Conned, Conned!
Fleecing the public for a service that is no longer anywhere near as good as it was when it was publicly owned is a green rub.
Unfortunately, Crown Post Offices, with counter clerks employed on a salary by the Post Office, are becoming a thing of the past. It has been Government policy to close Crown Post Offices, staffed by salaried counter clerks, for a long time to replace them with sub post offices. These sub post offices are crammed in to a host of unsuitable retail outlets- in stationers like Ryman's, and WH Smith's in Co-op supermarkets, and in small independent newsagents.
You are quite right that in busy London districts these sub post offices are far too small, although I miss the sub post office that used to be in a sweet shop in Scarsdale Villas, off Marloes Road in Kensington W8. It was a backwater where the Sub Postmistress was quicker than the staff in the Crown Post Office in Kensington High Street.
Sadly, the service in sub post offices is variable these days. Sub postmasters often employ counter clerks on a wage and the Sub postmaster is responsible for the training of these staff. Much of this is on the job training and is the responsibility of each individual sub postmaster. Whereas staff in Crown Offices used to go away to training schools for months before they were let loose on the public in a Crown Post Office.
How times have changed! How we are all affected by these changes that are not for the better!
We have been conned, conned and conned again. Too bloody true!
ReplyDeleteI am pleased to say that postmen and postwomen delivering the post are as nice today as they always were in the past.