Royal Mail Theft By Surcharge

[kevinHit]

I have been there as well... they also raised white lines running through the label as evidence of print quality - those white lines weren't square to the label so it would have been impossible for them to have been caused by a defect from the printer - they were mostly the result of the IR lines that are used to locate the parcel/barcode on the PSM. We also lot Large Letter and they also mentioned "rg" touching - which was just result of their photo not being good resolution and not being square.

Ignoring their gaslighting - no assumption about the quality of barcode can be made from other parts of the printout.

The only acceptable evidence is a good quality picture of the barcode that they claim to be bad.

Royal Mail's responses do amount to amount to gaslighting and seem to be provided by people who have no idea about how DataMatrix barcodes work.

 

[Throwaway2]

Wow, they actually zoomed all the way in and found the previously mentioned dead dot on one of our lesser used printers. And the photo they sent isn't even a photo they had previously sent to me.

So someone at support went through all the photos, not just the ones attached to the case, to find any fault to brush me off.

So they CAN put in the work and recognise real issues if they try.

The dead dot runs through the logo and does intersect the 1D barcode but not the 2D, and it doesn't make either "unreadable" but still, this is why I ordered the new head (which still hasn't arrived) as I knew they would eventually pick up on these issues.

But 95% of our labels don't come from that printer so now that they've proven they can put in the work I've sent them on a goose chase asking for similar evidence for EVERY label.

 

[kevinHit]

I'm surprised that the picture was good enough quality (i.e. resolution / quality).

The JPEGs they send me are very poor e.g. low resolution, labels are at angles, whites lines from the machine they are not square to the label), lots of noise due to the fact that they're a JPEG.

I never had one where I can scan the Data Matrix barcode on the over-label!

 

[Throwaway2]

In the photo they sent me the parcel is perfectly square with the camera so it's really sharp. If it was at even a few degrees angle the dead dot would probably be invisible in the noise. Add in the fact that it runs through the logo and they were already looking at the logo for "bleeding".

They got lucky and I know they will clutch tightly to this discovery which is exactly why I pre-emptively ordered a new thermal head.

I'm keeping records of all the silly things support says and will put them in a document first to our account manager, then the CEO, and then my MP. I'd also argue the fact that I spent £180 on a new thermal head before Royal Mail pointed it out shows that I'm more on top of the game than them. If the new head remains on back order and doesn't arrive soon I might just buy a whole new printer for £500 so they can't even say it's about the money, it's about the principle or "fining" us without evidence.

 

[kevinHit]

Without verifiable evidence they have no legal basis for charging - they would also lose should the issues escalate and someone decide to take them to court (be it small claims).

I know exactly how my system works, and I can say with 100% certainty that our printers have no issues, and the barcode are pefectly fine when they leave us (and I would be able to prove that).

I don't know your systems but you seem to be sensible and understand printers etc - so I would expect your systems to also have no issues and for every label that leaves you to be scannable when it left you.

As I mentioned several days ago, we did successfully get credited for all of the false IPROL surcharges that had been applied to us. Although, it did require escalating the issue to get their attention. I will also continue to pursue any future surcharges when I believe they are unjustified. Other companies may need to weigh the time, effort, and cost involved in such disputes and whether it’s worth pursuing, but I’m stubborn and will do it in my free time (it doesn't cost me more money to persue - just my free time).

The fact Royal Mail often take 2-3 weeks to get back with insuffient evidence is not helpful - most cusotmers will have long since disposed of packaging etc so it give no opputunity for us to collect our own evidence.

I will keep pushing Royal Mail that they need to report the IPROL surcharges prompty and in the normal surcharge route (and take good pictures of the label they claim to be bad, before they over-label it)

 

[Throwaway2]

Today Royal Mail state that: "only 0.3% of items at our mail centres are over-labelled due to Unreadable Barcodes".

0.3% is probably actually pretty accurate for the amount of surcharges we're getting. But since I know our labels are good this reads more like an admittance that they have a 0.3% error rate.

 

[Throwaway2]

Today they sent me a photo of a parcel where the over label itself is dirty and smudged. There's lines which clearly show their printer needs cleaned.

Seems like they just shot themselves in the foot with this "evidence"...

 

[Throwaway2]

Yesterday as "evidence" they sent me a zoomed in photo of a data matrix highlighting areas where the print was a bit noisy, i.e. the grain in the thermal paper. I pointed out to them that's the grain in the paper and since we use Royal Mail provided label rolls that can't be our fault. They've yet to reply.

But also the photo they sent me isn't even of a parcel that was surcharged, or at least it isn't one they've included on any previous spreadsheets. So instead of providing evidence to support the specific surcharges I'm disputing they have gone into their logs, searched through all the photos, and found one from 3 weeks earlier that they can zoom in on and highlight something and claim that is the reason for all the surcharges despite the fact the label they are using as "evidence" of "print issues" was itself seemingly successfully scanned and not surcharged.

Someone earlier in the thread said they were provided photos of surcharged labels before they were over labelled. Were you really? Did they actually send you photos of other labels like they just did to me?

This is actually insane the amount of lies and gaslighting Royal Mail Finance / Revenue Protection are willing to do.

In better news, Shipping Support fixed the eBay VTN bug with the API and also can't find any other problems with our labels or anything obvious from the photos I've forwarded to them. I now have to send in some test labels that they will inspect like the good old COSS days.

 

[Mik W]

I'm livid. Royal Mail have recently introduced additional surcharges for items such as 'unreadable barcode' and 'incorrectly applied label'. We take extreme care when labeling our packages, there isn't a chance that our barcodes are 'unreadable', and what even constitutes an 'incorrectly applied label'??! Surely the label is either there or it's not?? We use Royal Mail supplied label stock and a Royal Mail recommended thermal printer. I've disputed each of these surcharges, there appears to be 1 of each per weekly invoice at the moment, with an additional 'administration surcharge' for the 'privilege' of being surcharged. Initially, the response from Royal Mail was that the surcharge had been incorrectly applied and would be credited, they're now dismissing our disputes.

Royal Mail have the gumption to forward their guide to labeling correctly along with their dispute rejection email. We've been doing this for over 20 years, I believe we know how to print and apply a label. The obvious observation is that any loss or damage to labels occurs after the the packages have been taken and mishandled by Royal Mail, we should be compensated - not penalised! I would urge anyone reading this to check the last page of their invoice carefully and dispute ANY and ALL surcharges, other than green surcharge which is unavoidable.

Conveniently, Royal Mail are only occasionally able to provide poor quality photographic evidence of the package and label AFTER they've re-labelled it - curiously, it appears to be identical to the original label we'd originally used. I need to see the 'damage' please Royal Mail, so that I can work to prevent it in future.

I hope every other business hit with these unjustified surcharges is disputing them and will continue to do so. Royal Mail will be bringing in many thousands in revenue from what, without proof, is essentially theft.
Cheers

We have the same problem. It accounts for about 5% of our invoices after the other rip off surcharges.
They refuse to provide any evidence but keep telling me how to print and give the same excuses you get.
We are using the Zebra printer they recommended. A few months back to prove it wasn't us we started laser printing our labels and we still get as many surcharges.

If this is happening to all businesses and according to my account manager there are a few hundred thousand then it's big money. It's only small businesses who will check their invoices, big companies admin will just pay it.
This is going to make the post master scandal look like pocket money

 

[Mik W]

Today Royal Mail state that: "only 0.3% of items at our mail centres are over-labelled due to Unreadable Barcodes".

0.3% is probably actually pretty accurate for the amount of surcharges we're getting. But since I know our labels are good this reads more like an admittance that they have a 0.3% error rate.

well mine are running at about 5%+ and I'm laser printing them

 

[Mik W]

No, I couldn't know this.

What I do know is that the print quality is very noticeably better.

We have not had any of these unreadable barcode surcharges and we only use 300 dpi printers for our labels. It could be a coincidence, but it may be worth trying before the legal action.

We've laser printed since April and it's made no difference, still getting surcharged

 

[GGG]

Just joining to follow this thread as we are currently trying to resolve IPROL charges. If anybody has successfully challenged these can you give any tips on what swayed the decision? We have checked two weeks of barcodes before shipping but still received IPROL charges so we know we are in the right but Royal Mail just respond with a standard message.

 

[james3000]

This is a complete scam iv'e only just found about these the last month as i didn't even know they had online invoicing . I hadn't actually logged in to OBA for years just paid via direct debit and no one at royal mail told me about online invoicing + account manager disappeared.

They even sold me a Zebra printer back when i joined rm business . I'm now using the latest Zebra zd220 all my labels are perfect ,i also now take pictures of every parcel with the label on .Just keep going at them on email this will be a bigger scandal than Mr bates there screwing businesses of out millions .They even hit me the label incorrectly applied it's a complete joke, especially when i put so much care into printing and packaging.

The machines aren't fit for purpose or there is a error the way they produce the barcode on some labels ,or most likely the higher ups found away to scam millions/billions ......

One thing that just proves what type of business they are ,if your parcels dimensions are bigger/weigh more the machines will get you charged but if your parcels are smaller weigh less then declared do they credit you the difference ?

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Lets get one thing right before UKBF get sued FFS

Royal Mail do not run scams !

Jesus Christ and Mary Chain

 

[Newchodge]

Lets get one thing right before UKBF get sued FFS

Royal Mail do not run scams !

Jesus Christ and Mary Chain

Royal Mail DOES
Royal Mail does not run scams.

 

[Mik W]

Confused now
Does they or they doesn't?

 

[Throwaway2]

A few days ago they sent me more photos which seemed to be a bit distorted and brought back my suspicions of a "rolling shutter" effect. Today they sent me a photo that 100% proves it, the parcel is distorted at 45 degrees.

So that's it then: a "bug" is confirmed with their machines, or at least a machine at my local depot.

That's not to say all surcharges are unjustified, e.g. another photo in that batch showed a crumpled jiffy envelope that was reflecting light unevenly so I can buy that (even if it's not our fault per se).

 

[Mik W]

Just got this weeks invoice, 54 un readable bar codes out of about 300 to 350, so 18%?
£54 on top of a £547 invoice, nice little earner
And we are laser printing them so they are perfect, still waiting for a reply from the escalations team.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Royal Mail DOES
Royal Mail does not run scams.

I wasted my time at school and can't spell or do stuff on the type writer or even does stuff on the type writer.
This is well documented here this however is mitigated by the fact that I have took it upon myself to learn greek
I actually study it for an hour a day did you know? and can have a conversation when in a helenic village or even a big Greek city

 

[Newchodge]

I wasted my time at school and can't spell or do stuff on the type writer or even does stuff on the type writer.
This is well documented here this however is mitigated by the fact that I have took it upon myself to learn greek
I actually study it for an hour a day did you know? and can have a conversation when in a helenic village or even a big Greek city

Nai! I learnt Ancient Greek at school. I can still remember
ο θρασυμαχος παιδιων εστι και καθρέφτη. αστραπη και βροντη

Thrasymachos is a boy and he is crying. (Lightning and thunder)

First line in a book about a child taken down to Hades.

I apologise for my joke. I forget that you have issues with writing, partly because it is not obvious. Forgive me?

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Αγόρι They say now just like us

 

[Newchodge]

I always assumed that παιδίον was the root from which the paed words come - paediatrics, for example and other less palatabe words.

 

[Throwaway2]

Insane response from Finance today...

Shipping Support / Customer Solutions Teams have confirmed that our labels are good quality and that the eBay VTN bug has been fixed. Finance have also been in contact with them and confirmed this.

But Finance's interpretation of what the other Royal Mail teams are saying... wow.

Finance claim that the Customer Solutions Team made a mistake and scanned our labels wrong. They used a PDA when they should have used one of the sorting machines.

Finance claim that the confirmation that the eBay VTN bug has been fixed is in fact a confirmation that it never existed.

And their response to the photos proving the rolling shutter effect...

Finance claim that the images they've been providing are "just photos" and shouldn't be used as evidence for anything. Then how can they use them as evidence of "print issues" against us!!

Additionally they claim the real scanning is done with lasers so the rolling shutter bug doesn't matter, except I'm fairly sure that lasers can't scan 2D barcodes. It's possible that a different camera/imager could be doing the actual scanning but then then why aren't they storing the images from that camera if it were to exist?

 

[Throwaway2]

Good news.

Customer Solutions Team pulled out a gotcha and said they didn't only test on PDAs like Finance assumed but also on the LVS machine (Label Vision Systems, they do barcode quality inspection machines).

Finally escalated. Civil war between teams at Royal Mail

 

[Throwaway2]

Guys open your images from Royal Mail in a text editor. There is hidden XML metadata at the top showing they come from Datalogic AV7000 scanners.

Finance's claim of a different camera used for scanning seems to be completely false. The images we've received are the images they scan from. Technically there are at least two cameras ("front top" and "bottom") but they are both AV7000s and part of a "scan tunnel".

The AV7000 is a "linear 2D imager" which has potential for huge rolling shutter effects. It's "linear" meaning it only scans one row of pixels at a time. Its sensor resolution is expressed as just "8192", there is no "x" by another dimension. It's completely dependent on the conveyor being smooth and steady.

And in the manual there's some guides on calibrating it and one of the examples of bad calibrations look like some of our photos.

I'm not sure how much longer Royal Mail can keep up their charade against this gathering evidence.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Guys open your images from Royal Mail in a text editor. There is hidden XML metadata at the top showing they come from Datalogic AV7000 scanners.

Finance's claim of a different camera used for scanning seems to be completely false. The images we've received are the images they scan from. Technically there are at least two cameras ("front top" and "bottom") but they are both AV7000s and part of a "scan tunnel".

The AV7000 is a "linear 2D imager" which has potential for huge rolling shutter effects. It's "linear" meaning it only scans one row of pixels at a time. Its sensor resolution is expressed as just "8192", there is no "x" by another dimension. It's completely dependent on the conveyor being smooth and steady.

And in the manual there's some guides on calibrating it and one of the examples of bad calibrations look like some of our photos.

I'm not sure how much longer Royal Mail can keep up their charade against this gathering evidence.

This is a bit of a complicate post for non tecs like me !
You do have some milage in what your saying as I recall from a long time ago that mis calibration of scanning and monitoring technology at hub depots and local hubs will throw up some challenges

If its like most things in this industry the best people will find better work in other more profitable industries and this goes the same for tec experts If they are not good they probably end up in the parcel industry

This goes back to my original point there is no deliberate theft or sub diffuse it is again a case of them being completely useless

 

[Newchodge]

This goes back to my original point there is no deliberate theft or sub diffuse it is again a case of them being completely useless

In the same way as the Post Office and Horizon?

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I know a bit about the Post office but the beaches here are always to busy for me to stare out to sea

 

[Throwaway2]

The Business Escalations Team (stage 2) has immediately bumped us up to the Commercial Escalations Team (stage 3).

I think this is probably good news for us receiving a refund for our own surcharges but it's probably bad news for the problem actually being stopped and solved for everyone.

From what I understand there is nowhere higher for a business customer to go. The POSTRS and Ombudsman aren't available for contract customers. All I could do is pass the data I have to my MP or the media or something.

 

[kevinHit]

I'm fairly sure business customers can still go to POSTRS and Ombudsman if your not happy with their outcome. If you google: royal mail business complaints process

In "Stage 3: Commercial Escalation Team/Postal Review Panel " (which is where you are now), they do say that.

Although, to be honest - I would expect the "Commercial Escalation Team" to resolve.

 

[Throwaway2]

Unfortunately I don't think it's possible. Stage 3 is confusing because it's explaining two separate things at the same time: "Commercial Escalation Team" for contract customers and "Postal Review Panel" for everyone else. It says the next step for contract customers is "external legal advice".

By the way, are they still adding new surcharges to your invoices after refunding your past ones?

 

[kevinHit]

On re-reading you are correct, I think I merged it altogether in the past (I didn't re-read it today until just now).

We have not had any new IPROL surcharges since they credited me (fairly sure it was Stage 2, that credited me). Considering, we've not changed anything it is bit odd - I jokingly said to my account manager that they must have put a flag on my account to ignore them for a couple of months.

The only surcharges, we had recently are some letters that they decided were parcels. My today/current issue is the RM Postal Worker leaving an expensive "signed for" parcel outside in an unsafe place on the first delivery attempt - the customer claims they have no safe-place and doesn't recognise the location in the picture - selling online is frustrating!

 

[Throwaway2]

I just realised that I missed a second piece of evidence from last week's IPROL data.

It also contains a fully Tracked 48 package that was scanned successfully at our local depot and then later surcharged for "unreadable barcode" at the next depot!

I'm going back down the mine pit to battle Royal Mail for a photo of this one going through the machines...

 

[Throwaway2]

I'm still waiting for a reply regarding the escalation but I received another interesting photo today.

It's a parcel that has taken damage and now has two big creases running through it both horizontally and vertically and they intersect through both barcodes.

The interesting part is, because the creases are so prominent, Royal Mail stuck their over label underneath our label instead of over the top of the original barcodes.

Which raises the question: if they don't need to cover the original barcodes then why don't they preserve evidence and stick their over labels somewhere else every time?

 

[TCH]

why is there only a single surcharge for each issue on each invoice? There's maybe 250 shipments per invoice and yet only one has a bad barcode and only one has an incorrectly applied label.

if there's always a surcharge on each invoice, it suggests the programmer left a line of test-code that should be deleted

 

[Smithco]

Pricing In Proportion made things difficult for us, most of our packages are precisely on the cusp between Large Letter (cheap) and Small Packet (expensive) the difference in price between these two services is ludicrous for the sake of what might be 1mm difference in thickness.
Anyway, I digress.

There is a service called Letterbox Tracked (LBT), which is a good inexpensive middle ground. Basically letterboxish sized Tracked 48 at less money. Talk to your account manager about it.

 

[Throwaway2]

By the way, I still haven't had a response regarding my escalated case but they also haven't applied any new surcharges for the last two weeks, so hopefully that's some progress and not just a coincidence.

I did point out in my case that the evidence of issues I found with their machines and processes affects everyone and I argued that they should audit everyone's surcharges. So I'm not expecting a quick response considering they will need to refund thousands/millions or come up with a CYA legal excuse.

 

[Throwaway2]

Is anyone still receiving unreadable barcode surcharges? We haven't had any now for 4 weeks and I don't see any new posts about the issue anywhere on the web.

When I google for "unreadable barcode" a correction charge help page now comes up on Royal Mail's website that I'm pretty sure wasn't there before. There's also a new correction charge rate card PDF dated August 11th 2025.

They've also issued a new best practices guide PDF and fixed a hilarious technical error that I shouldn't mention for reasons. But they've doubled down on their misunderstanding of dithering and the new PDF is even worse in that regards. They're also saying you have to check your invoices for IPROL charges so I guess they're doubling down on not issuing surcharge supplements too.

The new best practices PDF is dated April 2025 but I'm sure if any of you search for it and look at it you can confirm that it's not what they were sending to any of us previously up until July/August. Why do they struggle so hard to be honest?

I still haven't had a response regarding my complaint.

 

[kevinHit]

I not had any new IPROL charges for ages. Thanks for the had up about new best practice - I might take a look at that later.

 

[Adamm]

Is anyone still receiving unreadable barcode surcharges? We haven't had any now for 4 weeks and I don't see any new posts about the issue anywhere on the web.

When I google for "unreadable barcode" a correction charge help page now comes up on Royal Mail's website that I'm pretty sure wasn't there before. There's also a new correction charge rate card PDF dated August 11th 2025.

They've also issued a new best practices guide PDF and fixed a hilarious technical error that I shouldn't mention for reasons. But they've doubled down on their misunderstanding of dithering and the new PDF is even worse in that regards. They're also saying you have to check your invoices for IPROL charges so I guess they're doubling down on not issuing surcharge supplements too.

The new best practices PDF is dated April 2025 but I'm sure if any of you search for it and look at it you can confirm that it's not what they were sending to any of us previously up until July/August. Why do they struggle so hard to be honest?

I still haven't had a response regarding my complaint.

I've Just found this forum and it's reassuring to read other people are going through what I've been going through.this week I've received no charges but since January I've been recieving a few charges a week mainly Unreadable barcodes and with growing frequency misplaced label charges.
I've managed to get refunds on all misplaced label chargers but not Unreadable barcodes.
My latest attempt they sent me photos of some of my barcodes highlighting faults in red. This seems nonsense to me as they all scan. But I genuinely think they have a problem with the barcodes and they need to be bigger.