We posted a card to a relative. Today he got back to us and said that he had to pay £5 to get the card because the new, barcoded stamp with Elizabeth’s II is no longer valid. It has to be a King’s head form now on.
I can’t find this announcement anywhere on RM website. Can somebody point me in the right direction?
Thank you.
I will usually buy a book of 6 stamps and they will last me a year. I only became aware when posting a Christmas card to a friend that the old stamps were no longer to be used.
You swap the non barcoded at the P O for new stamps
I’ve had a good dig around online and can’t find anything. All results in my search clearly state that as long as there is a barcode, they’ll remain valid.
Seems very odd! Who did he have to pay the £5 to?
i have just used barcode queen head no probs
That’s what I wonder myself. I wonder if some dodgy postal worker just used our relative to get a fiver from him. It’s a a bar-coded stamp.
I hate to think of that (especially if he might be an elderly relative), but it’s shocking how rotten some people can be & how low they’ll stoop for as little as £5-10… it adds up, though. I’d be very tempted to get in touch with them 
The money for such a problem is not to be paid to a postman but thru the post office itself
It turns our the stamps were fake. We bought it in a corner shop/post office. Now the guy denies any wrongdoing and is getting quite shirty with us. We had to throw all these stamps away. £12 or whatever is was is not worth it, plus we didn’t keep the receipt. We already were accused of being racist.
So, we’ll leave it at that. But you know why I see red when people play discrimination card.
Hi Tim, whilst this isn’t the forum for your query (
I did (finally!) manage to get my £51 refund back from Ebay when I realised that I’d bought fake stamps on their site. From memory, 1st and 2nd class stamps (plus Xmas stamps?) can still definitely be used with the Queen’s head on. I buy in advance (c. £250 worth) for about a year, so mine ALL have the Queen’s head on them - NO problems.
PO will not swap old stamps for the new barcoded ones. You have to send them back to RM and they’ll send you new ones. Free service - no postage charge.
Maybe you can report them to the mail service.
I’d rather not. I am afraid of repercussions. People can be vindictive.
I’ll just stop going to this PO. A shame because it’s the nearest one.
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