So the Royal Mail accused innocent people of fraud because it’s software is flawed? Sounds familiar…

Post-bearing suspect stamps will now be returned to sender along with a surcharge where possible. Until now recipients have had to bear the cost if a letter is suspected of having been sent fraudulently.

So they are actually just moving the burden of risking Royal Mail’s dodgy stamp scanning onto the sender instead of the receiver. Doesn’t do much to restore confidence in the system.

If the fraud detection is really that bad that Royal Mail have had to admit it publicly, it now makes me wonder if there really were any fakes at all.

Perhaps it’s time to break down their monopoly on letter distribution if the privatised Royal Mail has ended up in this sort of state.

Britain’s Boeing?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Royal Mail has suspended controversial fines for letters with stamps it deems counterfeit after claims that it was penalising the public for its own inadequate technology.

Addressees have been forced to pay a levy of £5 to receive post if Royal Mail suspects that a fake stamp was used by the sender.

Some customers whose letters were surcharged claim that the stamps used were bought from Post Office branches and Royal Mail’s own website and questioned the effectiveness of the scanners used to detect fraud.

Critics have warned that issue has echoes of the Horizon scandal in which bugs in accounting software led to hundreds of post office operators being accused of fraud.

However, in a sudden U-turn it today announced that it would suspend issuing surcharges until the end of July while it develops an app to allow customers to authentic their own stamps.

Nick Landon, the chief commercial officer at Royal Mail, said: “The combination of new barcoded stamps with added security features and Royal Mail actively working with retailers, online marketplaces and law enforcement authorities, has led to a 90% reduction in counterfeit stamps.

The original article contains 381 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 51%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!