4 ms·

The thinking behind this seems odd. I'd have thought that the overlap between people who want something like barcode-esque links to digital info and improved o

The thinking behind this seems odd. I'd have thought that the overlap between people who want something like barcode-esque links to digital info and improved online tracking and people who queue up at the post office to buy stick on stamps would be vanishingly small. I don't think I've bought a stamp in the past five years, possibly ten. Any time I need to post something, I just print the postage online. Much lees hassle* *[apart from the obligatory half hour spent threatening my bastard Canon inkjet printer, to get it to actually print the damned thing] EDIT: Forgot to mention: when you print postage online, it doesn't have any picture of the queen at all. Just the QRcode.

SilverBirch 4y ago
It's being marketed as good for the customer, but in reality the reason they're doing it is to reduce fraud and so that they can much more efficiently track the letters for their own purposes. One way this helps for example, is that once you've scanned the letter and figured out the address it is going to, from that point onwards you can just scan the QR code and look up the address from a database. I bet the equipment to scan the actual address is much less efficient than just scanning the QR code. Also it means they can track the exact route of letters from source to destination, rather than only seeing aggregate statistics.
- Normille 4y ago
  [According to the article] It also removes the 'crime' whereby people would wash stamps and remove the postmark, so they could be used again. Not that I've ever tried that. Oh no siree. Not me. It will also end the practice of occasionally receiving a letter, noticing it hasn't been postmarked properly and tearing the section with the stamp off, so you can re-use it again yourself. Now there's a fine old British past time we can all get behind!
  - benj111 4y ago
    but if a stamp hasn't been postmarked, how are you to tell if its been used or not? and why is there an issue in using it? I always got the impression that royal mail weren't that bothered about this or else they would make sure every stamp was franked. ultimately its their responsibility to frank their mail, if they don't do that, thats their problem, soon to be ours.

SilverBirch 4y ago

It's being marketed as good for the customer, but in reality the reason they're doing it is to reduce fraud and so that they can much more efficiently track the letters for their own purposes. One way this helps for example, is that once you've scanned the letter and figured out the address it is going to, from that point onwards you can just scan the QR code and look up the address from a database. I bet the equipment to scan the actual address is much less efficient than just scanning the QR code. Also it means they can track the exact route of letters from source to destination, rather than only seeing aggregate statistics.

Normille 4y ago
[According to the article] It also removes the 'crime' whereby people would wash stamps and remove the postmark, so they could be used again. Not that I've ever tried that. Oh no siree. Not me. It will also end the practice of occasionally receiving a letter, noticing it hasn't been postmarked properly and tearing the section with the stamp off, so you can re-use it again yourself. Now there's a fine old British past time we can all get behind!
- benj111 4y ago
  but if a stamp hasn't been postmarked, how are you to tell if its been used or not? and why is there an issue in using it? I always got the impression that royal mail weren't that bothered about this or else they would make sure every stamp was franked. ultimately its their responsibility to frank their mail, if they don't do that, thats their problem, soon to be ours.