How automation has led to scrawled-on stamps

sir – Further to the letters on Royal Mail’s habit of defacing stamps with marker pen (Letters, September 21), over the past few weeks I have been in contact with the office of the chairman and chief executive at Royal Mail on this very subject.

Royal Mail is rightly concerned with the loss of revenue occasioned by unscrupulous people peeling off and reusing postage stamps. Indeed, the reuse of stamps costs the company an estimated £10million annually.

However, Royal Mail also admits that their processing machines will reject any items with more than one stamp on the envelope. These are then cancelled manually. Some items may slip through this process, and these can then be cancelled by postmen while on delivery.

To improve stamp cancellation, staff should now use ballpoint pens or felt-tip markers if the item of mail has not or cannot be cancelled with a hand stamp or via the automated processing machine.

Royal Mail claims to appreciate that the use of the felt-tip pen renders stamps, particularly commemorative stamps, unusable for philatelic purposes and offers a Philatelic Bureau service for unused (mint) stamps and first-day covers. However, many philatelists do not collect first-day covers and prefer material that has passed through the normal mailing system.

This is a most unsatisfactory situation which is not being properly addressed by Royal Mail. Phil Whitchurch

Bristol