Royal Mail slaps customers with £1 fine for underpaid postage this Christmas

Anyone who receives a card or parcel without the correct stamps will have to visit the sorting office and pay the penalty, plus the missing postage.

Underpayment fees were waived last year as a controversial pricing system - which took into account size and thickness of mail, as well as weight - had just been introduced.

But the crackdown has been approved this time by chief executive Adam Crozier, whose stewardship of the company saw profits slump by a third to £233million in the last financial year.

Royal Mail yesterday said it did not keep records of the proportion of items sent with incorrect postage.

But if just one in a thousand of the two billion items sent in the runup to Christmas were hit with fines, the company would make an extra £2million.

Postwatch, the industry's independent watchdog, yesterday called on Royal Mail to 'have a heart' at its busiest time of year.

A spokesman said: "Everyone will have to pay the £1 administration charge and then the underpayment charge.

"If there is blatant under-pricing that's one thing. But if it is an odd-shaped card, there is a case for saying on this occasion it's okay."

The Pricing in Proportion policy was introduced in August last year and divided items into three categories - letter, large letter and parcel.

A Daily Mail survey last December found even Post Office counter staff were struggling to understand the system, with one in five customers charged the wrong postage.

Mr Crozier picked up a £469,000 bonus in addition to his £633,000 salary last year, despite continuing anger over the introduction of once-a-day deliveries and the threat of closure to thousands of post offices.

Royal Mail has lost £78million this year after strikes caused widespread chaos.

A spokesman said yesterday: "Royal Mail always takes a commonsense approach to the tiny fraction of mail with underpaid postage as surcharging is the last thing we want to do."

He added that the company had been working with card manufacturers to arrange for symbols to be put on cards explaining into which postage category they fell.