"Please clear"
If you send private mail, sufficient postage must always be affixed. This is no different with Deutsche Post than with other alternative mail senders. If, on the other hand, you receive mail with a reply card marked "Please postage", you can confidently post it in the mailbox with no postage.
Consumer advice centers have found that German citizens give away several million euros every year because they unnecessarily frank reply cards. Many consumers stick postage stamps on the reply cards, even though they say "Please free when stamp is available" or "Please free".
Send mail free of charge if the message "The recipient pays the fee" is printed
In everyday life, senders of advertising and, for example, insurers are very generous. You also enclose envelopes with your cover letter with the words “Fee pays recipient”. It seems like you can send these back later for free. Is the assumption correct or are there still fees to be paid to a sender? The question can be answered with a resounding yes.
- Letters and cards, even small parcels and parcel stamps with the label "Fee pays recipient" are accepted by Swiss Post without extra franking and delivered to the recipient. Advertising letters and the like are mass-produced and sent. Swiss Post charges senders lower fees (bulk tariffs) than private senders.
- Advertisers know that reply letters that have to be franked by the consumer are rarely returned. If the whole thing doesn't cost him anything, it looks a lot cheaper. Advertisers earn a lot of money with the reply letters and questionnaires. The postage does not matter. Sales bring ten to one hundred times the postage value.
- The advertiser already earns money if the letter is returned empty. Because this confirms the current address and you can monetize it at address dealers. For the company, postage costs are business expenses anyway. Any losses can be deducted from the tax.
Letters are being sent by post less and less and most of us take hold of ...
"Please frank" - send without extra postage
- "Please clear" is a request that is tantamount to a request. Anyone who sticks the stamp on it is your own fault. If the term "reply" is printed on an envelope or one of the cards, the sender (advertising company, health insurance company and others) must pay the postage costs for the reply.
- The recipient would like to save postage, but the sender can have the letter transported by the post office without extra postage stamps. The postage is ultimately paid by the recipient, even if the imprint does not specify anything.
In the opposite case, a sender can simply write on his letter "Postage is paid by the recipient". However, the recipient can refuse acceptance. Then the post office will invoice the sender for postage and return postage.
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