I always get thanks but no thanks messages....

I did this once, nearly had a breakdown. Inundated with parcels to post out. Regretted it within a week. Would never consider it again. Not even for hard cash.

i got thx we will be in touch

This isperfect if you're retired or unemployed and looking for a hobby. It's a nightmare if you work shifts as you either have the postman waking you up or you're trying to get parked and then rushing around in the minimum 15m queue in my local Post Office as the two others have just closed permanently. If you live next door to the delivery office or a post office then it's easy money, but as much as I love 'freebies' I'd honestly rather do an hours overtime in my day job and buy some stamps.
I do get the feeling that some people have been lucky with their posting schedule and others (me included) have their schedule chosen by pulling times and jobs out of a hat.
Hot though, as this could be a handy bit of extra income for some.

Royal Mail Private Sender Receiver Recruitment Questionnaire


Many thanks for confirming your contact details.

We’ll be in touch when we have a space for you on the Royal Mail Survey. The survey panel is designed to measure all 121 postcode areas across the UK with a specific number of panellists participating in each; we’ll let you know we have a space on the panel in your postcode area as soon as one is available.

Once you start to take part you’ll be helping us measure the service Royal Mail provides, and there will be other incentives too. These will include a monthly “thank you” gift of stamps as well as seasonal gifts of Royal Mail presentation stamp sets. You’ll also be entered into prize draws to win High Street gift vouchers and cash prizes.

Please note – Registration does not automatically result in stamps being awarded. Stamps and other incentives are provided as a reward for participation in the survey subject to eligibility criteria and once you have been selected to join the panel.

Until then, it’s good to have you with us. If you’d like any further information you can contact our Helpdesk:

Tel: 0800 015 3150 Monday to Thursday 09:30 - 16:30; Friday 09:30 – 15:30
E-mail: [email protected]tnsglobal.com

Is Theresa May giving hers to the DUP?

I've done this for quite a while. Most things to be posted are letters and they come with stamps on already so they don't cost me anything. About twice a month I have to post a small parcel which will cost me either £2.70 or £3.70, depending on whether they want it to go first class or second class. When they supply me with the parcel, they give me £3 or £4 worth of vouchers to reimburse me. Then a couple of weeks later I get another £2 worth of vouchers as a sort of reward.

Just got back into doing it recently and it works well for me.

Post Box at the top of the road, plus i pass the postbox every day on the way to work.

Yeah, sending the cubes are annoying (i had to send two last week although helped they needed to be sent on the same day,) but the Love2Shop Vouchers are also handy for me.

In terms of receiving larger packages, thankfully we have a porch and the postie just chucks them through the window without ringing the bell. No complaints.

On the plus side, this just reminded me that I forgot to post a letter today. Oops.

Without wanting to sound too pedantic, this is not really a freebie. You're doing a job and getting paid in stamps instead of cash.

Bwahaha...Some of the replies here make me crack up. Hehe! My dad does this, he's retired so has the time so do at various slots. Stamps aren't really required but we manage to use them. It's a good little deal to help out royal mail and show it works.

I only have to post things out 2-3 times a week and most of them are to go in the local post box.

I've been doing this for 2 times now, no seasonal chocolate eggs but built up a good hoard of stamps and envelopes.
Also won the daily £10 prize draw twice so far which goes towards food from Iceland :-)

Just tried signing up for this and got "Postcode invalid" - says it all about Royal Mail, really! Lived at my current address for years...

Thanks OP. registered and heat added :grin:

Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with this study and it's ok for people who are very close to a post box and have plenty of spare time. If not, it's quite a lot of hassle for little reward.

Id be all over this... if only they recognised my address...

I applied for this a while back then decided it was going to be too much hassle as I'm working full time. They then got in touch and asked me to take part in in a different scheme where I only need to log what mail I receive.

Only takes 5 minutes to upload photos and give details of mail received and I get a £10 voucher each month. It may not seem much but I put them towards my niece's and nephews' birthdays.

You could, but the whole books are better to sell. And you might want to add tracking.

Why aren't royal mail recruiting in my area?

This is ridiculous, they had me sending 10+ items a week knowing I work full time. It's not worth it. Plus point - I now have more stamps than the place that prints them (_;)

I'm doing a version of this and have to log my mail every day for ONE week, then THREE weeks of marking if I've done anything with the post I received. I receive £10 in Love2Shop vouchers a month. It's really easy work and requires no other extra steps.

I did this for a good few years... Started off really easy with just a letter or two to post a week - after a while it progressed to having to insert microchips in letters, to building boxes and sticking weights in them... It got too much hassle... As before fab, if you've got a postbox outside your house, a post office within spitting distance or a dog that likes long walks.

Whats that some kind of phone survey?

This could work for me as I sell in ebay. I'm assuming RM give you the addresses to mail to?

They send you your weekly post pre-stamped (except the odd parcel), which you then have to write/stick an address on (listed on your weekly schedule.) It's very good for eBayers,especially if you're close to a post office. It is a bit of a hassle at times, but it's an easy routine once you've got the gist.
(Although if you can't be bothered and want to buy cheap stamps, I have a bundle availble)

All parcels I had were pre-stamped. Biggest laugh is always being asked at the post office what was in parcel. You're meant to say "foam samples" but I just told them really obscure things, as I'm sure they'll be aware of this survey and "foam samples". In fact, occasionally if I thought the parcel wasn't heavy enough, I used it to get rid of bric-a-brac!!

Totally agree, I have had these vouchers from other "deals" and I have to make an effort to find somewhere to spend them as most of my shopping is done online.

Yes, they give you a little extra for the stamps you have to put on the item but I'm not sure that 60p extra for posting an item that costs £3.40 is worthwhile for the amount of time it takes at the post office especially as the payment is with £4 of L2S vouchers and not cash.

I'm also challenged by having to post at any time other than in the morning as that invariably means an extra trip to the post box/post office.

OK, I've won £10 of L2S vouchers and I will have two presentation packs of stamps and £11.72 in stamps each month for posting 14 or so items and logging about the same number. What I haven't done is log the amount of time it takes to complete all the bits involved including those extra trips to the post office. My guess is that it takes me enough time to mean that I'm getting paid much less than minimum wage and, really, the biggest plus to all this is the exercise. hahaha

At the end of my 6 months, can't see that I will repeat this for a large(r) collection of stamps and vouchers that won't get used. Can't be bothered to sell them on eBay at a double loss (fees and the amount under face-value they sell for).

Speaking for myself, it's too much f*rting about for too little usable compensation.

Would be better if they sent you postal orders for the parcels instead of vouchers. That way, you would not have to use your own cash and be left with vouchers you may never use.

I thought I could do this in my lunch hour but the amount of messing around packaging items and the massive queues at the post office and then having to post in particular post boxes was taking longer than an hour every time and became too much hassle for a few stamps, so I emailed and they cancelled my participation.

Looks like this is a waste of effort for such little reward

what I don't fully understand is what do Royal Mail get out of all of this?!

They get statistics that show how much mail actually arrives on-time.

Did this for a while and had loads of stamps, used them on a delivery from the USA to pay the import duty to the post office :wink:

"Dear Sir / Madam,

Firstly, I would like to thank you for participating in the measurement of Royal Mail’s Quality of Service performance. Your assistance is extremely valuable.

As a business, Royal Mail has a regulatory requirement to obtain independent and unbiased measures of the performance of our service, and we have contracted TNS to carry out this measurement."

Agree. My local post office closed and new one is only open a few hours 3 days a week and they expect me to make an 8 mile round trip to post a parcel on the correct day. If I take the bus it costs me around £5, which is not refunded. All you get is £2 for posting!! Journey and return takes about 2 hours. Plus they ask you to post at different times so you have to post letters before midday then go back later and post letters after midday and closest post box has last collection at 9am so longer journey to post letters at correct times. Reckon even if you were getting full cost of stamps received it equates to a "wage" of approx £1 an hour over the month.

Invalid postcode!

​Yep - last week I used some to pay for a couple of recorded delivery items I needed to send.

Worth a go

im obviously best not giving my opinion in future then....X)

You can use stamps to pay import duty? That changes everything!

What code do we enter once questionnaire has been filled out?

Tried it a few years ago, only received once, then nothing more arrived.

send post everyday with ebay orders so may as well give it a go and get some money back just for walking round the corner that i have to do anyway thanks op.

I was gonna jump on this like a starving chihuahua on a pork chop.......But it would be too physically inconvenient, and painful, to have to get to the Post Office to do parcels, which I would struggle to carry if there was more than 1 at a time as I only have 1 free hand available to carry things with. Oh well, *curls up in corner, sobbing fitfully*

It asks for a code on the former once you're through the 1st stage. does the op have one please

:(I did this a few years ago - First few months was easy, and I had loads of stamps. Then it just got to be a pain! Post certain items at certain times from certain locations, Then it was parcels............. Too much hassle!

its asking for a reference code, if asked click internet

It wont let me click survey

Anyone got the link to the questionnaire? It won't let me click the original link

You mean this one
rmselfrecruit.research-int.com/Que…spx

This must be how they find out about the 'postman with an attic full of undelivered mail'.

I've just finished my first time on the survey panel and I really can't be bothered anymore. Having to haul my arse down to the Post Office for random bits of mail that the survey then tells me I didn't need to post there was a pain, logging stuff was a pain and it's really not worth it for the rewards you get

I do this, if you're an organised person it's fine, my postbox and post office are on the way to work and I start early so just jump output and post.
Put the stamps on EBay or use to post EBay stuff.
Really perfect if you're an ebayer. Also get the odd free gifts.
Also like the fact they have a daily draw for prizes. Mine restarts end July, quite looking forward to it oddly

Does this mean that they will use less Royal Mail workers? If so, i'm out!

Any thought on the new mobile app? Prefered the previous one myself. Why does this not show under hot but shows under highlight. Same happening with other deals for me. What is the purpose of highlights if in hot ?

Been doing this for about 3 years now. Stamps come in handy as I sell privately on Ebay and use them to send large letter size parcels. PO staff probably hate me as I always put a stamp on and ask to pay the difference - gets them working!

I used to do this for my old place of work and would just give out the stamps to whoever wanted to use them. Easy to do when the post man came to you!

If I register with my home address, can I post things via any post box or post office or does it need to be from the post office near my house?

I live 1 min walk from a post office and work 5 min walk from a post office so if I can send stuff from the post office near my work it could work well.

I done this for 6-8 months, it is easy enough to do but I don't drive and some of the post boxes were quite a distance as was the post office so it became a bit of a pain and took up more time than it should have!

how this is getting so much heat is beyond me - looks like spending your time working for potentially less than the minimum wage and not even being paid in cash to boot

I done this and it's so long, if you have a dull boring lifestyle then this is for you

There was a time when shops like Boots used to accept stamps in lieu of money!

No the majority of letters, dvd boxes etc come already stamped all you pay for up front are the cubes as they have to be weighed at post office. You get the money back in vouchers as they can't send coins but you also get reward vouchers once received and logged by recipient.

I believe they need a good cross section of people all across the country, in order to monitor the effectiveness of the postal service, so they are looking for volunteers based on postal codes. You could register at home, but if successfully accepted then it will because they needed volunteers from that particular area, so I don't think you could post items from work?

When I did it, it started off OK, I'd get a couple of letters a week and send off a few, and perhaps a parcel. Then they wanted the letters sent at specific times from a named post office, and that got harder and harder. At the beginning it was just to post it in the morning from my closest post office, then it was post it at 10:27 at the third counter from the left (super tricky to time the queue right!) at a post office four miles away. It got worse and worse, post a red and yellow striped envelope using a frisbee toss through the slot while standing on one leg at least 3m away from a post box in Nottingham at 1:59pm (I live in London!), and culminated in one day when I had to post a postcard of an otter in a trilby driving a car while yodelling (which I had to source and then buy at my own expense!) from a post box in Brae in the Shetlands at 9:17am and then an actual Golden Ticket prop from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film (which I also had to find at my own expense) at a post box half way up a desolate track on St. Mary's in the Scilly Isles at 4:26pm the same day! Plus they never reimburse travel costs, and it was a real struggle to keep up with the volumes once it got to four tipper trucks a day just reversing up and dumping the letters for the day on my lawn.

And the parcels! The destination address was always the same, but first it was just "mail these cubes," then it was "send a Ming vase" (and "make sure it arrives unbroken, or a puppy will die"), diamond necklaces, gold bullion and eventually an entire Airbus A380 in pink - all of which I had to find at very short notice and buy with my own coin!

Don't get me started on logging, why do they need everything carved into marble tablets with a hammer and chisel? And getting them to the company each month is quite onerous, they're heavy and being forced to deliver them in person with that silly song they make you do in that really embarrassing outfit - it just seemed a lot to ask. I do treasure the soap powder they give you as a reward, but it would be nice if it was in a container because otherwise it's a small handful and a lot of it gets lost on the way home.

So I do feel they ask a lot in return for £12 of free stamps a month and the chance of some extra £5 vouchers, and I'm really not sure I will do it again next year. On the positive side, who doesn't like stamps? And it does get me out of the house.

Exactly my experience. Starts off slow, but then they expect blood. For £12 a month, thanks but no thanks.

Did this for about 8 months and then all of a sudden was struck off the list with this message....

We are writing to inform you that Royal Mail has notified us that they are aware you are taking part in our survey. Unfortunately this means that we have had to remove you from the survey with immediate effect.

We need to take this action because as Royal Mail staff may now be aware of your identity as a panellist, this jeopardises the confidentiality of the survey and could affect the results of the project. In turn this would mean that the information that you help us provide would no longer be representative of the general quality of service in your area.

We are required to take such action to protect the integrity of the measurement, but we very much regret that sometimes we have to lose good panellists through no fault of their own.

I could not figure out how my identity had been compromised, so questioned it. Then got this reply which annoyed me....

A posting pack sent to another panellist, containing a test item to be sent to you, could not be delivered.

When items of mail cannot be delivered by Royal Mail and they are not claimed by the intended recipient, and if there is no external indication of the sender, such items are sent unopened to the National Returns Centre in Belfast. Undelivered items of mail can be opened there in order to identify whom the item should be returned to.

Once opened at the National Returns Centre the contents of this item would have revealed it to contain TNS test items, and because one of those items was addressed to you, this identified you as a survey panellist to Royal Mail.

We were required to take you off the survey due to our impartial role of overseeing the independent measurement of the quality of service which Royal Mail provides. The anonymity of panellists is an integral part of the project, so once this survey item addressed to you was opened by Royal Mail and returned to us we could not keep you on the survey.

So basically, if you have the misfortune of having a panelist who has a postal pack with an envelope addressed to yourself that does not reach them , chances are no matter how diligent you are yourself...you lose the privilege at your address to do the survey.

I did not mind doing it, free stamps and not very often I had to go to the post office, mainly just to a local post box. The job only becomes not worthwhile if you live far away from any postal facility, and/or do not work/commute near any.

I've been doing this for a few years. You don't have to put it over the counter at the Post Office, they post box outside the PO will do. Luckily my nearest post box is outside the post office at the end of my road.
I've got a drawer full of stamps I'll probably never use. I might post the PS4 I'm selling on eBay using 50 first class stamps.

Its not worth it people..i did it for 3 months never recieved anything apart from first month 11£ worth of stamps so stopped doing it after 3 months..

Yawn, so many people want something for nothing these days. When I were a lad we had to get up before we went to bed, work 48 hours a day and think ourselves lucky if we were beaten into the bargain. Ooh people like you make me sick... :wink:

WTF is this nonsense? The RM employing people by stealth? Pathetic.

No it needs to be a post box in your postcode area. The 1st few weeks you will get away with posting it at any postbox as you are only sending test items to the surveys head offices. Once you go live on the panel posting to other people on tje survey you put what they call a "smart" in the the envelope which had a tracking device inside. So they know when items are posted from where/time.

What do you mean employing by stealth?

:thumbsup:

C'mon you greens :thumbsup:

Registered but never heard anything from them. Waste of time

Likewise.
I suspect they have enough people for the postcode.

I did this last year. It's really not worth it if as the queues in my local post office are always really long. You have to post a lot of items and keep to a really strict schedule too for little reward.

Would it be against the regulation to write an external indication of the sender on the packet or letter to solve the potential problem?

Well that sucks i was thinking of doing it until you mentioned those crappy vouchers.

Kind of ironic that it comes up with 'This postcode is invalid - please enter a valid postcode' when I've been in my new build house nearly three years now!!!
Of all the sites to not have an up to date postcode list, one dealing with postal surveys is bonkers! :rage:

Or just pay the damn 11.72

Done this for years, it's really straightforward, just 5 minutes a day, and I have never had to buy stamps. The Love to Shop Vouchers go as presents for kids birthdays.

Did this once and never again, not worth the effort for stamps

Stamps are actually legal tender. This seems like way too much hassle though.

I do this, but really isn't FREE; considering the amount of effort involved it's probably less than minimum wage!

Also one of the most annoying things is their badly designed website, which doesn't have sensible defaults pre-entered in the forms and asks the same questions repeatedly (e.g. confirming the last posting time for specific post boxes, even though you've already confirmed it dozens and dozens of times previously). They could save all their members lots of unnecessary wasted time if they designed the website properly yet seems they can't be bothered, so obviously don't value our time very much!

Hmm.. surely the RM could easily identify people doing the surveys anyway, since everyone who does receives an identical resource package every week with the same Swan Lane Industrial Estate return address. Any postie with a little knowledge of the scheme could hardly fail to notice who their survey participants are...! lol

Last collection times change, that's why you're confirming them. Sheffield just made a whole lot of theirs 9.30am which is a total pain.

They don't change every day (or multiple times per day). Asking the same details for the same box every single time is way over the top.

As others have said starts OK but the parcels annoyed me. Ok if you're home all the time but we're not so stopped it before my neighbor's got annoyed. At least two parcels a week delivered. Was useful having the stamps though

You lucky duck! What is it you win in daily and weekly prize? I've done this on and off for years and never had a sniff at any prize.