Incorrectly Issued International Reply Coupon?

September 20, 2008 9:07 AM

Are the International Reply Coupons my girlfriend purchased done... wrongly?

My girlfriend recently purchased two International Reply Coupons so that we could request tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. However, when she went to the local post office, she ran into some difficulties. At first the employee didn't seem to know what an IRC was, then after talking to peers he found two, but stuck $0.25 worth of US stamps on them, canceled the stamps, then sold them to her for the $1.85 cover price plus $0.25 for the stamps each.

Here is a photo of the two questionable International Reply Coupons with the seemingly odd stamping.

I'm having difficulties finding info on how IRCs are supposed to be issued and none of the photos I can find on Google Images or Flickr seem to be stamped / canceled this way. Before heading back to the post office to question the employee's handle of the situation, I'm hoping that someone here can help me determine if these are done right or need to be returned and reissued.

Thanks!

posted by c0nsumer to Law & Government (4 answers total)

The coupon part looks similar to the IRCs I used to buy, but I don't recall them ever putting postage stamps on them and cancelling them; they just stamped a postmark on it where your clerk placed the stamps, which sounds like the proper procedure according to this. However, since your IRCs are postmarked, it seems like they'll still be valid. IAMAPM, though. (By the way, the current cost for an IRC is $2.10, so they did charge you the right amount.)
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:29 AM on September 20, 2008

So that makes sense. The ones they have in stock are the wrong denomination, so they added stamps to bring it up to the correct amount. That's why they kinda stuck them in the box that says $1.85, but made an effort not to cover up the $1.85 price itself.
posted by smackfu at 11:26 AM on September 20, 2008

This is exactly what happened when I bought an international reply coupon about six weeks ago.
posted by oaf at 12:13 PM on September 20, 2008

Thank you all. It made sense that this is a way to add up to the newer IRC cost, but I wasn't able to find evidence that it was okay to do. With the clerk not being particularly experienced with selling IRCs we'd assumed that he had screwed up. It's great to hear that he hadn't.

Thanks!
posted by c0nsumer at 8:15 PM on September 20, 2008