Swedish Postal Service resumes checking postage

The Swedish Postal Service has reportedly revealed that in the mid-1990s it had, as a cost-cutting measure, stopped checking to see if there was enough postage on letters and packages, but had restored the function in 2003.

The postage checks since then had reportedly resulted in some USD4m in what would have been lost revenues, and in 2004 the postal service expects to recover more than USD8m in due postage.

A postal service spokeswoman was quoted as saying to the newspaper Metro that the organisation never dreamed that restoring postage checking could result in so much revenue.

The Swedish Postal Service has been criticized in recent years for spinning off its banking service and replacing most post offices with counters at tobacco shops and grocery stores, according to the online news service of Radio Sweden.

The previous head of the service resigned after he proposed outsourcing the actual delivery of letters.