Royal Mail Online Postage (OLP), introduced in early 2006 (but not promoted heavily until September 2006) is an online service provided by Royal Mail in conjunction with Lockheed Martin, where customers can print out their postage stamp (known as an "Indicium", or "Indicia" as the plural) online onto a label or envelope without having to buy it in a Post Office[1].
Purchasing
The user can print indicia for various Royal Mail services, though these must be printed individually, one at a time. If the indicium is over £3.50, the user can pay by credit OR debit card[2]. If the amount is below £3.50 the user cannot pay by debit card. More recently, Royal Mail have introduced an "Online Prepay Account" that can be used to pay for OLP Indicia. The methods of payment for depositing money into the prepay account are as above. Once the user has setup a prepay account, this becomes another payment option when purchasing an OLP indicium. A name and address must be printed on to the envelope, but these cannot be imported from other applications nor stored on the system for later reuse. Though it is rumoured that this will changed when the service is enhanced in the coming months.
Posting
Mail that bears an OLP Indicium can be posted in an ordinary post box[3] (though if the user requires a Certificate Of Posting they should post the item via a Post Office), but this must happen no later than 11:50 PM on the following working day, otherwise the Indicium will expire[4], though the user can seek a refund for unused indicia[5] online by logging into the Royal Mail website and following the "My Profile" link followed by "Your Order History" and finally "Your Online Postage Order History". A refund must be requested within 7 working days of the indicium being printed. A refund cannot be requested if the item of mail has already been processed by the mail centre
