By Melissa Clark
PERTH is not part of the UK mainland according to an English mail order firm.
Despite being just an hour’s drive north of Edinburgh, a resident of the Fair City was told he would have to pay an extra £10 delivery charge.
Hampshire firm Emery Mail Order insisted Ken Bell’s PH postcode was in the Highlands and Islands and not eligible for the £3 mainland charge.
Mr Bell was trying to buy a specialist device that converts old film images into digital images.
But his desperate attempts to persuade the firm that he lived just over 40 miles north of Edinburgh cut no ice in the Home Counties.
“I phoned down to order it and then they asked for my postal address,” he said.
“I got told, ‘That’s outwith the UK mainland, that’s the Highlands and Islands, so there’s a £9.95 extra charge.
“I pointed out that Perth is actually in the middle of Scotland – not the Highlands.
“The girl went off to speak to her supervisor and came back to tell me that a PH postcode was Highlands and Islands as far as they were concerned so that puts it out with the UK mainland.”
Mr Bell only managed to get the extra charge dropped after complaining to the newspaper in which the advert appeared.
He added: “I think it’s a typical south of England attitude – civilisation ceases after the Watford Gap.
“They have no concept of the geography up here.
“On checking the conditions in the order form, I found it did read that the offer was for ‘UK Mainland readers only’ but nowhere did it point out that the UK mainland stops south of the Tay.”
A spokeswoman for Emery mail Order Ltd explained that they did not have their own delivery service and that charges were made by external companies.
She added: “We, as a fulfilment company, don’t have our own couriers so we are reliant on outsourcing that to other companies. The couriers have standard charges that they employ so we just use those.”
