Man offered six stamps after Royal Mail loses his passport

Oliver Keynes had to pay £500 in rearranged flight fees as a result of Royal Mail's mistake

The Royal Mail did offer to pay for Keynes' replacement passport (Getty Images)

The price of Royal Mail stamps may be on the rise but being offered six of them as compensation for having your once-in- a-lifetime trip to India cut short is surely not adequate compensation.

That is what happened to Bristolian holidaymaker Oliver Keynes, who was offered six first class stamps as recompense after the Royal Mail managed to lose his passport.

Mr Keynes used the firm’s special delivery service to send the passport to his travel agent Trailfinders in order to obtain a visa from the Indian consulate.

However, when Trailfinders’ staff opened the envelope from Mr Keynes, they found it to be empty.

Unable to get the right visa, Mr Keynes’ holiday had to be cut short from three weeks to just nine days.

According to Mr Keynes, the lost passport had cost him up to £500 in rearranged flights.

However, Royal Mail said that they could not reimburse "unlimited liability for costs incurred" unless extra "consequential loss cover is also purchased at the time of posting".

Instead, the Royal Mail offered to pay for Mr Keynes' passport replacement, as well as giving Keynes six stamps to sweeten the deal.

A spokesman for the Royal Mail said: "Royal Mail would like to apologise unreservedly to Mr Keynes for this incident and for the obvious inconvenience caused.

“We process millions of items each day without incident and take seriously any customer reports of loss or undelivered items.”

He added: "We will in this instance reimburse Mr Keynes for the cost of his passport and postage costs.”

Unsatisfied by the offer from Royal Mail, Mr Keynes said he was aiming to get a full refund, including the costs of his rearranged flights.

Mr Keynes said: "I was asking for a refund of the costs that I've had to spend as a result of having my passport stolen.

"I'd also like, if not an apology, then a little bit of feeling like I've been treated with respect for something that was nothing to do with me."