Interesting. Royal Mail is selling its stake in Spring Global Mail; the company famous for helping foreign criminals target people in the UK with postal scams:

PostNL intends to buy Royal Mail stake in Spring Global Mail

Friday 1 March 2013

We are pleased to announce that it is the intention of PostNL to buy Royal Mail’s stake in Spring Global Mail. After finalisation of the transaction PostNL will be the sole shareholder of Spring.

For our scammers customers it is business as usual. So access to the same products and services at the same level of high quality and competitive price. In addition, and importantly, Spring will continue to be the Sales Agent for Royal Mail outside the United Kingdom.

PostNL are confident that by combining the infrastructure of PostNL with the global reach of Spring it can continue to create a unique proposition to the scam market with an expanded product portfolio.

I guess the news isn't all that surprising. The scam business may be lucrative for Royal Mail but being associated with Spring Global Scam Mail is potentially damaging. Royal Mail wasn't a happy bunny, for instance, when in 2011 Panorama investigated how addicted the company is to scam mail.

Royal Mail refused to talk with Panorama but did at the time publish a statement on its website to reassure the public that the company is determined to do all it can to root out scam mail. They could also point to some evidence for that claim; earlier in 2011 Royal Mail and Spring Global had helped the MET intercept a bunch of scam letters. (I don't think they had the option not to help the MET but let's give them a round of applause anyway).

Despite Royal Mail's determination nothing seemed to have changed for the better since 2011. I'm not aware any more scam mail has been intercepted and the reputation of Spring Global is as bad as it always was. Which might explain why Royal Mail has decided to pull out. Next time Spring Global is exposed Royal Mail can say they don't have anything to do with them.

Royal Mail has got nothing to say

To find out more I sent an e-mail to the Royal Mail press office this afternoon:

I read on the Spring Global website that Royal Mail will be selling its stake in the company:

• www.springglobalmail.com/en/News_Spring_PostNL/

I haven't found any press releases about this on the Royal Mail website and was wondering if there's any more information available. I'm particularly interested to know whether or not the decision has anything to do with the reputation of Spring Global as a company that facilitates scammers.

To which I got this reply:

Thank you for your enquiry.

Royal Mail has not put out a press release on Spring global and have nothing to add to the statement on their website.

Personally, I find this odd. The latest press releases on the Royal Mail website talk about proof that a card is the key to a Mum's heart this Mother's Day and post boxes that have been given a plaque to commemorate the wonderful achievement of Britons who won a gold medal at the Olympics. Why does Royal Mail's press office publish such trivial 'news' and does it keep quiet about an important business decision that may affect all those people that are being targeted by postal scams? Is Royal Mail no longer determined to do all it can to root out scam mail?