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@clarry100 wrote:

Here's another angle...

The buyer is a scammer.

 

They have one of these stickers they got from some other seller.

Then they just overlay it onto any envelope they wish, take a pic and send it to you knowing that you will refund them the $2.50. They get a free $2.50 each time they do this to a seller, never having actually paid the fee themselves.

 

I say this because it simply does not make any sense that the recipient would get the fee when your return adddress was clearly on the envelope.

 

Not sure what checks you could do at Aust Post to find out if this buyer has really gotten this fee. 

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I thought of that possibility primarily because the figure doesn't make sense (not unless the processing fee has increased to $1.80). Not sure what records AP would keep, but OP may be able to ask for the name of the PO where they picked up / paid for the letter. 

Re: a couple of other things that have been mentioned - unfortunately, there have been instances in the past where AP have charged the buyer the underpaid mail fee even when the sender's address is on the envelope, so while the standard procedure is usually to charge the sender, it doesn't always happen that way.

A small letter does not only have to contain printed material, as the guide posted above will show, there is in fact no stipulation in any of AP's letter restrictions (large or small) about printed material, only some services where you can only send documents, and a CD is considered a document, which is quite rigid - the contents of small letters have to be (to quote the guide) "reasonably flexible", so something like a hankerchief would be fine (the contents of this do look rigid to me, so if that's the case they should have gone as a large letter).