Making First Payment With Registered Letter

The first payment of my study loan will be due on 31st December 2008 which is just half a month to go. As I mentioned in my previous post, I bought the demand draft from bank last Friday for this purpose.

Today, I went to post office to post the bank draft to the authority concern which is Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam (SPA) Negeri Sarawak. I prepared the envelope together with the draft last night.

[Envelope for the bank draft]

[Demand draft slipped into the envelope]

This afternoon when I went to the newly-still-in-progress-renovated Sibu post office, I can't believe the crowd was so tremendous. Well, I know usually post office will be crowded but this seldom happen to stamp selling counter. This afternoon, even the stamp counter was crowded. I thought maybe the counter is still very new, so people choose to use new facility?

After some observation, I discovered that it was not what I thought. The long queue was because stamp fanatics were busy buying first day cover! I waited for about 20 minutes before my turn to be served.

[Long queue at stamp selling counter]

I told the staff on duty, "Register". With her professionalism, she immediately understood what I was trying to say. Ya, I would like to post my bank draft using registered letter because I felt more secure with it.

She quickly took out a register letter's sticker together with a 20 cents stamp to me. "Satu sembilan", she said. So the registered letter costs me RM1.90 with RM1.70 is the register service charge and RM0.20 for postal stamp.

[Minor part of the registered letter's sticker with reference number on it]

She then helped me to tear down part of the sticker and sticked it onto my envelope and put a date stamping onto the receipt which is actually the rear part of the sticker paper.

[Major part of the sticker with barcode on it]

[The registered letter's receipt]

After I stuck the 20 cents stamp on the right top corner of the envelope, I handed it back to the staff in charge. My part was done! I had made my first payment. Now the next thing I should do is pray hard and hope SPA Sarawak will receive my bank draft then issue me an official receipt on my payment!

[The registered letter and it is prepared to be posted!]

Steps of buying registered letter service at post office:

1. Queue at the stamp selling counter and wait for your turn.

2. Once your turn, hand the letter to the staff-in-charge and tell him/her "register" or "surat berdaftar".

3. The staff will scale your letter, then tell you how much you should pay for the service. Just pay the amount.

4. The staff will give you a sticker and a stamp. There are 2 parts of the sticker. Tear the major part with a lot of barcode on it. Then, stick it on your envelope where you wrote the receiver's address. Just stick at any empty space. Put the stamp onto the top right corner too.

5. Hand back the envelope to same staff and take the date-stamped receipt.