General Chat

We get letters for someone who isn't at my address and I don't know the new address so I've been putting not known at this address on the envelope and putting them back in the post, so what I would like to know is what happens to them then?

My surname is Notknownatthisaddress.

I have a massive pile of letters just inside my front door.

Please help.

I cannot get out to do the shopping.

I would imagine that the P.O. would open the letters to see where the letter came from and send it back. If no address I suppose they dispose of it?

Well, Royal Mail aren't exactly forthcoming:
http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/inbound-mail/addressing-issues

They used to be sent to Dublin to a central mail point and opened to find a senders address,,that applied to letters.....then forwared back to say unable to deliver.....

if they have a return address on them they go back as undeliverd,,,,,

We were getting mail for someone who has never lived at our address.

Did the right thing, wrote "not at this address, please return to sender" on the envelopes.

We kept getting mail for him.

Next one was sent back "Not at this address, mail has been returned to you for months. Any more received will be binned".

We got one more...... it was binned........ and no more.


:-)

Thank you everyone, I shall be putting them back in the post. I did wonder if the post office had a legal obligation to get them to the owner. But it is sorted now thanks again. :-)

One thing that is useful over here, is that both US Mail and Canada Post require that there is a return address on the OUTSIDE of the envelope .................

no matter what kind of mail it is ..........

A birthday card, an invoice, a parcel ................ all need a return address, usually at the front top left hand corner of the envelope, or occasionally put on the sealed part on the reverse side.


That facilitates the return of undeliverable mail.

Otherwise, I believe mail can be disposed of into the garbage by the Post Office ...........

there did used to be a place where they would open letters and attempt to find a return address. But, in these days of huge cutbacks, etc ..................

If it's someone who used to live at your address then perhaps someone can get their new address from the electoral roll?

Put a request on the Living Relatives board.

Rose

We also have to put a return address on everything we send.

I would like to know how to stop our post from the U K going to the Caymen Islands instead of the Canary Islands. Clearly someone doesn't read the address correctly. Sometimes the Caymen Islands sends it back. Sometimes it just disappears never to be seen again.

People we bought our house from obviously didn't pay the post office to readdress their post. They had only lived here for about a year (so we also got post for the previous owner.)- their post pretty soon went in the bin.
Eventually got fed up with send post back to sender for the earlier home owner (who had lived here for years only moving after death of partner) even having written notes on envelope asking them to update their records. So the post started going in the bin. I was ripping up one large envelope when I spotted a cheque inside. Found a Freephone number for the Insurance Co that had sent the check. Got the person who answered to transfer me and got it sorted. Took a phone call to stop the post - after 12 months of returning it.

it could be that although the may have taken out a redirection they did not renew it. So anyone from famiy freinds and busnesses who did not get told about the new address will continue to send the letters to the old address.

Returned Letters are still sent to Dublin. Where they are opened and if the sender has supplied an address then the letter is returned to the sender.

If no return address is found sadly they have to be destroyed.

The saddest thing we always found (this was when each district dealt with their own Returns) was the birthday cards for children and grandchildren, sometimes with money in and not return address. This money was put into a special account which was used to reimburse people who lost money. We would regularly find tickets for concerts following frantic phone calls by people who had posted the wrong envelope!!!

We never bothered if there was no return address. Always highlighted the return address - would even rewrite it on the front.
I just think companies don't bother to update their records until something specific happens.

With the earlier owner we even had to send letters overseas asking them not to write to our address. Only when we got a friend to write in the other language did those ones stop.

We used to live in one of a group of Tied houses. Found that one of the others never bothered with the post - didn't even give it to the employers office to forward!

If it's obviously junk mail I just throw it in the bin. It's not as if the addressee would have wanted it anyway.

Graham I was going to say exactly the same.

When we moved into our current house, I told the lady who we bought the house off not to bother with the redirection as I would pop any letters we got round (she moved to a flat 2 streets away).

After about 2 months all we got was junk mail, which was promtly dumped after removing any names and addresses for shredding. After about 1 year nothing.

:-D :-D :-D :-D

We kept getting an accident/insurance type letter for someone that has NEVER lived where we live,

I was returning it regularly,but yes about a month later we'd get another one, eventually I managed to spot through the window on the envelope something to do with private care,and as we have a private clinic near us I took it there, and THEY opened it. yes it was one of their groups' patients......... turned out that the number in the address was wrong.....same street, though..

We do not get much here for other people, if we do, I open it to see if it is important or not.

At our last house they had some dodgy tenants before us and we ended up with bailiff letters....which of course I then rang them to tell them the previous occupants did not live here anymore...Don't know what I would have done if a couple of heavys turned up to take my furniture :-D