OT: Postal charges for forwarding mail?

[Tim Downie]

Whenever I've had to forward any unopened mail I've just readdressed the envelope and stuck it back in a post box without paying any more postage.

Usually this works although earlier this week one letter "bounced" and came back to our house despite my attempts to obliterate the old address.

What I've never been sure of though is the what the rules/laws are regarding postal charges. I've always assumed that for standard letters there is no charge. How about bigger letters or parcels?

I've tried googling but that just seems to throw up info about Royal Mail's paid for forwarding service (after a house move say)..

Just what are the rules? Are they online anywhere?

Tim

[Dave Osborne]

I always thought that (certainly for a letter) the Post Office contracts to deliver to the person, rather than the address, so you should be able to amend the address on unopened mail and it will be forwarded on. I don't know if this is written down anywhere, but you could call Royal Mail customer service and ask them.

General Personal enquiries. Call this number to contact a Customer Service advisor. within UK - 08457 740 740

8am - 6pm, Monday to Friday. 8am - 1pm on Saturdays

[Part timer]

We do it all the time and perfectly within the rules (I used to work for them). Just obliterate the barcoding with a black permanent pen so it doesn't come back to you. These are the things:

redirections get treated as 2nd Class (no doubt to encourage people to pay for their official service). That's only really an issue approaching Christmas.

[pcb1962]

Yes, here: ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rm/ilp_scheme_6_apr= il_2010_ps.pdf Forwarding is covered in section 6, basically you mustn't open it and you mustn't obscure the name of the original recipient.

[Harry]

Minor point, but they deliver to the address, not the person.

[Dave Osborne]

Harry, I fear you are missing the point. If the Royal Mail just delivered to the address, then they would demand additional payment to forward an unopened letter. As they don't demand additional payment and indeed will continue to forward an unopened letter indefinitely for no extra charge, then the principle *must* be that you pay for the letter to be delivered to the person.

This is no doubt a hold-over from when the postal service started. Without sending an agent or going to find somebody yourself, the only way to be in contact with anybody was by letter and the sender may well not know the whereabouts of the recipient at any given time.

Therefore, the sender had the option of writing to someone at their home or business address and waiting an indeterminate time for a response or, if the recipient was know to be travelling, address the correspondence as dictated by some kind of previously agreed planned itinerary in the hope that the letter would be held, delivered or forwarded as appropriate.

The principle was (and is) that you simply could not expect a third party intermediate (such as an innkeeper) to pay to forward a letter that had nothing to do with them, nor could you expect a recipient to pay accumulated forwarding charges.

[pcb1962]

"Our duty is to deliver items to the address and not the person whose name is written or printed on the item." ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rm/rm_general_ts&cs_dec09_upda= te.pdf

[Tinkerer]

Harry was correct. Delivery is to the address, not the person. This is true of all mail including Recorded Delivery and Special Delivery (that which used to be called Registered Post). However, under the provisions of the Post Office Act, mail marked by a resident for fowarding and reposted is indeed carried free of charge. The charge raised for redirecting mail, which is collected through a single fee, covers the costs of gathering mail for an addressee who has moved and marking it up for redirection, the actual carriage is not charged.

[rosemarychamberlin]

I've tried googling and ringing Customer Help Desk, and still don't know. T he woman I spoke to at Customer Help said she thought it would be better to repackage and pay again because then I'd have proof of postage if anything went astray. She also said that if I just readdressed it the recipient mig ht be surcharged but she wasn't able to tell me under what circumstances th ey would or wouldn't be surcharged. I suppose the point about proof of pos ting was valid but otherwise, not much help regarding the legal position of simply changing the address and putting it back in the post box.

[Davey]

Surely the Post Office is obliged to deliver it to the original addressee, if the correct postage was paid at the time? I have just re-addressed such mail several times, and then given it back to the postman. Then it has a chance of getting a little more attention than normal.

[F]

Do you realise you're replying to a post from 20 May 2010?

[Davey]

Good point. I wonder what the final answer was?

[Huge]

I expect it was lost in the mail.

[Tim+]

According to our local postmistress, if a letter was delivered by Royal Mail, then you can forward it without additional postage. That said, we recently had a bad spate of mail going missing that was forwarded to Belfast so we ended up repackaging and re-stamping anything important. Make of that what you will.

Tim

[Andy Burns]

I know this is a 'zombie thread' but could it be that the envelope has either an RM4SCC postal barcode on it, or those orange fluorescent dots, and is being re-delivered based on those?

[News]

In message , Tim+ writes

This highlights the problem highlighted by the OP. There is no formal, written instruction. I retired as sub postmaster last year, and was always told that I could not accept unpaid unofficial redirections at the counter BUT if they were posted in the box outside, RM would deliver them. Yes, RM did know which mail came over the counter and which was collected from their boxes, because sacks from the counter were segregated, tied and labelled but mail from boxes was not. I used to accept stuff that I shouldn't at the counter, then take it outside and post it in the RM box.

[Andy Burns]

Because you /knew/ they wouldn't re-deliver it from the counter sacks, or just in case they didn't?

[News]

Just in case :-)

It just seemed silly to tempt fate. You just need some jobsworth further down the line to slap a surcharge on the item, and I've upset a customer.

[bert]

In message , Davey writes

The rules changed with the liberalisation of the mail system and the introduction of private carriers. For letters which have originated on a private network. AIUI RM. not unreasonably is not expected to carry the cost of returning mail when they haven't been paid much to deliver it in the first place. BIMBW

[giles.baker1]

Yes Royal Mail's website is no help at all. Last time I searched it, only 6 months or so ago, I found after much looking pre-2012 of the Inland Postal Scheme on it and that contained section 6 about forwarding as mentioned ea rlirer in this thread. I searched their website again to see, if Royal Mail Tracked 24 was included and this time section 6 is just shown as 'deleted' . Eventually I also found this google group, and the pre 2010 copy again wh ich someone had posted on another site, and this showed me that I was not m ad, I had seen it before! Daughter will need to reimburse me for forwarding if she has things delivered here during the University term and wants them forwarding!