OT: Returning mail.

[Martin]

Apologies for this off-topic posting but you lot seem to be able to answer most things.

I moved into my house a year ago and I'm still getting shed loads of mail for the previous occupants. I've been marking it as return to sender and popping it back in the post box.

1) Is this the right thing to do?

2) Does the company that posted it in the first place get charged?

3) Do companies generally use the returned mail to update their address lists (I suspect I know the answer to this one!!)

Cheers,

Martin.

[Wanderer]

That's what I did on the last two house moves. I'm amazed that people move without letting banks know. Used to get letters about share holdings for the last owner but two in our present house. In the end, I opened one and telephoned the bank concerned.

[The Natural Philosopher]

One of them. I put most of it in the bin. 12 years later I still get the odd one.

Dunno. I did return one - the guy had a pension fund with a few grand in it - telling them their address was 12 years out of date.

Usually people use a house move as an excuse to get off everyones mailing lists. They tell the people they want to know, and not the ones they don't.

Bin it.

[Grunff]

Same here - gave them a full 18 months (during which we received everything from hand-addressed personal letters to bank statements), but now all goes in the bin.

[BillR]

Use the mail preference service or junkmail websites. e.g.

Be sure to tell the senders about the problem at least once.

You don't want your address getting a bad credit rating. e.g. address I'm involved with was getting letters from DSS for person who could not have lived there for > 7years. Opened one, it was threatening legal action for non-payment of social fund loan. Phoned office, loan was from 1995! Told them to forget it and stop sending letters ...

[David Hearn]

Most definitely.

Nope, the postal service will return it to the sender for free (subject to any excess charges for the original delivery) - assuming they had a "If undelivered:" address on the back. If not, it is opened and forwarded to the sender's address if present inside. Otherwise it is binned (AFAIK).

Yes, though I've had more luck with nice printed lables saying: "RETURN TO SENDER: No longer at this address. Please update your records." We've also had a couple of credit card companies' solicitors replying with a letter to "The current occupier" asking if we knew where the previous person lived etc. So they most certainly are read and acted upon by some people.

I think you'll find that credit card application letters should just be binned. They use the electoral roll for that, and so once that getsUID ated you should be clear of them (for the old occupiers).

D

[Paul King]

We've been in our present house just ove r 3 years now. Previous occupants redirected their mail for the first year, but with the redirection over, we're STILL getting mail for them!

I open it, read it, THEN BIN IT! (some of its been REALLY interesting!).

Paul

[Andrew Gabriel]

For over 15 years, I've had Christmas, birthday, and a couple of holiday postcards per year from a retired couple who holiday all round the world, to a couple who have never lived at my address as far as I know. It would appear from the wording that the couples know each other quite well. I'm just amazed they haven't realised after all this time that none of their cards ever get to the right couple. If there was any clue who either couple was, I would let them know, but there isn't.

[Lawrence]

I believe technically a criminal offence, interfering with someone elses mail.

Lawrence

usenet at lklyne dt co dt uk

[Al]

I think it's the kind thing to do. Our previous owners had their post forwarded for only 3 months, which means they've missed a lot of regular annual statements. So I printed off some address stickers.

If it really looks personal, I forward it to their new address. However, the Post Office has started charging this as "understamped" in some towns, £1 per item, so I don't do everything.

Otherwise it gets "no longer this address, please return to sender". And I also use these for junk-mail correctly addressed to us.

Al.

[Paul King]

Do I look as though I care? Besides, It would have to be PROVED.

Paul

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes, its always a good laugh at Xmas time. If the cards are nice I pin em up anyway.

[Huge]

*grin*

We get the same as Andrew. And treat them the same as you.

[Chris Doran]

Visit

to tell bulk mailers about people who've moved. For your own junk _everything_, work through the list at It takes a while, but the mail and telephone preference services _do_ work. They've reduced my postie's workload no end, and I've only had one junk 'phone call all year, and that from a local company who probably hadn't heard of the TPS.

Chris

[Boaz]

That reminds me of the tale on 'That's Life' many moons ago, where a couple had their garden gnome nicked and for years they kept receiving postcards from all over the world purporting to be from 'him/her'.

Brad.

[Steve Walker]

Hmmm, for about five years after I moved in, I kept receiving loan offers for the previous owners from the Halifax - the same company that had repossessed the house from them when they went bankrupt! Returning them seemed to make no difference, they only gave up when I phoned them and told them that the current contact address was c/o Halifax Property Services - which was what they'd told me when I bought the house!

Had a couple of visits from bailiffs and the like, but they went away no problem when I told them that I was the new owner.

Just an aside, when I moved in I *did* tell the banks etc. of my move and a week later I received a letter from the post-office saying that they were changing my post-code, so I had to do it all again!

Steve W

[Martin]

Thanks. That looks helpful.

I have opened a few (legal or not). I was getting concerned about a number of letters from credit card companies and I didn't wan't baliffs coming around looking for previous occupants of this address. I have recently received a credit card for a previous occupant. I phoned the bank involved and hopefully that is resolved now. Very tempted to bin the lot as has been suggested but I ws hoping for a more permanant solution!

Cheers.

[Chris Hodges]

At a previous (rented house) we had this happen. I replied when they were obvious bailiffs letters, and they still sent a bloke round. When I told hi in person that stopped them. nearly £400 on a £60 parking fine by then as well.

[Chris Hodges]

Al wrote: I think it's the kind thing to do. Our previous owners had their post

Ours got a year, and it still missed some annual stuff! I've got through about 40 address stickers - it's no hardship really, even thought most of it is _probably_ junk. The previous owners actually seemed quite good about trying to get records updated.

In the last couple of days I've had something through which might be for the previous owners but 1 (at least 12 years ago) - from a financial firm, seemingly including a card of some sort, and obviously not junk - returned to sender.

I thought so long as you made it clear it was being forwarded, and you hadn't opened it, they couldn't/didn't do that.