return addresses

soolin

I had a slight issue with a buyer sending me a postal order that failed to arrive. After a bit of tooing and frooing he agreed to send another and this time he has sent it recorded, and it arrived yesterday. (not signed for obviously and still showing as untracked but that is usual).

However this is a blank uncrossed PO in an envelope addressed to me, no letter, no note or anything inside the envelope and more importantly no return address on reverse of envelope.

So if i had been required to sign for it and had failed to turn up in 7 days at sorting office to collect it I assume it would have just sat in the lost post dump forever? Surely a simple return address wouldn't hurt?

Oh the joys of selling sci fi where no one uses paypal. (that's sarcasm BTW as everything else sold that week was paid for in 2 days and shipped a day later at most and all feedback, even the foreign sales, left both ways)

soolin

Sorry, just replying to my own thread. I think it is a teenage thing. My son has just told me he used a 1st class stamp from my business stock to send some tea bags to a friend as a joke today. The fact that I have a plastic size guide, a print out of the large letter rates and all that here on the desk by the stamps completely passed him by. I doubt his friend will see the joke when a large letter turns up with postage and a handling fee of £1 to pay.

scottishblondie

I'm almost ashamed to admit I often forget to put a return address onto packages! I sent a parcel to my parents abroad via international airmail this summer and totally forgot to put a return address on it, so of course when it hadn't turned up at their end after a couple of weeks I started to panic that the stuff was going to be floating around some sorting office here or in another country for ever more! (or until someone chucked it )

Dizzie77

I always thought that you HAD to put a return address on signed for mail?
I always put one on mine - although if I am posting a lot of things at the same time, it is often
just the name, house number and postcode...!!
(Unless I have any charity stickers left!!)

sured

the lady in my local post office told me that house number and postcode are sufficient information to put on for the return address.

soolin

The old recorded slip used to have a bit that went on the back of the envelope one of the pOs i used to use though has a different recorded slip and expects senders to have their own return addresses.

I get a lot of packages without return addresses, but then if i am carded for them I have 3 weeks to collect. With recorded I would only have 7 days to collect so it seems very useful to have a return address as many people don't go to the sorting office very often and may well leave a package there for over a week, so where do all these recorded tiems go if they ar e not collected and don't have any info on the sender? I wonder if some senders don't realise that recorded is only kept for a week before being returned, unlike other standard mail which is kept for 3 weeks.

adviceforall

When I was waiting for something sent recorded delivery to be returned to me, I was told it goes to Ireland where items are opened to see if there is an address inside. Mine only had a house number and postcode on the back which the PO says is fine, but the person on the helpline said I would not get it returned to me with just that info, why not its tells you exactly where it has to go to.

Anyway after a lot of phone calls back and forth I eventually get to speak to someone who knew what they were doing, they located it by the recorded barcode label and had it posted back to me special delivery..But it did take well over a month and I thought they had disappeared

martindow

adviceforall wrote: »

When I was waiting for something sent recorded delivery to be returned to me, I was told it goes to Ireland where items are opened to see if there is an address inside.

Putting a return address on the outside of the envelope or packet should avoid this happening. Any problems with delivery, a few weeks pass and it should come straight back to you.

appleblossom

I never put my full address on parcels just SURNAME/HOUSE NUMBER/POSTCODE - so is this not sufficient?

F&L

appleblossom wrote: »

I never put my full address on parcels just SURNAME/HOUSE NUMBER/POSTCODE - so is this not sufficient?

I used to do this but noticed that when items were being returned to me uncollected that my road name was being hand written on the back, meaning someone has had to manually look up my postcode for the road name.

To make things easier I now include the road name but a house number and postcode will enable an item to be returned to you.

dollywops

I print sheets of labels with FROM and name and address details. Every Ebay item has one. Mind you, we did have some instances where the PO was sending the items to us!

In the meantime, I have bought some identical vouchers over the last couple of days. One envelope containing 2 turned up this morning and I can work out the seller. The other envelope has 1 and it could be one of 4 sellers.