moving home and mail redirection

mlz1413

i have re-directed my mail about 3 times in the last 10yrs and mainly find it works well, but it is not a perfect system, I always noticed the errors seemed to occur for 1/2 wks suggesting the regular person at RM was on holiday.

If you really don't want your new address to be given away can you give the new owners a 3rd party address to forward any stray mail to? like a parent or best friend. People are less likely to contact RM if they have an address for you.

nollag2006

I've got a mail merge set up on MS Word, where I add in all new mailing list details, so that when I move house (3 times over the past 8 years), I press the print button and it churns out 50 or so letters to advise interested parties that I have moved. Seems to work (other than for Homebase, and NatWest, who seem to keep sending materials to my old address)


To expedite matters, you can contact multiple organisations in one fell swoop using http://www.iammoving.com/

As a back up, I set up the Royal Mail redirection for 6 months to ensure that anything that falls through the cracks is picked up. You need to give Royal Mail at least one month's notice to set up the redirection service.

Becks045

We've used Royal Mail several times and it does take quite a while longer for redirected mail to reach you, sometimes 2/3 weeks!

Also, they put a sticker over your old address envelope so when it reaches your new address if its a flat/shared letterbox its very difficult to know who the letter is for.

Its not a bad service, but we had several items of really important post not forwarded that had slipped through the net and was sitting at our old address.

Curv

nollag2006 wrote: »

You need to give Royal Mail at least one month's notice to set up the redirection service.

You had me panicking there... I'm hoping to move in less than a month! However, this is what I found on the RM website:

How quickly can I get mail redirected?

1. We need at least five working days to set up your Redirection. After this, we forward mail from your old address First Class within the UK, or Airmail if you’ve moved outside the UK.

sooz

5 working days is about a month in Royal Mail speak....they inhabit a different time zone to the rest of us.

nollag2006

sooz wrote: »

5 working days is about a month in Royal Mail speak....they inhabit a different time zone to the rest of us.

Indeed they do !! I think the length of time to set up the redirection depends on the local sorting offices at both your old and new addresses. When I moved in April of this year, I filled out the form 3 weeks before the move, but it took them a calendar month to action it.

5 days seems very unlikely to me. I'd get my form in ASAP in your position

Madmel

We took the redirection for a year, partly because DH is useless at informing people that we've moved. When the year was coming to an end, we were offered a further year, which we accepted.

It's a good thing we did, as we still get redirected mail 15 months after moving. 18 months ago I closed a NatWest account, yet they still send me statements with a nil balance :rolleyes: . Also companies with whom you have had a business relationship seem to retain your details for ever, and send stuff out on a regular basis. Some of it I just write on in black marker pen saying Unknown Person in the vain hope that it'll stop....:p

Curious_Moose

Just before I move, I reply to every piece of junk mail (normally I just ignore it) and tell the company involved that I am moving and would they take me off their mailing list. Obviously, don't give them your new address.

Of course, this doesn't work with the Readers Digest who will track you down no matter what.

vanixo

I'm moving house soon and have the form right infront of me!!!... It says
"For your security we send an acknowledgement to your old address. If you don't want to include details of your new address, please mark this box with an 'x'.
If we cannot deliver a redirected item, we will return it to the sender with the new address showing."