Charged £4 by Royal Mail for two forwarded letters

Citydel

I have recently moved flat. The landlord has kindly forwarded mail. He's crossing out my old address and writing the new address. Three letters came with no charge.

I got a grey card saying that "the sender did not pay full postage" and that I needed to pay £4. I went online and paid thinking it would be a parcel and I could hopefully get the money back from the sender. I got them and it's two letters: franked mail that have been redirected kindly by my landlord.

I opened them. One is a Labour Party advert leaflet. I always ask not to be included on the public electoral register but somehow they got my address. I already moved my address with the electoral register but the local council say it can take up to two months to move though it might be speeded up if there is an election. The other was from a work private healthcare scheme that I had already moved the address on and is just junk about my company upgrading the plan and the new things included.

I don't want either of these letters. They are junk mail. Like all letters I get they would be more convenient and better for the environment sent by email.

Is this a new policy from Royal Mail? Can I claim the money back? It seems like a classic example of an unfair charge.

Fosterdog

How is it an unfair charge? The original postage payment was to deliver it to your old address, by forwarding it on to you RM should be paid again for completing the service.

peter_the_piper

Royal mail delivered the mail, the landlord then asked them to resend them, they don't know whats in the mail. It seems fair to charge, whether £4 is fair is another thing.

born_again

Why did you not set up mail redirection?

fb1969

Royal Mail's fee for an unstamped (unpaid) letter is £2, so £4 is the correct charge for the two letters. https://www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-mail/pay-a-fee/unpaid-postage

The original postage would have covered delivery to the address on the envelope. While they often forward manually redirected mail free of charge they are under no obligation to do so - which is why you have been charged. If you had gone into the collection point you could have looked at the items before deciding whether to pay for them.

mattyprice4004

Royal Mail are paid to do one job - deliver to an address. They did that job.
They are then being asked to take the mail and do the process again for free - unfortunately not how it works!

Your ex landlord should have paid postage again or asked you if you were happy to pay - by just chucking them in the post again he's expecting Royal Mail to pick up the tab.
If you could get away with it, what's to stop people making it look like they've scored out an address to get letters posted for free?

Tom99

fb1969 wrote: »

Royal Mail's fee for an unstamped (unpaid) letter is £2, so £4 is the correct charge for the two letters. https://www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-mail/pay-a-fee/unpaid-postage

The original postage would have covered delivery to the address on the envelope. While they often forward manually redirected mail free of charge they are under no obligation to do so - which is why you have been charged. If you had gone into the collection point you could have looked at the items before deciding whether to pay for them.

My local sorting office don't let you look at the item until you pay the fee!

fb1969

Mine does, it may vary from office to office.

mattyprice4004

Tom99 wrote: »

My local sorting office don't let you look at the item until you pay the fee!

That's fair enough - whether you want it or not, they've still delivered it.

Fosterdog

Tom99 wrote: »

My local sorting office don't let you look at the item until you pay the fee!

Mine will let you look at the item but not open it, seems reasonable to me

unholyangel

As an aside, not being on the open register won't stop political parties from contacting you because they gave themselves the right to use the full register for electoral purposes.

What might work, is telling the parties involved that you will never vote for them if they use your details in such a way.