Charged £4 by Royal Mail for two forwarded letters

steampowered

There is a redirection service available. See https://www.royalmail.com/personal/receiving-mail/redirection.

You can set it up in 5 minutes online, and your post will be redirected automatically.

boo_star

Don't pay if you don't want the letter.

Et voila! £2 saved per letter.

Citydel

Don't pay is probably the best answer. I know I've moved everything over to the new address anyway.

Mail redirection is expensive: I would have paid £46.99 for five letters none of which were important. One of which was a letter telling me I moved address. Also the only people I know who've used mail redirection say that more letters got forwarded by the people who moved into their old house than were redirected by Royal Mail.

It's not the same as putting a letter with no stamp or frank in a post box. It feels unfair like other fees declared unfair such as letting agency fees and various bank charges as it is disproportionate to what it would cost Royal Mail to redeliver the letters.

The charge being inconsistently applied is another indication that it is unfair. This is the first time in 20 years in which I have moved home 16 times that I have been charged. I've been forwarding and having mail forwarded to me and never heard of anyone getting charged like this. In the case of getting mail from a political party, I have no control over that as has been pointed out by unholyangel. Royal Mail will be making money by encouraging the political parties to send their fliers.

KatrinaWaves

Citydel wrote: »

{snip}

It's not the same as putting a letter with no stamp or frank in a post box. It feels unfair like other fees declared unfair such as letting agency fees and various bank charges as it is disproportionate to what it would cost Royal Mail to redeliver the letters.

Actually it is exactly the same as that.

George_Michael

Maybe Royal mail have allowed the occasional letter to be redirected free of charge this way in the past but due to the system being abused, they have decided to clamp down on it.

Citydel wrote: »

This is the first time in 20 years in which I have moved home 16 times that I have been charged. I've been forwarding and having mail forwarded to me and never heard of anyone getting charged like this.

Just because someone has managed to get away without having to pay a lawful charge in the past doesn't mean that when they finally do have to pay that it's unfair, illegal or unethical.

Citydel wrote: »

It's not the same as putting a letter with no stamp or frank in a post box.

So what was the process that your previous landlord used to get the letters to you?

custardy

its madness RM allow any unofficial redirections.
They should simply charge/destroy as applicable.

For example Boots in Edinburgh regularly re-label Tracked packets of contact lenses delivered to their stores, to forward to customers who havent collected.
They seem to think this is a service RM should do for free.

custardy

Citydel wrote: »

Don't pay is probably the best answer. I know I've moved everything over to the new address anyway.

Mail redirection is expensive: I would have paid £46.99 for five letters none of which were important. One of which was a letter telling me I moved address. Also the only people I know who've used mail redirection say that more letters got forwarded by the people who moved into their old house than were redirected by Royal Mail.

It's not the same as putting a letter with no stamp or frank in a post box. It feels unfair like other fees declared unfair such as letting agency fees and various bank charges as it is disproportionate to what it would cost Royal Mail to redeliver the letters.

The charge being inconsistently applied is another indication that it is unfair. This is the first time in 20 years in which I have moved home 16 times that I have been charged. I've been forwarding and having mail forwarded to me and never heard of anyone getting charged like this. In the case of getting mail from a political party, I have no control over that as has been pointed out by unholyangel. Royal Mail will be making money by encouraging the political parties to send their fliers.

Totally agree. RM should charge them all.
Its madness people pay for a redirection and others sponge it for free.
FYI its often worse than a letter with no stamp. A letter with no stamp will be split out by the sorting machines into the revenue protection stream.
A letter going back through the system will be rejected and require hand sorting. so more work/cost

I dont want to shock you here. a couple of things have changed in RM in 20 years.........

born_again

Citydel wrote: »

The charge being inconsistently applied is another indication that it is unfair.

It could be that the 2 letters you had paid for that, the companies have used a 3rd party co for their post. Cheaper for them. But the co have a deal with RM to deliver to your door from sorting office.
So in that case RM would be losing out as they will not have got the cost of the stamp to deliver, Only a very small amount.

I know TNT at one point did this. Even though they had their own delivery people. If they could not get round all the drops. They put the letters in a letter box and RM delivered them for them...