Royal Mail Track my Parcel

Wynn2022

I was having trouble contacting someone so I sent them a letter using Royal Mail track my parcel letting them know I was going to make a special journey to visit them and to let me know if that specific date was not convenient. Royal mail tracker showed the letter had been signed for, initials I did not recognise so I assumed it was the postman. When I visited, I found that the person had moved a year ago and the new owners were adamant that they had not signed for or received the letter or other mail I had previously sent.

Complained to Royal mail, after numerous e-mail discussions, they state “We’re legally obliged to deliver to the address on the item, so I’m sorry someone else at the address has opened your mail. Although it’s an offence to open someone else’s mail, we wouldn’t be able to resolve this on your behalf, sorry.”

Is this correct? Surely Royal mail have a responsibility with the tracking service to check at the property that the name on the letter will receive the letter. If the postman signed for it, surely, they should only do this if they know that person lives there and they have been delivering other mail with that name to that address. Why was the letter not returned  with “not known at this address”, my address was on the back of the letter and then I would not have made the special journey.

Do I have any recourse to Royal Mail as I paid extra for this special service and made a special journey?

user1977

No, Royal Mail's responsibility is to deliver to the correct address, not verify the identity of who lives there. If the current resident chose to return to sender then you would have got it back.

(incidentally, they're wrong in saying it would have been an offence for the current residents to open the mail)

Sandtree

Wynn2022 said
Surely Royal mail have a responsibility with the tracking service to check at the property that the name on the letter will receive the letter. If the postman signed for it, surely, they should only do this if they know that person lives there and they have been delivering other mail with that name to that address. Why was the letter not returned  with “not known at this address”, my address was on the back of the letter and then I would not have made the special journey.

Do I have any recourse to Royal Mail as I paid extra for this special service and made a special journey?

First of all, have you since contacted the person in question that you were planning on visiting? Do they possibly have a mail redirection on and so the occupant of the old address hasn't seen them because they've been redirected to the new address?

Royal Mail deliver to a property not a person, you can put whatever name you want on the front and as long as its a valid address it'll go into the letter box of that property. A postman covers potentially thousands of properties on their route and has no chance of knowing all their names.

Return to sender - addressee unknown etc would be done by the occupants of the property, its up to you if you believe they haven't been receiving your correspondence or have been and just couldn't be bothered to "return to sender" it. If you haven't been writing your address on all the envelopes they may think its a waste of time to put it back in the post as RM wont know who the sender is to return it to.

You may be able to reclaim the cost of the postage if you can substantiate it wasn't delivered but you as of yet haven't eliminated that it went to the right person via a redirection. Certainly nothing for the "special trip".

Lesson to learn though, if its enough of a trip to make it "special" then confirm it with the person you are visiting before making the trip rather than assuming that silence is acceptance. 

Ergates

Sandtree said:

Royal Mail deliver to a property not a person, you can put whatever name you want on the front and as long as its a valid address it'll go into the letter box of that property. A postman covers potentially thousands of properties on their route and has no chance of knowing all their names.

Return to sender - addressee unknown etc would be done by the occupants of the property, its up to you if you believe they haven't been receiving your correspondence or have been and just couldn't be bothered to "return to sender" it. If you haven't been writing your address on all the envelopes they may think its a waste of time to put it back in the post as RM wont know who the sender is to return it to.

You may be able to reclaim the cost of the postage if you can substantiate it wasn't delivered but you as of yet haven't eliminated that it went to the right person via a redirection. Certainly nothing for the "special trip".

Lesson to learn though, if its enough of a trip to make it "special" then confirm it with the person you are visiting before making the trip rather than assuming that silence is acceptance. 

If it's a signed for delivery then presumably the postman would have to get a signature rather than just posting it through the door (not sure if that still works following pandemic).   

Moreover, it's entirely legitimate to have post delivered to someone who doesn't live at an address.  Just a couple of weeks ago my sister had something delivered to our address - it was cheaper than delivery to her house (she lives in Ireland) and was going to be visiting a couple of days later anyway.

It's seems quite likely that the current occupants just binned the mail and forgot about it.

Sandtree

Ergates said:

Sandtree said:

Royal Mail deliver to a property not a person, you can put whatever name you want on the front and as long as its a valid address it'll go into the letter box of that property. A postman covers potentially thousands of properties on their route and has no chance of knowing all their names.

Return to sender - addressee unknown etc would be done by the occupants of the property, its up to you if you believe they haven't been receiving your correspondence or have been and just couldn't be bothered to "return to sender" it. If you haven't been writing your address on all the envelopes they may think its a waste of time to put it back in the post as RM wont know who the sender is to return it to.

You may be able to reclaim the cost of the postage if you can substantiate it wasn't delivered but you as of yet haven't eliminated that it went to the right person via a redirection. Certainly nothing for the "special trip".

Lesson to learn though, if its enough of a trip to make it "special" then confirm it with the person you are visiting before making the trip rather than assuming that silence is acceptance. 

If it's a signed for delivery then presumably the postman would have to get a signature rather than just posting it through the door (not sure if that still works following pandemic).   

Haven't had to sign for anything in ages... a quick google shows asking for signatures was reinstated by RM in May this year but I'm fairly sure the last signed for item I had was June and it was certainly just put through the letterbox to me. 

MattMattMattUK

Sandtree said:

Ergates said:

Sandtree said:

Royal Mail deliver to a property not a person, you can put whatever name you want on the front and as long as its a valid address it'll go into the letter box of that property. A postman covers potentially thousands of properties on their route and has no chance of knowing all their names.

Return to sender - addressee unknown etc would be done by the occupants of the property, its up to you if you believe they haven't been receiving your correspondence or have been and just couldn't be bothered to "return to sender" it. If you haven't been writing your address on all the envelopes they may think its a waste of time to put it back in the post as RM wont know who the sender is to return it to.

You may be able to reclaim the cost of the postage if you can substantiate it wasn't delivered but you as of yet haven't eliminated that it went to the right person via a redirection. Certainly nothing for the "special trip".

Lesson to learn though, if its enough of a trip to make it "special" then confirm it with the person you are visiting before making the trip rather than assuming that silence is acceptance. 

If it's a signed for delivery then presumably the postman would have to get a signature rather than just posting it through the door (not sure if that still works following pandemic).   

Haven't had to sign for anything in ages... a quick google shows asking for signatures was reinstated by RM in May this year but I'm fairly sure the last signed for item I had was June and it was certainly just put through the letterbox to me. 

Royal Mail claim to have reinstated asking for signatures, but in reality that have not. I get around 3-4 items a week with Royal Mail Signed For delivered to me in the average week (work) and send out 5-10, none of the ones I have recieved have I been asked to sign for and as far as I can tell from the tracking all the deliveries I send out are still signed for by the postman. The same with couriers, none of them ask anyone to sign, although some (DPD and Amazon) take pictures on delivery. 

Undervalued

Wynn2022 said:

I was having trouble contacting someone so I sent them a letter using Royal Mail track my parcel letting them know I was going to make a special journey to visit them and to let me know if that specific date was not convenient. Royal mail tracker showed the letter had been signed for, initials I did not recognise so I assumed it was the postman. When I visited, I found that the person had moved a year ago and the new owners were adamant that they had not signed for or received the letter or other mail I had previously sent.

Complained to Royal mail, after numerous e-mail discussions, they state “We’re legally obliged to deliver to the address on the item, so I’m sorry someone else at the address has opened your mail. Although it’s an offence to open someone else’s mail, we wouldn’t be able to resolve this on your behalf, sorry.”

Is this correct? Surely Royal mail have a responsibility with the tracking service to check at the property that the name on the letter will receive the letter. If the postman signed for it, surely, they should only do this if they know that person lives there and they have been delivering other mail with that name to that address. Why was the letter not returned  with “not known at this address”, my address was on the back of the letter and then I would not have made the special journey.

Do I have any recourse to Royal Mail as I paid extra for this special service and made a special journey?

No they don't. It is made clear on anything I have read that they will deliver it to the address and not to a specific person.

Also, as somebody else has suggested above and as I understand it, they are not correct in saying it is an offence to open someone else's mail. At best this is a simplification. There may be an offence committed if somebody makes use of information they have obtained by that method.

user1977

Undervalued said:

Wynn2022 said:

I was having trouble contacting someone so I sent them a letter using Royal Mail track my parcel letting them know I was going to make a special journey to visit them and to let me know if that specific date was not convenient. Royal mail tracker showed the letter had been signed for, initials I did not recognise so I assumed it was the postman. When I visited, I found that the person had moved a year ago and the new owners were adamant that they had not signed for or received the letter or other mail I had previously sent.

Complained to Royal mail, after numerous e-mail discussions, they state “We’re legally obliged to deliver to the address on the item, so I’m sorry someone else at the address has opened your mail. Although it’s an offence to open someone else’s mail, we wouldn’t be able to resolve this on your behalf, sorry.”

Is this correct? Surely Royal mail have a responsibility with the tracking service to check at the property that the name on the letter will receive the letter. If the postman signed for it, surely, they should only do this if they know that person lives there and they have been delivering other mail with that name to that address. Why was the letter not returned  with “not known at this address”, my address was on the back of the letter and then I would not have made the special journey.

Do I have any recourse to Royal Mail as I paid extra for this special service and made a special journey?

they are not correct in saying it is an offence to open someone else's mail. At best this is a simplification. There may be an offence committed if somebody makes use of information they have obtained by that method.

The "opening mail" offence only begins to be possibly relevant if the mail was "incorrectly delivered" - which means going to the wrong address - nothing to do with the individual addressee named on it. Though things like fraud or theft are still possible offences depending on what the recipient does.

custardy

MattMattMattUK said:

Sandtree said:

Ergates said:

Sandtree said:

Royal Mail deliver to a property not a person, you can put whatever name you want on the front and as long as its a valid address it'll go into the letter box of that property. A postman covers potentially thousands of properties on their route and has no chance of knowing all their names.

Return to sender - addressee unknown etc would be done by the occupants of the property, its up to you if you believe they haven't been receiving your correspondence or have been and just couldn't be bothered to "return to sender" it. If you haven't been writing your address on all the envelopes they may think its a waste of time to put it back in the post as RM wont know who the sender is to return it to.

You may be able to reclaim the cost of the postage if you can substantiate it wasn't delivered but you as of yet haven't eliminated that it went to the right person via a redirection. Certainly nothing for the "special trip".

Lesson to learn though, if its enough of a trip to make it "special" then confirm it with the person you are visiting before making the trip rather than assuming that silence is acceptance. 

If it's a signed for delivery then presumably the postman would have to get a signature rather than just posting it through the door (not sure if that still works following pandemic).   

Haven't had to sign for anything in ages... a quick google shows asking for signatures was reinstated by RM in May this year but I'm fairly sure the last signed for item I had was June and it was certainly just put through the letterbox to me. 

Royal Mail claim to have reinstated asking for signatures, but in reality that have not. I get around 3-4 items a week with Royal Mail Signed For delivered to me in the average week (work) and send out 5-10, none of the ones I have recieved have I been asked to sign for and as far as I can tell from the tracking all the deliveries I send out are still signed for by the postman. The same with couriers, none of them ask anyone to sign, although some (DPD and Amazon) take pictures on delivery. 

RM may have reinstated it. However its the postie who handles the PDA and would be handing it over to many people.
Covid is still around and RM treat it like any other illness in their sick policy