Forwarding Mail

[Soph01]

A letter arrived today which i want to forward onto a family member. Can i just write -please send to xxx? What about postage-it looks like the sender (big company) used a pre paid envelope so im guessing its ok?
Thanks

[Jackdaw33]

Cross out your address. Write on the front. "Now at....(insert forwarding address) and pop it in the post box. No further postage required. At least that's how it used to be.

[magicmick]

Redirection of mail is not free, if you do as jd33 says it could be surcharged at new address.

[Jackdaw33]

Well it used to be in the good old days of the GPO. Some years ago I sent a Christmas card to someone whom I had not seen for a couple of years. I wrote on the back of the envelope, "If no longer at this address, please forward or return to (my address). After a week it came back having been marked, "Now deceased". There was no charge.

[losgigs]

For the sake of the cost of the postage (53/54?p), put a stamp on it.

[magicmick]

JD33 that is correct a letter being RTS is not charged, a letter being sent on will be.

[Hopkirk]

Well I always understood that the original postage was to get it to the person, not the address.

[magicmick]

Hopkirk when you go through training at RM you are taught to deliver to the address, requardless of the name on the envelope. If that name has gone away from that address, unless there is a official redirection in place, then it is up to whoever lives there to either send it on under cover of another envelope, or return it to post office as gone away or not known at this address. If then there is a return address on the outside or inside it will be returned to sender free of charge.

[Hopkirk]

Thanks Mick, you learn something new every day.

However I have no experience of anyone actually being charged for receiving re-directed mail.

[MTbowels]

To add to what magicmick said, delivering a letter is simply not feasible in many cases. Just think of hospitals or large companies where the post goes to a mailroom.

Furthermore, I've sent stuff to large organisations by the "signed for" service ( formely called Recorded Delivery) in quantity for years. Delivery can nowadays be checked online and the signature document can be seen on screen. It's not unknown for a signature to be a random squiggle and the recipient's printed name is often "Fred Flintstone" or "Mickey Mouse" or similar. At the end of the day, the person who accepts the mail could be anybody.

Note that all the above applies to Registered Post too, now known as Special Delivery. The only difference is that SD mail is segregated from normal mail on its way to the address and has a better chance of not getting lost in the system.