General Chat

The centre for undelivered items is somewhere in Ireland. They are the only ones authorised to open an envelope that doesnt have an address on the back to see where the item has come from inside.

I once had a letter returned to me that i had sent to an address where my friend wasn't staying anymore. So it went to Belfast I think, they opened it, read my address from the letter inside and sent it back to me in my original envelope with a covering letter explaining why it had been returned to me.

Florence in the hebrides

If there is a return address or a franking mark on the envelope, Royal Mal return to either the sender. If not it it sent to the national returns centre where it is opened to see if an owner can be identified. If sol, it is posted on, otherwise, or if the envelope contains newspapers, periodicals etc they are destroyed.

Twice a year I produce and send out around 400 newsletters, by post, each with my name and address label on the envelope reverse.

I have had the odd one returned almost immediately and some when I've opened them have been the newsletter of 6 months ago. Some appear to be officially returned with Royal Mail stamps on them, others a current occupier has written "not known etc" and put back in the post. I guess some may be within the paid for redirection of mail if someone moves and others not.

Once spoke to a chap by phone trying to track a lady and he said he'd put 3 or 4 newsletters back in the post to me - which never arrived. Have found the odd one with uncommon name and initials in probate records!!

Pot luck me thinks!

If an official letter it usually has a return address on the back of the envelope and
Post Office will return it. They will also do this if a private letter/card has the senders address on it. They do go to some lengths sometimes to deliver mail and parcels to people.. A good service which is sometimes not appreciated.

We had one that had the persons full name and our address, all we knew was that the person had moved to Birmingham, so wrote on the envelope please try Birmingham.

For many years we received letters from a building society to the previous owners of this house. The first few I sent on as I had the address. Then there was a long lull then they started coming again so I returned them to the BS with check records on the envelope.

There used to be somehwere (I think in Ireland) that all undelivered post was delivered to. But That was in pre Privitised days I don't know if that still exists.

I don't know for a fact, but even in a local sorting office, postmen might ask colleagues if the addressee is known to them.

I remember receiving a postcard, some years ago, which just had my name and that of the small town where I lived. There must have been some local discussion once it had arrived in the correct county after travelling from Wales.

Recently, I received yet another letter addressed to my daughter from a bank. It was not addressed to her by name, but as treasurer of a cub group from about 15 years ago. I copied the return postcode onto the front address area, crossed out our address and wrote Please check Records..

Said daughter received 3 letters in 3 weeks addressed to a man who had never lived at her address. We could tell from the franking that they were from the hospital, so might be very important, so promptly returned the first,to the hospital with Not Known at this address.... only to find another quickly arrived at the end of the week. This one, I took back to the hospital in person and handed to staff, who thanked me..... only another letter arrived within days.

You can only do your best and return any mail that's wrongly addressed.

What happens if you write not known or not at this address on it and put it back in the post box?
Where does it go, is there a system that is used to trace the person?