sounders

Hi!
We are relocating back to the UK from the US after seven years. We are hoping to do this sometime in October. Does anybody know how we go about having our post redirected from our current address to an address in the UK. I have had a look on the USPS website, but their system seems to be for forwarding within the US. I've also read about private mail forwarding companies and wondered whether anybody had used such a company and could recommend one. I'd like to know how they actually work in practice and how much they charge for this service. Any advice or suggestions most welcome!

rebs

We've just moved back to the UK after a couple of years in the US. We've successfully had our mail forwarded by USPS. You can't set it up over the web, or on the phone though, that can only handle US addresses. You need to go into a post office and complete a form and mail it off.

When I did ours, we didn't get any kind of confirmation, so I was concerned that it had not been set up - a bit of checking at the post office and calling the specialist team and I was able to find out that it had been set up. I know it's working as we have had mail delivered here that has been forwarded on...

Best of all - it's completely free

sounders

Thanks so much for the reply. It's good to know that this can be so straight forward. Is there much of a time delay between receiving letters in the UK and the time they would have been delivered to you in the US? I was just thinking about receiving important mail promptly enough once we move.

Anybody else out there used the USPS forwarding service from the US to the UK? What are your experiences with the service? Anybody used any other method of forwarding mail?

Hope life back in the UK is treating you well Rebs

Marmalade

I'm confused, because I have asked the USPS about this and they know nothing about this. I am leaving tomorrow to move back to Scotland, so time is if the essence. They are looking into this for me as I type.

How did you set this up? Who did you talk to? And, was it a while ago? I ask this, as they did mention that maybe they did that in the past, but not now. Very frustrating if they have stopped. Do you still get your mail forwarded?

Sorry for all the questions

dunroving

Hey, Marm, don't panic. You (or someone else) can pick up the form, you fill it in, then mail it to the USPS. So if you don't have time before you leave, get someone else to pick up the form for you and mail it to you and then you can send it in from the UK.

When I left, I didn't know where I'd be living. I filled in and signed relevant parts of the form and gave it to a neighbour. She picked up my mail for a while (and subsequently put it in a big envelope and sent to me), and when I knew my new address, I emailed it to her, she filled in that part of the form and put it in the mailbox.

It's free and lasts for maybe 6 months, I think.

Marmalade

Thanks Dunroving, but what the hell is the form called, because the people at my post office have no idea!

Derrygal

You should be able to go online at the USPS website and fill out the form online. I honestly think it is a requirement of Post Office employees to be unhelpful and stupid (and miserable)! I have had nothing but problems recently mailing things back to the UK. I hate going to the Post Office. Customer service has gone to the dogs.................

Marmalade

The form only has enough space for a US address, I have looked at it. It doesn't work for UK addresses. If anyone can show me where to find it that I can fill our an entire UK address I would be very, very grateful

And, yes, unhelpful seems to be the way with these people at the Post Office, no matter what side of the ocean you are on. You would think I was committing a crime trying to mail a big box to Britain (cost me an arm and a leg, I should have been the rude one).

sounders

So from the replies so far it looks like the USPS way may not be as straight forward as it at first appeared! I'll ask in my local post office tomorrow and see what they say.

Does anybody have experience of using any of the forwarding mail companies who advertise online? Some of these seem to have some sort of accreditation from the USPS. They claim to receive mail and be able to scan it to you online and then you can authorise them to send on only the bits of mail that you actually want sent on. What they don't tell you is how much this all costs. Obviously if the USPS system exists and is free I'll use them instead, (fingers crossed!)

dunroving

I think I just asked my mailman for a mail forwarding form ... yes, I seem to recall the online form only allowed a US address, but the paper form had room for an international address.

rebs

You are right about the form.... I just squeezed our UK address into the form as best I could.

I was concerned as the form (I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact number of the form) mentions getting a confirmation card which I never rec'd.

I then started to chase things up - I called the central place (number on the website) and they were no help - they couldn't trace our form or details & they couldn't input an international address.

I then went into our local post office, who I have to say were marvelously helpful...

If you look on the form, it has some kind of generic address on the front that it goes to, but the guy in our post office told me where they go locally and gave me a number of the local specialist technical peeps at that local office... once I called them, they were able to track down my details and we were already in the system - hooray!

So, it did take a bit of sorting out, but we got there in the end.

This was about 6 or 7 weeks ago - we left the US on 6th July.

It seems to take about 5 days or so for mail to get to us I think, but I've not been paying too much attention - I made sure we had gone paperless on as much as possible beforehand so there is really not much mail to come through..

Hope this helps a wee bit

Just thought of one other thing which may help - USPS seem to call this kind of thing change of address rather than mail forwarding. Mail forwarding is something else for them - usually temporary, so that might help when chatting to them...

sounders

Okay, so I went to my local Post Office and explained about our relocation. She gave me a PS Form 3575, which seems to be the standard forwarding change of address order and the format of the form is set up for US addresses, however when I phoned the telephone number on there I was told to just put in my UK address as best as possible on this form.

From the form it looks as though First-Class mail, priority mail and express mail will be forwarded free for 12 months, Newspapers and magazines for 60 days free, but that packages will be charged for on receipt (don't know how this would be done). Anyway the main thing is that it looks like most of the important stuff can be forwarded free of charge via USPS. Sounds like good news!

erose67

Packages would be held at the Post Office in England that delivers your mail and you'd have to pay the excess postage before you could get it....just like if someone mails you something without putting enough postage on

Bevm

Wow. It costs from Canada, but it's still easy to do.

I do remember when it was free in Canada, and they even gave you postage paid change of address postcards to send to people.

Bev

erose67

I'm actually surprised that it is free as postage to the UK is obviously more than postage within the U.S.