lansbury

I sent a Priority Mail envelope via USPS to my bank in the UK. It contains a rather large check (made out in Sterling), so I wanted it tracked and signed for.

It reached the UK and Royal Mail attempted to delver it, but the bank will not accept delivery. I have no idea why. It is sitting at a sorting office somewhere, while they wait for the bank to respond to a notification to come and collect it. It has now been there six days. Does anyone have any idea how I can find out who to contact to instruct the Royal Mail to send it back to me. It does have my senders address on the envelope. All I can find is a generic customer service number.

md95065

Send them a letter, perhaps?

... sorry - couldn't resist that ...

Scouse Express

I would think your first order of business would be through the USPS. They would have the means to track it, I would expect,



Jim.

dunroving

I don't think the bank has to send someone to collect it. They should be able to call the Post Office and ask them to try delivering it again. It seems this would be an easier solution (assuming you get to speak to someone at the bank who has some common sense) than getting the letter returned to you.

lansbury

Wish it were that easy. My account is handled by the online banking part of NatWest and as such the postal address is I assume an office, rather than a high street branch. If I call it is a call center that handles the call.

lansbury

Now I understand the problem. Just logged into my account to get the call center number to give Dunroving suggestion a try. Never know you might find someone sensible in a call center.

The postal address for my office has changed, since I posted the envelope. It has moved from Leeds to Edinburgh.

lansbury

I can track it online Jim, hence I know it is "held" and why. Trying to unstick it is the problem.

rebs

It will unstick in time as the Post Office will only hold it for a period of time before they return the item to sender.

Could you cancel the cheque that is in that envelope and issue a new one and send to the new address?

lansbury

That's what I was hoping the PO would have started it on its journey back to me by now. It is a cheque payable to me for a large amount going to my bank to be paid into my account. If it is lost I've got all the hassle of getting the company paying me to replace it, and they are in the UK as well.

rebs

I think it's 18 days they will hold something for before it is returned to sender, so a few days to go.

I guess you have got nothing to lose by calling the generic call centre number and seeing if it could be forwarded to the correct address?

lansbury

I think I've managed to find the sorting office in Leeds where it might be. I'll call Monday and see if they will accept the new address over the phone. I suspect not. I called NatWest call center and they will pass it on to ty and get it redirected as well. But it was an Indian guy in a call center who said that, so I will not hold my breath.

Thanks for the 18 days time frame, gives a bit of time to try and resolve things.

JAJ

The learning point for anyone else reading this is that if a package is really critical, DO NOT use the postal service. You need to use UPS, Fedex, DHL etc.

Sally Redux

I'm not sure about that. I wanted to send an important document to the UK so I went to UPS who told me I couldn't send it registered mail to the UK, then tried to look it up in a book and said it would cost 'about $100' and it wouldn't really work anyway outside the US. Therefore I used USPS. I think Lansbury's item having the wrong address would have been a problem for any carrier.

md95065

That sounds very strange - I normally use FedEx for things like that but both FedEx and UPS offer very similar services and I would be surprised if UPS doesn't have an "International priority delivery" service for around $50 or $60 for an envelope containing documents.

The advantage of using UPS or FedEx is that they track everything from source to destination and are in the business of actually making sure that shipments get delivered. I have, on occasion, had to call FedEx to change the delivery address for packages and it was never a problem - that's part of the service that you are paying for,

Sally Redux

It did seem very odd at the time I must admit.