We nearly all move Property in our adult Life and You'd think the Mail will follow you to your New address ,after ringing all the Contacts you can.
But thats all well and good (Takes a Few days to sort with some people )
What about the Items due to you which are already in the System and the New resident Is handling your Mail and Recieving your Parcel from the Mailman as well as their own
If its a misdelivered letter 1-off I Take it back to the Main post office to be resorted
And Being a bit Nosey find out the forwarding address(or contact Number) of the Last Resident (Thats a Good Neighbor)

The third way involves spending Some money(about $20 some years ago) And that is to Inform the Local office to put a "Stop" on the Mail and it getd diverted to your New address

Only Bad thing is it is only good for a fixed time then any mail/parcels which has not been Informed /diverted will resume going to the Old address

Have seen many people coming Back "home" to see if the Mailman has delivered anything And Going Home with a boxful addressed to them
And The "Return to sender" ect. Method Is only good for Junkmail. And B) you surely have to pay postage on it

So do devote a while telling People where you are going telling them to send there in future and get a stop/divert on the Ones you have no contact for (From the Mail sorting Office) That way you will only have 1 or 2 to pick up at most

Here are Many "Mail redirect" services (512K links) to browse through Some free, others give Better advice and tips than me

To the best of my knowledge, most people who move (or change residences) in the US know to make the US Postal Service aware that they are moving, what their new address will be, and when the new address should be in effect. I also don't think there is any charge for this. This looks like a solution in search of problem to me.

If thats the Case with the US of a No Fee redirect thats a Good thing DG... The UK Post Service are like the Government charge a fee for the Privilege

Dorian's right about the USPS. You just fill out a forwarding packet and they re-route all of your mail automatically, it doesn't go to your old house at all. Unfortunately, the man who moved from our house seems to have neglected to do that, so we are still getting his mail on a regular basis...

quote:

Originally posted by Elexina:
Dorian's right about the USPS. You just fill out a forwarding packet and they re-route all of your mail automatically, it doesn't go to your old house at all.

That's how Royal Mail do it too but you pay a fee for all your post to be diverted.You pay for a given period of diversion,which is renewable. The only problem is that there may be someone who would send a letter but rarely, but when they do it's important. Murphy's Law dictates that the one day they do send a letter will be after the redirection expires, however long the redirection has been for Then the letter goes via the undelivereds office, who'll trace you through records.

Gee...if the US Postal Service charged this fee for people who moved, maybe they wouldn't have to increase our postage every year or two

quote:

Originally posted by gizmogram:
Gee...if the US Postal Service charged this fee for people who moved, maybe they wouldn't have to increase our postage every year or two

Why do you think you have what the US Postal Service calls 'forever stamps'? They've cottoned on to what happens elsewhere. In France we've had these for decades and in Britain for a good many years. Nobody knows what a first or second class stamp costs: there is no price printed on them. For all we know, the postal services could be raising the price every month. We don't notice because we just buy a book of 1st class or 2nd class stamps which may be only six of the large stamps, ten of the ordinary and up to a hundred of any.It'll be billed in with other groceries or newspapers and magazines (in France the purchase is always at a tobacconist who is usually a newsagent too), since we rarely buy them at a Post Office. At the Post Office we're not likely to be buying them separately but when posting a parcel,and handing over a £5 or £10 note and not counting the change One way or another, we're not conscious of the cost.

Any increase is what Britons call 'a stealth tax', a charge which we are not expected to notice.

The Royal Mail, which is technically a private enterprise, never will make money on ordinary private mail. It being in profit is a question of how much it can make on bulk posting by big organisations and on special services.That's a problem for the Royal Mail because, private enterprise though it is, it is the only provider that the ordinary citizen deals with. Other organisations can concentrate on the profitable stuff and they are hot competition for the Post Office on that, without the loss-making private mail.