The DVLA are stupid [Matthew's Journal]

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One of the items in the post today is from The DVLA, addressed to the previous tenant (or one of their aliases, anyway). On the back it says "If undelivered, please do NOT return to sender".

I'm tempted to put it back in the post marked "not at this address, return to sender", and cross that text out on the back, replacing it with "what do you expect me to do with it? The Postal Services Act 2000, S84 makes it illegal to interfere with anothers' post".

But really, how stupid is that? If they mean "if undelivered, please throw away", they could damn well say that.

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There are 15 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I've seen that on other "official" (council etc.) mail, too.

Edited Date: 2008-09-01 05:23 pm (UTC)

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It does makes sense for some things which are dependent on living in a particular place (eg: council tax, electoral roll).

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That's true, actually.

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Only for correspondence which requires no action and won't be repeated, presumably; if there's any chance that their letter might be followed up with further letters or lead to legal proceedings if unanswered (as is certainly the case with a lot of council-tax paperwork), they surely do need to know if they've sent it to a nonexistent name+address pair!

Edited Date: 2008-09-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

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Well, it neatly removes any paper-trail that says that they could't get in touch with someone.

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Is that the correct interpretation of S84, though? I've read that a few times and it generally seems more plausible to me that "in the course of its transmission by post" is only intended to include the time it spends actually in the bowels of the postal system. Under that interpretation, after it comes through your door it's no longer in the course of transmission, and any action you might take such as returning it to the sender or forwarding it on would be a voluntary courtesy on your part rather than a legal requirement. (You probably still mustn't open it with intent to act to the recipient's detriment, but then you probably weren't about to.)

In this case I'd agree that returning it to sender regardless is a good idea, on the grounds that it should be their problem rather than (as far as possible) yours if their address database is inaccurate, and if lots of junk keeps coming back "not known" then this might eventually motivate them to do something about it such as fixing their database. They might want to be able to send out random crap to bogus name+address pairs without the consequences coming back through their letterbox, but you are under no obligation to gratify that selfish and unhelpful desire of theirs.

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I suspect I could open it, inspect the contents, then bin it, and claim the instructions on the envelope combined with the mis-addressing (and our lack of good forwarding address) counted as a reasonable excuse.

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I've heard it claimed that items consigned to the postal service are being transmitted until they've either reached the intended recipient or been returned to sender. This rule seems to interact badly with an instruction not to return the item to sender, however.

(I've also heard it claimed that if anyone sticks anything through your letter box by mistake, they're entitled to have it back. Apparently, it's legally useful to ask Crappaware agents whether they intended to put their catalogue through your letter box before refusing to give it back.)

Me, I'd write "not known at this address" in large letters on the front and stick it back in a pillar box. That makes it Royal Mail's problem.

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It was delivered. It was delivered incorrectly. It doesn't tell you not to return to sender if it is delivered incorrectly.

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Whilst I wouldn't particularly want to risk it, I don't think S84 actually applies. The clause which is most likely to apply is subsection 3, but this includes the qualifier "intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse". It seems to me (but perhaps not to a court?) that a reasonable excuse is to open the letter in order to determine if a car is incorrectly registered at your address, in order to avoid any potential fraud being committed and implicating you (as a resident at that address).

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Less frustrating than getting home and seeing a pile of post on the mat only to find that it was addressed to [my_number][next_road]. As I was going out to deliver it to the correct address, I saw one of the neighbours, who said they had had the same problem. What I want to know is where is *my* post. I've not had anything for several days and while I don't get huge amounts of post, I'm wondering if things have gone astray, as I seem not to have had certain things I would have expected to have arrived.

As for the undelivered bit, don't they mean "If this gets lost in the post, don't bother finding it and delivering it, we're going to send another one anyway"? In which case, sending it back marked "not at this address" will at least alert them to the fact that it ain't gonna get a positive response.

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What's so hard? Cross through the address with a biro (people send you these, through the post), write 'GONE AWAY, No forwarding address' (if that's true) or 'Gone Away: forward to XXXXXX' (if you do know the forwarding address). And drop it in a post box.

Painting the envelope pink is optional.

Pink, I guess, is the colour of the person who infringed the postal services act by leaving his keys behind:

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Cross out your address, circle the return address, and write "Mwahahahaha!" on it? :)

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Confuse them by forwarding it to the Driving Standards Agency.

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Send it back.

I understand that your reading of The Postal Services Act is correct. A number of years ago we received a number of letters from a company to somebody at our address who didn't live there, we sent them back marked "not at this address". They kept turning up. They looked like financial demands. Eventually I opened one and 'phoned the company. I got a shouting at for opening mail not addressed to me, but got thanked because the person had bought stuff and used our address as a false one and they were then able to chase him up via other routes. I don't know the outcome.

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Matthew's Journal

The DVLA are stupid

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