Wrote wrong country on package

[adiebob]

Hi,

can anyone give me please give me advice, I was sending a valuable item to a friend in Austria, I was rushing to get to the PO before it shut and wrote "Australia" on the address by accident. The tracking has stated "leaving Langley" since the 7th December, I have spoken to Royal Mail twice by phone they told me the package had left the UK?

I sent insured international tracked and signed, but why cant they pinpoint the item and as it has value are Royal Mail duty bound to contact Australia?

help would be much apreciated

[SpacePhoenix]

It might not have yet cleared Australian customs. Once it does it'll likely be returned to sender by Australia Post unless the town/city name exists somewhere in Australia.

[adiebob]

Thanks for the response,

Australia addresses are a completely different format they have a four digit postcode written at the very end of the address, this is always preceded with an abreviation of the destined province ie "VIC" for Victoria, "QLD" for Queensland.

I can imagine with the tens of thousands of packages per day this mix up of these two country's maybe fairly common since both start 'Austr" and have "ia" at the end! I've checked google map etc and there are no addresses remotely the same, I was hoping they may use their initiative maybe bend policy since it's such an obviouse mistake, remove the syllable "al" in Australia and you got the right place = was hoping maybe they may do just that and redirect it?

[Snaggletooth]

There is a strong chance that Australia Post will forward the item to Austria. However, in this circumstance the tracking doesn’t always work on the second leg.

[adiebob]

I hope so and thanks for your response