Letter to Pennsylvania Avenue, Cheltenham ends up in America

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Le ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TRUCK driver Andrew Rawcliffe is furious with Royal Mail after an important letter addressed to his home in Pennsylvania Avenue, Hester's Way was sent to Pennsylvania in America.

Mr Rawcliffe received the letter – which contained important information about a job he was about to start – a month after it was posted by recruitment agency Trevail Employment Group.

But rather then being sent from one side of the town to the other, the mail had been on a trans-Atlantic trip.

It arrived at Mr Rawcliffe's home bearing postmarks showing that it had been sent all the way to Pennsylvania in America.

The 44-year-old said the mistake by Royal Mail could have meant he missed out on the job because the envelope contained important time sheets.

Mr Rawcliffe was awaiting details of work with cladding contractor BBS Ltd, based in Swindon Village.

"I don't know how Royal Mail got it so wrong," he said.

"Travail has put my full address on the envelope correctly so it was Royal Mail who messed up.

"It did not even have an air mail stamp on it.

"It could have been a scenario where I missed out on the job because of not getting the letter.

"Fortunately I went into Trevail a few days before I was due to start to find out what was going on, so I didn't miss out."

Mr Rawcliffe, who is also a self employed builder and has lived in Cheltenham for 20 years, said he now plans to contact Royal Mail to complain about the mistake.

"I want to know how they managed to get it so badly wrong," he said. "I still can't quite believe it happened."

Royal Mail spokeswoman Val Bodden apologised for the error and encouraged Mr Rawcliffe to report the problem to customer services.

She said: "We are sorry to hear of the problems Mr Rawcliffe has experienced with mail sent to his address in Pennsylvania Avenue.

"The overwhelming majority of the 54 million items handled by Royal Mail on a daily basis arrive safely and on time.

"Every item of mail is important to us and we are always disappointed to learn of any delay.

"We would urge Mr Rawcliffe to contact our customer services team on 08457 740740 or via the website at royalmail.com with the full details of the specific incident so that the complaint can be properly logged and investigated."

[fishtank]

The real question is...
What dickhead decided to name a street in Cheltenham.....Pennsylvania Avenue?

[DGP1]

Well, I'm glad he doesn't make ANY mistakes, we all know most drivers are not the best in the world but he seems to be perfect, maybe RM could employ him and his infallibility to greatly improve things.

[Mr Rush]

We get the opposite here at Christmas in the PA postcode - the outward bin on IPS is usually filled with stuff for Pennsylvania. The machines see PA and then the numbers from the zip code and mistake it for a PA postcode.

[Hybrid]

Yay for modernisation,bring back the more accurate manual sorting.Some of the missorted mail i see coming through our DO i never would have seen 20 year ago!