Drefach couple get 3,000 letters not meant for them

[POSTMAN]

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Drefach couple get 3,000 letters not meant for them as Royal Mail ordeal continues to frustrate

A DREFACH couple who have received over 3,000 letters not meant for them say an apology letter from Royal Mail is "just not good enough."

Anne Evans and her husband have been left frustrated and upset by inaction from the postal service company, who have not made arrangements to resolve the issue, even after repeated requests from Mrs Evans over the last eight years.

And despite promises and reassurance from Royal Mail that it would investigate the issue, the couple continue to receive letters addressed to houses on the Brynglas Estate to their house, called Brynglas.

"It shouldn't be a problem," says Mrs Evans.


"Because the houses on the estate have a different postcode and have house numbers in front of Brynglas.

"We post them back return to sender, but they come back through to us again.

"When I phone the number they ask me to, they say they will send someone to collect it, but quite often they never do.

"Or if I catch the postman, ask him to take it back, he just shrugs it off.

"We have asked them over and over to do something about it but they just say they will investigate and we don't hear from them again.

"Christmas time is a nightmare – we have boxes of letters that we fill up."

Royal Mail was contacted for comment by the Journal on May 15, but did not reply in time for print on June 2.

But since then, a letter of apology was sent to Mrs Evans from Customer Service Advisor Karla Rivas, saying that she was "sorry to hear about the problem you've been having with misdeliveries to your address," and offering "sincere apologies."

She also said that the full details of the complaint had been logged and reported.

But it is too little, too late for the frustrated Gwendraeth couple.

"They should have done something a long time ago," Mrs Evans said.

"How much more can a person take?

"They might as well offer me a job, I've done so much of their work.

"The worst thing is that some of these letters are clearly very important. It's not fair on us, and it's not fair on the people whose post we are getting.

"Some of them you can tell are doctors appointments or reminders for bills.

"We get letters through with very threatening sounding things on the envelope – it is quite upsetting even when they are not for us.

"It makes us worry that if someone gets the bailiffs sent around, they'll end up at our house instead. I bet they hear 'you've got the wrong address' all the time.

UPDATE: Since going to print, Royal Mail have sent this statement. A spokesperson said: "Every item of mail is important to us as we handle 58 million items a day across the UK. We will be monitoring Mrs Evans' mail closely to ensure she doesn't receive mail not intended for her address."

[greengiant]

Misdeliveries not helped perhaps by the customers house having only a name (and no number?), which is the same as the estate?

Even so, 3000 mis deliveries are rather a lot!

[wannabeek]

I would suggest that for there to have been such a massive number then they aren't probably misdeliveries at all, just badly addressed letters. If the letter says 'Mr Jones, (no number), Brynglas, Defrach' Then it'll go into their letterbox (and it should do according to the rules) even though he lives at number 17 Brynglas or wherever. Whichever duty I work I regularly get some letters with a missing number, it must be very common.