# Royal Mail loses 14.5 million items a year, says Postwatch

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/05/03/royal-mail-loses-145-million-items-year-says-postwatch/
- Published: 2004-05-03T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**If your direct mail campaigns aren’t performing to target, that might be because
your appeal letters are among the millions of items lost by the Royal Mail each 
year.**

Postal watchdog organisation Postwatch claims that 14.5 million letters are lost
every year in the UK by the Royal Mail: 60% of them are delivered to the wrong house.
Once misdelivered, the chances of them being redirected are small: 5% of householders
put mail they receive for another house straight in the bin. Those people that do
put misdelivered mail back in the post or through the right letterbox can take up
to a week to do so.

Postwatch has urged consumers to complain to the Royal Mail when they receive misdelivered
mail. It says that only one in ten of those who have received mail for another house
have complained to Royal Mail about it, and as a result the Royal Mail is not aware
of the scale of the problem.

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What can charities do if they believe they are being affected? Their first contact
should be their business mail contact at the Royal Mail who handles their account.
If you don’t have one, then you might want to encourage your supporters to take 
part in Postwatch’s campaign. Given the scale of direct marketing by charities, 
any action could well benefit a whole range of charities.

Postwatch’s Web site includes a downloadable complaints form and a diary form to
help track the number of misdelivered items.

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 * **[Practical Fundraising Association launched](https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/06/09/practical-fundraising-association-launched/)**(
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