AIBU to think postcode isn't everything and this parcel should've arrived!

[SatsumaSatsuma]

I ordered a parcel for DN for Xmas...Correct house number, road and town. But...I made 2 errors with the postcode ( which is similar to my old one, so I guess I typed wrong digit down on auto pilot). It got returned to the mail order company as 'no such address'. AIBU to think ' no such address' is a ridiculous thing to say in these circs? In correct post code, yes, but no such address? I can google the address with house number , rd and town and bam...up comes a pic of their house! But Royal Mail says it doesn't exist.

[SatsumaSatsuma]

Ps it's in Bornemouth so hardly an unknown small town!

[ISeeYouShiverWithAntici]

I suppose their computer sorting thingie eouldnt recognise it as a valid address cos the pc didnt match the rest?

[SatsumaSatsuma]

'Bournemouth' I did spell it correctly,lol

[BillyNotQuiteNoMates]

I've posted letters with the wrong postcode on them, in the past, and they have always arrived. I think that now, most companies ask you to enter your postcode and then select the address, I don't know, but I can imagine that this might well cause an issue with their computer system.

[Scholes34]

Not unreasonable. We were given the wrong postcode when we moved in - the one for the other side of the street, ending AN, when it should be AW. We still have mail with this postcode on. An odd number house with an AN postcode doesn't exist, but our postie is a person, with a brain, and he thinks and he manages to deliver our mail. Parcels find their way here too. Things go wrong when it's left to a machine/computer.

[Enb76]

Pass on your postcode you're not properly addressed without it.

You can address something with just the house number and postcode and it will get to you. The rest of the address is convention and pointless as far as the Post Office is concerned, they don't use it to sort the post. It will be in a sorting office somewhere in the address not recognised pile. You can give them a call and they'll get a Miss Marple to have a look for you.

[IrisWildthyme]

In those circs I'm afraid I think YAB a teeny bit U - with no postcode at all it would probably have got there, but with the wrong postcode they have no way of knowing whether you wrote down the right postcode for the destination but the wrong road name, or vice versa, and it is IMO the correct thing to do to return to sender rather than to guess which bit of the address should be taken as correct - post people aren't telepathic!

[SatsumaSatsuma]

Thanks. Iris, I think the problem is that it isn't 'post people' but computers that aren't psychic. A person would be able to hazard a guess which bit is correct. There are only 2 streets with this name in the country. The other is in London. It reminds me of when you do a product search internet shopping and it comes up with 'no item found' because you put in singular instead of plural, or something silly.

[SatsumaSatsuma]

Actually, never mind psychic. They're not 'smart'

[Eminybob]

Yanbu. My dad was using a wrong postcode for me for years. There weren't even the right number of letters in it! But I always got everything including parcels. Your post office should be able to find your address, even if you left the postcode off completely.

[DeWe]

My parents had a long spate (about 6 months) of letters (sometimes important) coming completely correctly address, but to a Mr. Whitehouse (not their name)

After a certain amount of searching they found that Mr. Whitehouse's road name was the same, but had accidently been given their postcode. So lots of automatic things were correcting the town rather than the postcode.

Of course Mr. Whitehouse was going spare wondering where all his bank statements, pay slips, etc. were going.

You would think that it would have occurred to someone that the town was more likely to be correct than the postcode. But apparently not.

[stinkysox]

Pil got a xmas card delivered. On the envelope it had their name, and area where they live. (quite a large area)
No street name or number, never mind postcode, and it arrived!
They get a lot of mail apparently, and someone in the sorting office recognised their name!

[Belacoros]

Postcode kind of is everything. You need the right number and the right postcode. The rest is arbitrary.

[Pipbin]

I can beat that Stinky. My dad once got a letter delivered by the post man with just his first name on it!

Turns out the person posting it meant to put it through their door but by mistake put it in the post box as the walked past. It is a very small village and when the postman emptied the post box they saw this letter, there wouldn't have been much in there, and realised it was for my dad, so he delivered it with his next round.

And I agree with what Bel said. I once sent out stacks of post for a club with my return address as just my postcode and house number. I got return to sender stuff like that.

[BreconBeBuggered]

Conversely, every now and again we get letters for someone with the same surname as us, living at the same number in a similarly-named street, in a town 15 miles away. The postcode is hers, not ours, so clearly there's capacity for human error in the system.

[Pipbin]

The other extreme is that I once had a postcode for my house number, street name, town, but in Australia not the uk!

[Caitlin17]

I'm sitting in my house at no.x , somewhere in EdinburghCrescent with a letter addressed to no.x, exactly the same place name but ending in Terrace Edinburgh,with the correct postcode for the Terrace address which has been delivered to me. This happens not infrequently so it's not just the post code they use to sort mail.

[TheWomanTheyCallJayne]

My dad recently sent me a birthday card with an incorrect postcode and it got it. He wrote, for example, LP5when in fact we're LP25. It still got here. Presumably because someone real looked at it

[AdoraBell]

I think the computer didn't recognise the address and rejected it.

Sometimes when it's up To a person it works, DH once recieved a letter from over seas that just had his first Name and Colchester, England on the envelope.

But then we moved into a new build with in 5 minutes walking distance from the post oficina and the supermarket delivery didn't arrive because even with the correct post code the post office staff, when the delivery driver asked them, had no clue where the address was.

[TheWomanTheyCallJayne]

I guess small villages and rural communities are more likely to have postmen who know their people. Mine will see me down the road and ask me if I want to post there as he doesn't like to disturb the dog unnecessarily. (Not because of fingers as we have a post cage)

[Nousernameforme]

I did christmas temping at a sorting office once. I think the trouble is you have given the wrong postcode rather than left one off. We always went by the postcode first if there wasn't one you go to the address next
So it would of gone to the sorting bit that deals with that postcode and those local to it and the address wouldn't be listed there. So unless a postie who was dealing with it happened to know that the road had a different postcode not impossible but not to be expected if it is outside of the area they work it wouldn't of been sorted correctly.

[EssexGurl]

My dad had our post code wrong for a while. All cards, letters arrived - but did take a few days longer. My birthday card was delayed by a week! So not great to have wrong post code but IME it should not stop delivery - just delay it slightly.

[MaidOfStars]

I can beat that Stinky. My dad once got a letter delivered by the post man with just his first name on it

I have had almost the same. Just before Christmas, the postman delivered a loose birthday card, without the corresponding envelope, and just the inside message "Happy Birthday X" to go on.

Ignoring the fact that some fucker had opened the card, I was mightily impressed by the postman. I assume he had remembered delivering other birthday cards to my address, with that name (a very common one, BTW).

OP, postcode is everything. I use the full address for the recipient of any letters/parcels, but the return address (which I jot on the back of everything) is just a surname/house number/postcode.