Swiss Post - Letter sent to wrong country

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
21
ZIP code is the name for the post code in the USA, they are the same thing.

22
Thanks. I wrote some rubbish in my last post. Thanks for clarifying and I edited my post.

23
I've had experience of this with Royal Mail.

When we lived in Scotland I used to manage an online shop for a fashion designer in Edinburgh, it sold bags made from recycled materials and Harris Tweed. I had an order from a customer in Austria which I shipped the same day, then the customer contacted me 2 weeks later to say their purchase hadn't been received so I chased it up. It had mistakenly been sent to Australia , all that happened was it got sent back to a Royal Mail depot in the UK where it was shipped back out to the correct address. Must admit, I did tear Royal Mail off a strip over the phone though as I was really annoyed that Austria and Australia could get mixed up

24
There is a special desk at Vienna airport for dealing with passengers who arrive there but who thought they were en-route to Australia.

25

Nope https://apnews.com/article/fact-chec…r-337704614289

26
That's a shame. It's a great story. I should have checked!

27
I have health insurance provided by my ex-employer. The employer has my address and country correct; the health insurance company managed to input (mangle) the country to AU, not AT, and so all their mail (and my insurance cards) go around down under before some bright bulb realises there is no "Großenkneten" town in AU.

28
I do the same with Switzerland now. Years ago, only "CH" was once written on something and it was delivered to somewhere in Chile.

29
I believe that is actually at Sydney NS airport. That is Sydney, Nova Scotia.

When I give my address to foreigners I give my postal code as “CH-1277”. It certainly doesn’t hurt.

30
International mail is regulated by the UPU (Universal Postal Union) , part of the UN ecosystem, now based in Bern. Their original headquarters in Geneva having become too small, are now the main Swiss postoffice of the town. The UK is a founding member since 1875.

The formal name of the country, is GREAT BRITAIN , for the purposes of international post. Formally, it is the " United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man ". But just like the Olympic Games, the inclusion of the last two territories makes UK less appropriate than GB , so have stuck with that.

This is why eg the Swiss Post website (under calculate postage) lists as "Grande Bretagne" or "Grossbritannian", and elsewhere.

PS: The UPU also monitors traffic, and deals with payments between countries, if more post travels in one direction than the other. For this they require the country name written on every international-use stamp, although each country can vary its name, as long as it is the latin script, (eg Helvetia). To honor the UK for being the inventor of the postage stamp, the UK stamps are the only ones which do not need to mention the country name.

There was a period 40 years ago that this was considered good and perhaps the future. But it never caught up and was never made an international standard, even worse nowadays it can interfere with the automatic postcode recognition systems and it is discouraged . The UPU actually publishes a list of countries where the country code eg CH- before the postcode must not be used, and a second list of countries who don't mind.

31

It hurts and can delay the processing. Only add the ISO-Code to the zip code of the destination country when it is actually used in the destination country. If not, it can messes sorting and delay the delivery of your mail. The correct format for Switzerland is without the ISO-Code.
See UPU https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/Po…Unit/cheEn.pdf and also Swiss Post https://www.post.ch/-/media/portal-o…gestaltung.pdf
https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/do…ing-Issues.pdf

You can look up each countries addressing scheme for international mailing at the website of the Universal Postal Union:
https://www.upu.int/en/Postal-Soluti…sing-Solutions

Example Croatia uses it as part of the ZIP/Postcode: https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/Po…Unit/hrvEn.pdf

According to the UPU (which I linked to) the correct designation for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is UNITED KINGDOM or ROYAUME-UNI . Not UK, not GB, not GREAT BRITAIN, and not United Kingdom.

https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/Po…Unit/gbrEn.pdf
https://www.upu.int/UPU/media/upu/Po…Unit/gbrFr.pdf

Edit: For good measure you might also use in addition the official French designation. https://www.upu.int/fr/solutions-pos…ons-dadressage But this might not help much with the AUSTRIA/AUTRICHE vs. AUSTRALIA/AUSTRALIE confusion.

32

Thank you!

So Croatia is a yes, Switzerland a no for the ISO-code addition to the zip code. Live and learn.

33
Thanks for your help everyone.

To clarify: I wrote United Kingdom on the envelope, writing the address exactly as the UK Passport Office put it in the E-Mail. The person at the post office put it as "Grande Bretagne" as this is what's on my receipt.

I called Swiss Post this morning and they've opened an investigation. My passport has today been floating around Queens and is currently at a USPS Distribution Centre in Jamaica, NY .

Hoping that between the Swiss post enquiry and somebody spotting the error in NY, the passport will on it's way to the UK soon... I'm also going to contact the passport office tomorrow to see if there's anything they can do.

I'm wondering if the person at the post office put the "franking" sticker over the written address on the envelope, possible covering "Kingdom"... as I saw that it may have covered the address slightly. But I'm just speculating here.

34

So it’s probably on it’s way back. I had some item transiting there.
https://www.mapquest.com/us/new-york…-jfk-371814002
It’s not Jamaica

35
I'm hoping so - it's close to JFK so hope it hops on a flight to London shortly...

36
It normally sorts itself. I ordered an item from Colorado, it went to the west coast, then east coast, then it went back to LA, it eventually ended up on the plane to Europe.

37

Why “Kingdom” not “KINGDOM” ? Also, UNITED KINGDOM should be on the very last line of the address, while the franking sticker goes to the very top of the letter, it should not be able to cover even the slightest part of it.

See also the clearance requirements from Swiss Post:
German: https://www.post.ch/-/media/portal-o…gestaltung.pdf
French: https://www.post.ch/-/media/portal-o…=12&sc_lang=fr

38
Airfreight, including mail, doesn’t always move by the most logical route. In some cases it might even move by RFS (Road Feeder Service). And unlike an airline ticket the actual routing can change depending on the circumstances.

But in this case the item has been misrouted. But Jamaica is the USPS JFK handling centre. With multiple JFK-LHR/LGW rotations it likely is either on, or will soon be, on a flight to UK.

39

I don’t want to be the devil’s advocate but having lots of experience with USPS, the mail will likely be returned back to OP in Switzerland. A NIXIE ‘Return to Sender - Insufficient Address - Unable to forward’ alert is typically marked on a yellow label affixed to a mailpiece that cannot be delivered because of an incorrect delivery address. The label is easily removable. Due to regulatory compliance, it’s very unlikely that USPS will forward it to UK.

From USPS website:
Postal employees and our high-speed equipment have only a brief second to look at an envelope, read information and enter it for processing. Mail with insufficient information or mail that has insufficient postage is rejected and returned to the sender with the endorsement “Return to Sender." This endorsement is very prominent and is designed to be eye-catching. For this reason, we ask that any returned mail, upon being mailed again, be enclosed in a separate (new) envelope with new postage to ensure prompt processing. This also helps to avoid mail being returned to the sender a second time.

A full list of NIXIE return to sender reasons and their definitions can be found here: https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/507.htm#wp1218184

40
Well, there are plenty of JFK-GVA/ZRH flights too.