Royal Mail to change ‘discriminatory’ postal redirection

♦ Royal Mail is looking to overhaul its redirection service after unmarried couples complained it discriminated against them.

The postal service charges per surname for having mail redirected when people move home. Citizens Advice, the consumer charity, said this meant Royal Mail would charge double if couples in the same household had different surnames.

It said more than half (55 per cent) of those who moved house in the last two years had different surnames. In response, Royal Mail agreed a different pricing structure was needed and said it was “working on the detail”.

Royal Mail charges £33.99 per surname for three months of redirected post and £66.99 for 12 months. Couples with different surnames are charged twice, penalising unmarried couples, spouses who keep their own names, and children and relatives with different surnames.

Adding just one surname made the redirection service the world’s most expensive, said Gillian Guy, of Citizens Advice. “It has increased redirection prices but not the structure that assumes families always share the same surname,” she added.