Unfortunately, it probably happened to everyone a situation where we did not find any advice letter in the mailbox, and then it turned out that the letter or package returned to the sender.

What is the reason for this? The matter, of course, is not clear, we can only guess what happened. There are several possibilities:

• The letter carrier made a mistake and dropped the advice letter in the wrong box
• The letter carrier did not issue an advice note at all
• The notice was dropped in the mailbox, but someone took it out of it
• The notice is illegible, contains incorrect data of the recipient

Of course, theoretically the process is as follows:

1. There is a registered mail or package to us, the letter carrier does not find us at the premises.
2. The letter carrier writes an advice letter and drops it in our mailbox. We have 7 days to collect from the post office.
3. After 7 days, if we do not pick up the letter or package, the letter carrier throws a repeat advice letter in our mailbox, reminding us of the letter or package to be picked up. We again have 7 days to collect our property from the Post Office.
4. After 14 days in case of non-receipt, our correspondence is returned to the sender.

So it follows that if we do not receive the first advice letter, we will definitely receive a second notice. Practice shows, however, that in some cases we are faced with situations where no advice letter arrives, or alternatively a second advice letter arrives, but delayed, after the date for receipt, where there was a return to sender.

An additional word of explanation is due to the above process, as not everything is obvious.

The letter carrier writes a note with his own hand the first time, in a situation where he theoretically does not find us at the premises. Theoretically, because in practice it happens that we are at the premises, and still the letter carrier does not show up at our place. Handwriting an advice letter is a weak point in the process, the letter carrier is in a hurry, often writes quickly and indistinctly, there is a lot of room for mistakes.

On the second attempt, after 7 days, we get a re-advice, which is printed out and given to the letter carrier before he goes out to the area to deliver the mail. This means so much that the letter carrier no longer has to write out the avizo in his own hand, and in addition, he no longer has a letter or package with him for us, he only has an avizo, which should immediately be placed in our mailbox.

So what can we do in practice if an advice letter has not reached us?

In practice, not much, the most important thing - a package or letter via the Polish Postal Service will certainly not come back to us again. You can only try to communicate with the sender to send to us again.

Complaint

The Polish Post Office provides form online to file complaints, where we can complain about the actions of the Polish Post Office, officials from a particular post office or letter carrier.

Having the number of registered letter or parcel we can check on the website of the Polish Post Office by emonitoring When the letter carrier according to the Polish Post placed an advice letter in our mailbox.

It is worth noting that at least some of the letter carriers (if not all of them so far) are equipped with a GPS transmitter, so when complaining about the lack of an advice note, we will receive information that, for example, the letter carrier was at the indicated address on a given day and at a given time.

In the case of blocks of flats, it doesn't really change much, as the letter carrier could be in the cage and drop an advice letter to the neighbors, but not to us. In the case of single-family houses, this is important information as to whether he actually arrived at our address.

If we are dealing with an important registered letter, the non-receipt of which has caused adverse legal consequences for us, it is worth finding out whether there is also a surveillance camera of, for example, a housing community at the place where the letterbox is located. 

There have been positive for citizens to resolve legal disputes in court, where if a citizen managed to prove that an advice letter was actually not placed in the box, the negative legal consequences were overruled.

Prevention

Preventing similar situations in the future is equally important. We encourage you to try the free service of the Polish Postal Service eINFO:advice.

It works in such a way that when we are again theoretically not at home, the letter carrier does not leave a paper avizo in our mailbox. Instead, when he returns to the post office to account for delivered and undelivered letters or parcels, the postal computer system generates for us an electronic notification avizo, which is sent to our email or text message address.

This is so much better than the traditional avizo, because it will certainly not be "dropped" in the neighbor's mailbox, taken by someone, we will avoid unclear handwriting, where it is also easy to make a mistake. In addition, it is not the letter carrier who is in a hurry who generates these avizo, but the clerk at the post office, so there is a better chance that the action will definitely be performed.

However, there are a few things to be aware of when it comes to electronic advisories:

1. Practice shows that this doesn't always work, i.e. sometimes, despite the declaration to switch to electronic advices, we will still receive (or not) such handwritten by the letter carrier.
2. Unfortunately, it happens all the time that electronic advices do not arrive, are not generated, or through no fault of the user end up, for example, in the SPAM folder.
3. An electronic advice letter theoretically replaces a regular advice letter written by a letter carrier. So if everything is working properly, you will only receive an electronic advisory, a paper advisory should not be expected.

Summary

In practice, it is not technically possible to be 100% sure that an advice letter will reach us. It is also difficult to enforce the postal service to admit that the advice letter was not delivered, which can entail serious legal consequences for us as citizens. This is of particular importance for entrepreneurs, where failure to collect a registered letter from the Tax Office, Social Security or the Court does not result in a cessation of operations, which can end in criminal sanctions, fines, interest and other consequences. 

In the case of entrepreneurs, we recommend that every effort be made to ensure that offices contact us electronically, i.e. using e-mail, the EPUAP box, the address of which can be published, for example, in CEIDG, messages through the ZUS PUE system. We also look with hope in the direction of e-Delivery, which is officially supposed to bring us into the 21st century in dealing with officials, and the use of which will not depend on the goodwill of officials, but will be their duty.

You can find more about e-Delivery in our post here.