Unfortunately, we have probably all been in a situation where we did not find a postal advice note in our letter box and then found out that the letter or parcel had been returned to sender.

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

• The postman made a mistake and put the advice note in the wrong box
• The postman did not issue an advice note at all
• A notice was dropped in the mailbox, but someone took it out of it
• The notification is illegible, incorrect data of the addressee.

In theory, of course, the process is as follows:

1. There is a registered mail or parcel to us, the postman does not find us at the premises.
2. The postman writes out an advice note and drops it in our letterbox. We have 7 days to collect from the post office.
3. After 7 days, if a letter or parcel is not collected, the postman will put a second reminder notice in our letter or parcel box. 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.

It therefore follows that, if we do not receive the first advice note, we will certainly receive a second notice. Practice shows, however, that in some cases we are faced with situations where no advice note is received, or a second advice note is received, but delayed, after the date for receipt, where it has been returned to the sender.

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

The postman writes a note with his own hand the first time, when theoretically we are not at home. Theoretically, because in practice it can happen that we are at the property and the postman still does not turn up. The postman is in a hurry, often writes quickly and indistinctly, and there is plenty of room for error.

The second time, after 7 days, we receive a repeat advice note, which is printed out and handed to the postman before he goes out to deliver the post. This means that the postman no longer has to write out the advice note by hand and, in addition, no longer carries a letter or parcel for us, he only has the advice note, which should immediately be placed in our mailbox.

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

In practice, not much, most importantly - a parcel or letter via the Polish Post Office will certainly not come back to us. You can only try to communicate with the sender to send it to us again.

Complaint

The Polish Post Office shall make available form online complaint service, where we can complain about the performance of the Polish Post Office, officials from a particular post office or postman.

Having the number of a registered letter or parcel we can check on the website of the Polish Post Office by emonitoring when the postman, according to the Polish Post Office, placed an advice letter in our letterbox.

It is worth noting that at least some (if not all) postmen and postwomen are equipped with a GPS transmitter, so when making a complaint about a lack of notification, we will receive information that, for example, the postman was at the indicated address on a given day and at a given time.

In the case of blocks of flats, this does not really make much difference, as the postman may have been in the cage and thrown the advice note to the neighbours, but not to us. In the case of detached houses, it is important to know whether the postman has actually arrived at our address.

If you are confronted with an important registered letter which, if not collected, has had adverse legal consequences for you, it is worth finding out whether there is also a surveillance camera at the location of the letterbox, e.g. of the housing association. 

There have been positive court settlements of legal disputes for citizens, where if the citizen managed to prove that the 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.

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

This is so much better than a traditional advice letter that it will certainly not be 'dropped' into a neighbour's box, taken by someone, avoiding the blurred handwriting where it is also easy to make a mistake. In addition, it is not the postman, who is in a hurry, who generates this awizo, but the clerk at the post office, so there is a better chance that the action will definitely be carried out.

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

1. Practice shows that this does not always work, i.e. sometimes, in spite of the declaration to switch to an electronic advice letter, we will still receive (or not) one handwritten by the postman.
2. Unfortunately, it is still the case that an electronic advice letter does not arrive, is not generated or, through no fault of the user, ends up in the SPAM folder, for example.
3. The electronic advice letter theoretically replaces the ordinary advice letter written by the postman. So if everything is working properly, you will only receive an electronic advice letter, a paper advice letter is not to 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 an advice letter has not been delivered, which may entail serious legal consequences for us as citizens. This is of particular importance for entrepreneurs, where the failure to collect a registered letter from the Tax Office, ZUS or the Court does not result in the cessation of activities that may end in criminal sanctions, fines, interest and other consequences. 

As far as entrepreneurs are concerned, we recommend making every effort to ensure that offices contact us electronically, i.e. using e-mail, an EPUAP mailbox, the address of which can be published e.g. in CEIDG, messages via the ZUS PUE system. We are also looking forward to e-Communications, which are officially supposed to bring us into the 21st century in our contacts with officials and the use of which will not depend on the goodwill of officials, but will be their duty.

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