Thursday, October 19, 2006

New Zealand Post has introduced fees for redirecting mail to a new home and also holding mail from being delivered, the fees will be introduced from November 1, 2006, unless the redirector is officially old.

The new fees will mean for the first two months you have mail redirection in place will cost NZ$20, instead of the usual free two months. It is double price for international going mail. It will cost $5 for residential users placing a hold on their mail, $10 for businesses per week.

Graham Smith, marketing general manager for New Zealand Post, said: “The Redirection service provides peace of mind for busy people moving house and protects against other people receiving private mailed information.”

New Zealand Post says the reason behind the fee introduction is because it is expensive and includes a lot of labour as it is an entirely manual process. “It involves lots of manual intervention and the reprocessing and delivery of mail and we need to recover some of the costs of providing these services,” Smith said.

Elderly have been exempted from all hold charges and given the first two months of redirection for free.

“We thought long and hard about this decision. We believe that the Redirection and Hold services still offer excellent value for money and provide our customers with a convenient way of making sure all their mail gets to them when they move, or keeping it secure when they are away from home,” said Smith.

It will cost $20 for two months redirection, $30 for four months, $45 for six months and $85 for a year, it is double for international. It will cost $125 for two months redirection for businesses, $190 for four months, $250 for six months and $475 for a year, it is, again, double for international mail.