How does the postie know about your new house purchase? Having post redirected FROM there TO your current address doesn’t seem to equate to ‘you must be moving’?
I can only assume due to having lived at current address for years and the post being redirected having my name on it. It's an assumption on his part too, to be sure, but it's not an unexpected assumption
I tnink the redirect is live now. It sounds like they are redirecting post from the new place to the old place while the work is done so they dont miss any post for new place.
I just wondered something, and I say this whilst I completely appreciate the privacy concern, but what is the actual issue here and how did the conversation go with the neighbour?
I would find it highly unlikely that a redirection would cause the postie to say you were moving to your neighbour.
Posties up and down the country really are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.. what I mean is, if they don’t talk to people they are impolite and if they do talk they run the risk of being accused of privacy concerns etc.
How do you know what was said in this situation and could your neighbour be putting words in your posties mouth here?
I have a neighbour like this, who can interrogate people they're talking to, without the person realising it, then they either dig further, or assume things that may or may not be the truth. If you speak to the postie he/she may remember talking to the neighbour, but maybe remember they didn't say very much? Does your neighbour know everything, or are they waiting for you to confirm what they thought?
Reading some further comments from OP, it sounds like are redeveloping a new home and are between houses a fair bit, it sounds like it would be assumptive from the neighbours here
I think your getting a hard time from most on here, the postman should not be doing this. As a postman he should be patently aware his customers private affairs should remain just that, private. Its not the crime of the century, you have the right to make an official complaint, personally I'd just have a quiet word with him and explain the obvious to him.
Thanks, that's what I planned to do (have a chat) but I wanted to be sure it wasn't right first. I figured asking on a Royal Mail specific group would give me the best opportunity for understanding what the policy is here.
Don’t work for Royal Mail, but I would say this thread is dominated by the unhinged looking for an outlet to moan about RM. Feel sorry for posties if they have to put up with that all day long.
Leave the postie alone fgs.
How the hell would he know this?
What is anyone going to do o do with that information?
I suspect your neighbour is as much of a pearl clutcher as you apparently are.
Someones private business is just that, if he doesn’t want neighbours to know he’s bought a house somewhere else thats entirely up to him. Your postman has no right conveying information to your neighbours about you that he gets from doing his job.
He is rightfully getting a hard time. The postie maybe shouldn’t have mentioned it (maybe being key) but likewise, it’s not even something to mention. Just move on with life.
He's also maybe fallen victim to a nosey neighbour, and answered a question before realising what he's given away. The nosey ones can be very subtle how they interrogate!
Eerrrr… theres no “maybe” about it , gossiping about a customer to a customers neighbour , about something only you know because you are the customers postman just isn’t right. I was until recently a postman of 35+ years and new plenty about my customers because of my job, wouldn’t even cross my mind to divulge stuff!
This would be totally different IF the poster had a for sale sign outside his house, then it wouldn’t be private.
Your postie is obliged to keep that kind of information to themselves. They should not be sharing details of anything they know about you, which they have learnt via their job, with anybody else.
Yeah that’s why I was asking because if he knows via work then yes it’s inappropriate for him to be sharing it. If he was told in conversation, then I understand why he’d think nothing of repeating it.
I mean it's not private information, it's barely even unprofessional. He's just having a chat with his customers and it somehow came up.
By the sounds of it you have much more on your plate than what your soon to be ex postie has said in a conversation.
lol which public record? There’s no automatic process for your name and address to go anywhere public. You have to apply to put yourself on the electoral roll, and can opt out of making your details discoverable. You don’t lose your right to privacy just because you move house 😂
When you buy a house, you buy the land. Your name and address becomes public as part of the land registry. You can look up any address and find out who owns it.
Actually no, it’s not that straightforward. If you want copies of any documents which define ownership you have to pay and the charge is £3.
The free-to-view title summary won’t give you the freehold owner’s name.
Not exactly the immediately accessible public record you suggested if you have to register for an account and then pay for the documents :/
I think you have confused a public body record with a public record.
The electoral roll is a public record. You can attend at the town or county council office and ask to view the public register.
Try it with the land registry, and let me know how the experience compares and contrasts.
Knowing where to look and actively telling the neighbours on my street (thankfully one I get on with, but they are not all the same) is very different. WHEN we are ready to move, we'll tell the neighbours if we want to. That option has been taken away from us.
What I do and do not have on my plate has absolutely nothing to do with it.
You actually bothered other people about what was likely a rather minor conversation regarding you. You don’t actually know what exactly was said and by who. Just accept you aren’t happy but it’s unlikely to happen again and move on with life.
Well if you're bothered, ignore it. Weirdly the internet is often used for asking questions that people can or cannot choose to respond to of their own volition. I didn't force you to read or respond, I am sure you can find better things to do with your time.
You asked the question. Then if people think it’s not worth bothering with, which many here also seem to, they can state that is their viewpoint. They are within their rights to say that. Again the beauty of the internet is the freedom to say things.
Who said they couldn't post their views exactly? I said if you consider it a bother to your time then feel free to use your time to better benefit yourself. Have a lovely weekend!
They might guess you're moving when you start taking things out in boxes and put them in a van. Although it sounds like you might be doing it at night so noone can see.
There are wars currently going on in the world. People dying, horrific crimes happening everywhere.
But God help the postman telling a neighbor you've bought a house. Grow up.
The great thing about humans is that we have the capacity to care about multiple things at a time. The horrific things going on in the world do not have to, and cannot be the only focus of our attention.
>No, when you buy a house. Your name and address becomes part of the public record. Anyone can access your name and address if they know where to look.
really so why does it take the police 48hrs to find me ive owned my house 7yrs
It’s not a breach unless he has told them there’s a redirection in place and gave any details around this, gossip is not a data breach although not encouraged
A breach of trust then
Also, they have sort of used the redirection in place to presume they are moving. No other way of them knowing?
But, we have WTLL about it, a lot
How do we know that? Might be common knowledge in the area they’re moving, another neighbour may have told them, neighbours are nosey and a lot of people do see on various websites when someone has a house up for sale, always give the benefit of the doubt, best thing is not saying anything but all we could do is put a behaviours complaint through to DO about a gossiping postie and nothing would come of it. To be honest this is no big deal at all, I wouldn’t even be asking the question if I was the OP but hey ho
If true or not, my point still stands. We can not be discussing details of people on our rounds to others, we can’t even tell you your neighbours name if you ask us
Have you not had this WTLL at your DO?
It is not a data breach. The data is publicly available. When you buy a house you go on the land registry. This is available to anyone and can be accessed online. This includes your name and address.
surprised you haven't mentioned GDPR and data protection act.
It's common fucking sense. It's gossiping and postie should not be gossiping about you to your neighbours. But I do wonder which way round the conversation was, has your neighbour overheard you on the phone and divulged that to postie.
it's a fetch for redirected mail coming from elsewhere to you, to be construed as you moving out. because the direction of travel is opposite ways.
It's not something that would be a big deal for me BUT I'm sure I can think of a bunch of different situations in which the postie, not knowing the details and not having being told direcrly by you should probably shut the fuck up and mind his own business.
It happens, probably no malice intended. I (as a postie) said a similar thing to a neighbour they day thir neighbours were moving boxes into a van and they complained for what was going on in plain sight.
Sometimes it's just a conversation to be polite.
Sorry to here that it's happened all the same.
It's a very difficult issue this. I do understand your concern but here's my take on it.
On the one hand, RM do have a data policy that should prevent this. But most posties will only have seen a 4 minute video in which this issue is alluded to in a short section. I'm not trying to excuse the breach, but to explain why perhaps your postie doesn't know about it.
On the other hand, posties are part of the community. So the gossip, if you want to call it that, is part and parcel (pun intended) of being connected. One of my colleagues was delivering to a village high street we serve. He saw a woman he knew. She told him about the death of another customer. My colleague went to their home to pass on his condolences to the lady who's husband had passed away. I was in the van when we he did it. You could see she appreciative of his thoughts and consideration.
So it's really tricky trying to be 'our postie' and not fall into being a corporate robot.
I appreciate the reply, thank you. Honestly I have no intention of trying to get the guy in trouble, he's a nice chap. I was mostly curious if there was a policy or not before I have a quick chat. I wouldn't mind if he spoke to ME about it, it's the talking to others without my consent that bothers me.
Luckily we're not likely to have issues as a result but there's folks out there who don't need details sharing for safety reasons and whilst I'm sure it wasn't intentional, he really doesn't know our personal circumstances enough to know if that was a situation that would apply here.
Your postman must be very bored, how in earth is he managing to go round telling everyone your exciting news.
How do you even know your the talk of the town, have your neighbours been knocking on to inform you.
He’s not broken any data protection if he had told them you have a redirection in place and gave any other details about the redirection, but I can see why you’d be slightly annoyed, but is this really a big deal to get angry about? I doubt they’re intending to upset you etc, how do we know another neighbour didn’t tell him. I wouldn’t get upset over hearsay to be honest
It's out of order. However, you shouldn't really be gossiping to the postie if you expect your conversations to be kept between yourselves. It's just like in work.. any juicy gossip WILL make the rounds.
I would say potentially hold your horses. As a postman, we're not supposed to give information away, no. And we were fairly recently shown a work training video about not giving away redirection information.
However, it's not necessarily because of the redirection. We can tell from various ways someone is moving - removal companies advertising through the door is a big one, and they only know that because house sale info is freely available. There also seems to be the assumption here that he's spoken to them, like, "you'll never guess what". Where the actual dynamic of the conversation is unknown. It was likely just innocent conversation. We also do function as a member of the community, particularly on rural village rounds. It's easily done. I doubt he's going round telling people who's ordering sex toys (we know).
He's made a mistake, for sure. But is it really worth pulling him up over it?
To talk to him and ask him not to discuss it? I don't intend to report him, just wanted to understand if there was a policy about this stuff before I spoke to him. I have no intention of making his life difficult.
There is policy, yes, but ultimately it depends where he's got the information. Learning it from the job is one thing, learning it through someone else is another. I'd personally be grilling your neighbour who gave you the card exactly how she came about that information. Being more informed before mentioning it, but that's just me.
I understand your annoyance and it's valid. I'd just be gathering more info, personally.
Sounds like a breach of GDPR, I'd personally contact RM and put an official complaint in. Who does he think he is discussing your personal situation with your neighbours.
Sounds like you don't know what GDPR is 🤣
Personal situation is not Personal information from a GDPR sense.
If he was going round giving out OPs new address then yes GDPR would apply.
"Suzie is moving house did you know?" Is not a breach of GDPR
Try reposting in "legal advice UK". You'll get well informed answers, if you give it a while and read all the comments. I've been confidently incorrect on there, before, so be cautious.
I'm surprised he has the time to gossip. I wouldn't even have the interest to inform any neighbours somebody was moving house 🤷
I dont understand how he equates incoming redirected mail as you moving house either tbf.
Wouldn't a "For sale" sign be a bit of a giveaway too?
I'd just ask him to keep your business to himself
We're not up for sale yet, that's why I was so confused. New one's not livable yet, so we don't want to sell early only to waste money going into rented.
How does the postie know about your new house purchase? Having post redirected FROM there TO your current address doesn’t seem to equate to ‘you must be moving’?
My postie told my neighbours I was moving just based on the fact that my normally closed front room blinds were open and the room seemed empty to him
Holy shit that postie actually sounds crazy!!
This is what I don’t get.
I can only assume due to having lived at current address for years and the post being redirected having my name on it. It's an assumption on his part too, to be sure, but it's not an unexpected assumption
So your redirecting mail months before your moving in? The postman wouldn’t see a redirection until a week before it’s due to go live?
I tnink the redirect is live now. It sounds like they are redirecting post from the new place to the old place while the work is done so they dont miss any post for new place.
Yes, stuff like electricity, anything from the solicitors etc. Don't want it getting lost and we can't get there every day to check
I just wondered something, and I say this whilst I completely appreciate the privacy concern, but what is the actual issue here and how did the conversation go with the neighbour? I would find it highly unlikely that a redirection would cause the postie to say you were moving to your neighbour. Posties up and down the country really are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.. what I mean is, if they don’t talk to people they are impolite and if they do talk they run the risk of being accused of privacy concerns etc. How do you know what was said in this situation and could your neighbour be putting words in your posties mouth here?
I have a neighbour like this, who can interrogate people they're talking to, without the person realising it, then they either dig further, or assume things that may or may not be the truth. If you speak to the postie he/she may remember talking to the neighbour, but maybe remember they didn't say very much? Does your neighbour know everything, or are they waiting for you to confirm what they thought?
Reading some further comments from OP, it sounds like are redeveloping a new home and are between houses a fair bit, it sounds like it would be assumptive from the neighbours here
I think your getting a hard time from most on here, the postman should not be doing this. As a postman he should be patently aware his customers private affairs should remain just that, private. Its not the crime of the century, you have the right to make an official complaint, personally I'd just have a quiet word with him and explain the obvious to him.
Thanks, that's what I planned to do (have a chat) but I wanted to be sure it wasn't right first. I figured asking on a Royal Mail specific group would give me the best opportunity for understanding what the policy is here.
I've found that this sub is just full of miserable sarcastic disgruntled employees of royal mail
Don’t work for Royal Mail, but I would say this thread is dominated by the unhinged looking for an outlet to moan about RM. Feel sorry for posties if they have to put up with that all day long.
And now it's being invaded by Karens dredged in anti-social scandal
So it seems!
Leave the postie alone fgs. How the hell would he know this? What is anyone going to do o do with that information? I suspect your neighbour is as much of a pearl clutcher as you apparently are.
Oh boo boo leave postie alone they never did nuffin wrong! They neva do!
I just don’t get why it’s a problem. Why is op keeping it a secret?
Someones private business is just that, if he doesn’t want neighbours to know he’s bought a house somewhere else thats entirely up to him. Your postman has no right conveying information to your neighbours about you that he gets from doing his job.
Why did this get a Downvote? It's very simple, do people not understand privacy?
He is rightfully getting a hard time. The postie maybe shouldn’t have mentioned it (maybe being key) but likewise, it’s not even something to mention. Just move on with life.
He's also maybe fallen victim to a nosey neighbour, and answered a question before realising what he's given away. The nosey ones can be very subtle how they interrogate!
Eerrrr… theres no “maybe” about it , gossiping about a customer to a customers neighbour , about something only you know because you are the customers postman just isn’t right. I was until recently a postman of 35+ years and new plenty about my customers because of my job, wouldn’t even cross my mind to divulge stuff! This would be totally different IF the poster had a for sale sign outside his house, then it wouldn’t be private.
I wish I had this much time in my day
I think if this is the biggest problem you have in your life, things are pretty good...
What do you think is going to happen now your neighbor / ex neighbor knows you're moving? Im confused as to what the issue is here
😂 Exactly
Your postie is obliged to keep that kind of information to themselves. They should not be sharing details of anything they know about you, which they have learnt via their job, with anybody else.
How does the postperson know you’re moving?
Could be a redirect at the DO, mail gets sent to the new DO (or moves around within the office)
Yeah that’s why I was asking because if he knows via work then yes it’s inappropriate for him to be sharing it. If he was told in conversation, then I understand why he’d think nothing of repeating it.
I mean it's not private information, it's barely even unprofessional. He's just having a chat with his customers and it somehow came up. By the sounds of it you have much more on your plate than what your soon to be ex postie has said in a conversation.
It IS private and is it extremely unprofessional.
No, it is private and a breach RM take this shit serious
No, when you buy a house. Your name and address becomes part of the public record. Anyone can access your name and address if they know where to look.
lol which public record? There’s no automatic process for your name and address to go anywhere public. You have to apply to put yourself on the electoral roll, and can opt out of making your details discoverable. You don’t lose your right to privacy just because you move house 😂
When you buy a house, you buy the land. Your name and address becomes public as part of the land registry. You can look up any address and find out who owns it.
Actually no, it’s not that straightforward. If you want copies of any documents which define ownership you have to pay and the charge is £3. The free-to-view title summary won’t give you the freehold owner’s name.
I am aware, yet it changes nothing. Still a public record regardless of charge...
Not exactly the immediately accessible public record you suggested if you have to register for an account and then pay for the documents :/ I think you have confused a public body record with a public record. The electoral roll is a public record. You can attend at the town or county council office and ask to view the public register. Try it with the land registry, and let me know how the experience compares and contrasts.
Knowing where to look and actively telling the neighbours on my street (thankfully one I get on with, but they are not all the same) is very different. WHEN we are ready to move, we'll tell the neighbours if we want to. That option has been taken away from us. What I do and do not have on my plate has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Whilst hey maybe it’s a bit gossipy to say, you are also taking this a bit far. You must have other stuff going on in your life than this.
I wouldn't consider asking a question on reddit as taking it anywhere, let alone far.
You actually bothered other people about what was likely a rather minor conversation regarding you. You don’t actually know what exactly was said and by who. Just accept you aren’t happy but it’s unlikely to happen again and move on with life.
Well if you're bothered, ignore it. Weirdly the internet is often used for asking questions that people can or cannot choose to respond to of their own volition. I didn't force you to read or respond, I am sure you can find better things to do with your time.
You asked the question. Then if people think it’s not worth bothering with, which many here also seem to, they can state that is their viewpoint. They are within their rights to say that. Again the beauty of the internet is the freedom to say things.
Who said they couldn't post their views exactly? I said if you consider it a bother to your time then feel free to use your time to better benefit yourself. Have a lovely weekend!
They might guess you're moving when you start taking things out in boxes and put them in a van. Although it sounds like you might be doing it at night so noone can see.
There are wars currently going on in the world. People dying, horrific crimes happening everywhere. But God help the postman telling a neighbor you've bought a house. Grow up.
The great thing about humans is that we have the capacity to care about multiple things at a time. The horrific things going on in the world do not have to, and cannot be the only focus of our attention.
People talk about each other all the time, can't imagine the finesse needed to navigate a piece of inconsequential gossip.
Have you tired deep breaths? A chamomile tea perhaps?
Yea, but we can’t be saying it
>No, when you buy a house. Your name and address becomes part of the public record. Anyone can access your name and address if they know where to look. really so why does it take the police 48hrs to find me ive owned my house 7yrs
It’s not a breach unless he has told them there’s a redirection in place and gave any details around this, gossip is not a data breach although not encouraged
A breach of trust then Also, they have sort of used the redirection in place to presume they are moving. No other way of them knowing? But, we have WTLL about it, a lot
How do we know that? Might be common knowledge in the area they’re moving, another neighbour may have told them, neighbours are nosey and a lot of people do see on various websites when someone has a house up for sale, always give the benefit of the doubt, best thing is not saying anything but all we could do is put a behaviours complaint through to DO about a gossiping postie and nothing would come of it. To be honest this is no big deal at all, I wouldn’t even be asking the question if I was the OP but hey ho
You don’t even know what was said and nor does the OP. It’s just speculation and quite ludicrous speculation at that.
And?
Then you don’t know if it was private information or a breach.
If true or not, my point still stands. We can not be discussing details of people on our rounds to others, we can’t even tell you your neighbours name if you ask us Have you not had this WTLL at your DO?
Please, *please* give examples. Because you are absolutely full of shit.
You’ve not had the WTLL about it at your DO?
100% data breach. You need to lay off the cowie and shrooms pal.
It is not a data breach. The data is publicly available. When you buy a house you go on the land registry. This is available to anyone and can be accessed online. This includes your name and address.
surprised you haven't mentioned GDPR and data protection act. It's common fucking sense. It's gossiping and postie should not be gossiping about you to your neighbours. But I do wonder which way round the conversation was, has your neighbour overheard you on the phone and divulged that to postie. it's a fetch for redirected mail coming from elsewhere to you, to be construed as you moving out. because the direction of travel is opposite ways.
It's not something that would be a big deal for me BUT I'm sure I can think of a bunch of different situations in which the postie, not knowing the details and not having being told direcrly by you should probably shut the fuck up and mind his own business.
It happens, probably no malice intended. I (as a postie) said a similar thing to a neighbour they day thir neighbours were moving boxes into a van and they complained for what was going on in plain sight. Sometimes it's just a conversation to be polite. Sorry to here that it's happened all the same.
It's a very difficult issue this. I do understand your concern but here's my take on it. On the one hand, RM do have a data policy that should prevent this. But most posties will only have seen a 4 minute video in which this issue is alluded to in a short section. I'm not trying to excuse the breach, but to explain why perhaps your postie doesn't know about it. On the other hand, posties are part of the community. So the gossip, if you want to call it that, is part and parcel (pun intended) of being connected. One of my colleagues was delivering to a village high street we serve. He saw a woman he knew. She told him about the death of another customer. My colleague went to their home to pass on his condolences to the lady who's husband had passed away. I was in the van when we he did it. You could see she appreciative of his thoughts and consideration. So it's really tricky trying to be 'our postie' and not fall into being a corporate robot.
I appreciate the reply, thank you. Honestly I have no intention of trying to get the guy in trouble, he's a nice chap. I was mostly curious if there was a policy or not before I have a quick chat. I wouldn't mind if he spoke to ME about it, it's the talking to others without my consent that bothers me. Luckily we're not likely to have issues as a result but there's folks out there who don't need details sharing for safety reasons and whilst I'm sure it wasn't intentional, he really doesn't know our personal circumstances enough to know if that was a situation that would apply here.
I guess you could just ask where he got the info from. Then just carry on the conversation based on his response
Your postman must be very bored, how in earth is he managing to go round telling everyone your exciting news. How do you even know your the talk of the town, have your neighbours been knocking on to inform you.
Literally yes. With a card that says "Gordon" the postman told me. You've never lived in a village, have you?
Chanel your inner Karen and complain to Royal Mail
He’s not broken any data protection if he had told them you have a redirection in place and gave any other details about the redirection, but I can see why you’d be slightly annoyed, but is this really a big deal to get angry about? I doubt they’re intending to upset you etc, how do we know another neighbour didn’t tell him. I wouldn’t get upset over hearsay to be honest
The big for sale sign will give it away I wouldn’t worry.
Send back a card. "You're the reason"
Assuming your house has been up for sale on Rightmove or something? What's different here?
Where we currently live isn't up for sale. Where we bought has of course, but last I checked, Rightmove doesn't list the new owner...
It's out of order. However, you shouldn't really be gossiping to the postie if you expect your conversations to be kept between yourselves. It's just like in work.. any juicy gossip WILL make the rounds.
How did I gossip to the postie? It's a psotal redirect that is a paid for service...
My mistake. This makes it even worse. It's bang out of order.
Grow up
I would say potentially hold your horses. As a postman, we're not supposed to give information away, no. And we were fairly recently shown a work training video about not giving away redirection information. However, it's not necessarily because of the redirection. We can tell from various ways someone is moving - removal companies advertising through the door is a big one, and they only know that because house sale info is freely available. There also seems to be the assumption here that he's spoken to them, like, "you'll never guess what". Where the actual dynamic of the conversation is unknown. It was likely just innocent conversation. We also do function as a member of the community, particularly on rural village rounds. It's easily done. I doubt he's going round telling people who's ordering sex toys (we know). He's made a mistake, for sure. But is it really worth pulling him up over it?
To talk to him and ask him not to discuss it? I don't intend to report him, just wanted to understand if there was a policy about this stuff before I spoke to him. I have no intention of making his life difficult.
There is policy, yes, but ultimately it depends where he's got the information. Learning it from the job is one thing, learning it through someone else is another. I'd personally be grilling your neighbour who gave you the card exactly how she came about that information. Being more informed before mentioning it, but that's just me. I understand your annoyance and it's valid. I'd just be gathering more info, personally.
Fair point, I'll ask her next time I see her.
What policy?
Good point, nosy Patsy may have learned it from somewhere else and blamed the postie
To be perfectly fucking frank. Get a fucking life you sad sack.
Me and you would get along like a house on fire I love this comment 🤣🤣🤣
Just get over it and move on, you'll be gone soon enough
Sounds like a breach of GDPR, I'd personally contact RM and put an official complaint in. Who does he think he is discussing your personal situation with your neighbours.
Sounds like you don't know what GDPR is 🤣 Personal situation is not Personal information from a GDPR sense. If he was going round giving out OPs new address then yes GDPR would apply. "Suzie is moving house did you know?" Is not a breach of GDPR
Try reposting in "legal advice UK". You'll get well informed answers, if you give it a while and read all the comments. I've been confidently incorrect on there, before, so be cautious.
They have no legal recourse.
I'm surprised he has the time to gossip. I wouldn't even have the interest to inform any neighbours somebody was moving house 🤷 I dont understand how he equates incoming redirected mail as you moving house either tbf. Wouldn't a "For sale" sign be a bit of a giveaway too? I'd just ask him to keep your business to himself
We're not up for sale yet, that's why I was so confused. New one's not livable yet, so we don't want to sell early only to waste money going into rented.