You shouldn't, and nobody has suggested that you should. That is to say the compensation should match the actual inconvenience and expenses.
Mind you, this is all a bit of an irrelevance, since most correspondence of this kind need not involve recorded delivery. Ordinary post will suffice, and the receiving party won't know whether you've been to the PO to get a certificate of posting or not, and so you can save yourself the trip. Just walk to your nearest posting box.
The advice usually given is that one should use Recorded Delivery so that the recipient can't claim never to have received the letter. Presumably this advice is given for good reason.
"Windmill" wrote
Why can't they claim that? It could even be true...
Recorded Delivery, assuming that a signature is obtained, can show that an *envelope* was received. It doesn't show that a particular
*letter* was received, or even that a letter was received at all. The envelope could have contained a blank piece of paper, or even nothing. :-(
I suppose that, in civil law, the balance of probabilities would be taken to be that it did contain a letter. If it did not in fact do so, the recipient might be expected to complain to the sender. Of course the recipient might *claim* to have received a blank sheet of paper even if he had not. Which would then put the onus on the sender to get a witness to his next letter's contents at the time of posting.
I have used "we sent it recorded delivery" as Getting-Results Juju with the Home Office immigration department. If it works with them it'll work with anybody.
==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === ===Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts
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"Windmill" wrote
Is that really true? Suppose someone was required to send something to someone else, but wanted to pretend that they had done so when actually they hadn't. All they'd need to do is send an empty envelope or blank piece of paper...
"Windmill" wrote
If someone just receives an empty envelope in the post, with no return address on the envelope itself, then how are they expected to know who the sender was - in order to complain to them?
"Windmill" wrote
Of course. Just as the sender might *claim* to have sent a letter even if s/he had not!
"Windmill" wrote
But that still wouldn't prove that it was received - eg the envelope might get ripped while in transit, and some/all of the contents might fall out and never reach the recipient...
If it's signed-for, whihc iw what was being discussed, then signed-for post includes a return address on it, in case it is refused, or undeliverable.
The Home Office's Immigration Dept is presumably just incompetent, as against actually vindictive. If, in order to get something from someone that absolutely definitely doesn't want to give it to you and will happily deceive and dissemble in order to avoid giving it to you, you have to deliver to them a particular piece of paper, then you take it yourself and place it in their hands, ideally in front of at least one witness. I've done this precisely once[0], myself. Is there any other way?
0] It didn't work, but for other reasons.
That's an ebay scam.
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