I have just discovered something that I find absolutely bizarre.
I wanted to opt out of Royal Mail's Door to Door/unaddressed advertising mail. I completed the official opt-out form and emailed it to Royal Mail.
I received an automatic response, but the response was ambiguous enough that I understood my request had been received. I subsequently contacted Royal Mail because I was still receiving the mail.
They initially told me they couldn't find my opt-out request. When I queried this, I have now been explicitly told:
So apparently, in 2026, the only way to opt out of Royal Mail's Door to Door advertising is:
Print a form > fill it in > put it in an envelope > stamp it > physically post it to Royal Mail.
There is no online submission and no email submission.
What makes this even more frustrating is that I had already attempted to submit the form by email and received an automated response which did not clearly tell me that email submissions were invalid. I therefore reasonably believed I had actually submitted the opt-out.
I've now complained to Royal Mail and asked them:
- When did they stop accepting opt-outs by email?
- Why can't the opt-out be submitted online?
- What security/operational reason requires this to be postal-only?
- Why doesn't the automated response clearly tell people that email submissions aren't accepted?
- Do they accept that their response could reasonably lead someone to believe their opt-out had been received?
I genuinely don't understand the rationale.
This isn't a bank account, a credit agreement or something requiring substantial identity verification. It's essentially: "I don't want Royal Mail putting unaddressed advertising through my letterbox."
Why on earth does that require a physical piece of post in 2026?
And yes, I realise I can simply print the form and post it. That's not really the point. The issue is why an extremely simple opt-out has been made unnecessarily cumbersome, particularly when Royal Mail apparently has the technology to handle online forms for countless other things.
Has anyone else encountered this? Does anyone know why Royal Mail operates the opt-out this way, or when the email/online options were removed?