Although some of you might find it hard to believe, I sometime use the old-fashioned USPS mail system (so-called snail mail). And sometimes (not very often) I have to send my mail overseas (typically to some other English-speaking country [I speak no foreign language]).
Oh, it is really easy. Just take the letter to the front window. And the lady there stamps it with this postal bar code. Then the foreign country, as I understand it, gets a share of the money I spent for the letter. And of course, like any other mail, I include my return address on it.
But that got me to thinking. What if my letter has to be returned for some reason AFTER it reaches its country of destination?
I mean will they send it back to the US, and have the USPS then return it to me? That seems a lot of trouble–to say nothing of very expensive.
Keep in mind my overseas mail has never been returned. So I don’t know what would happen if it couldn’t be delivered for some reason.
I bought something on eBay from a guy in Germany and sent him $40 bucks in cash. It was returned about two months later due to a bad address. Intact. This was only about a year ago.
I assume the cost to mail something internationally includes the cost to return the letter to you for the small percentage of times they have to do that. I bet it’s fairly rare.
If you mail a package overseas, you have to fill in a Customs Declaration. Part of the form (at least in the US) is a space where you indicate what to do with undeliverable mail - it can either be destroyed or sent back to you.
The Universal Postal Union, to which virtually all countries are signatory, guarantees that every country handles all incoming mail the same as their own. The revenue for the stamp goes only to the originating country.
:)