 One letter took 112 years to reach the UK |
The Postwatch survey says 14.4m letters a year go missing, often simply put through the wrong door and later returned. But when so-called snail-mail fails it can be more than hospital appointments or contact from friends that go missing.
News Online tracked down some of Royal Mail's most-missed.
For one charity, post dropping on to the mat next door opened the floodgates on a �1,250 pay-out, according to Postwatch.
A bill from South West Water - that would have alerted Salcombe Swimming Pool Association to a major leak - went instead through the next door letter box.
Unfortunately the neighbouring primary school was closed for the Christmas holidays and the water supply remained running.
'Knocked for six'
By the time the charity found out and turned it off, more than �1,000 was added to its bill.
Chairman of the pool association Diane Tobin said mail delivered to the school was a frustrating problem.
"This bill has really knocked us for six because we are a charity," she said. "We check for mail every day. Had we got this bill the day it was delivered we would have immediately turned off the water supply,"
It is a costly tale, but by no means the most surprising of cases.
In February 2001 Royal Mail tracked down the rightful owner of a postcard sent to Aberdeen from Australia more than a century ago.
Boomerang mail
It was sent from Queensland in 1889 to a Miss Wardrop of 32 Carden Place, Aberdeen.
Alison Britts, from New South Wales, contacted the company as it was her grandfather Colin who sent the card to his spinster sister in Scotland.
 Royal Mail spends �10m a year on mis-addressed letters |
In that case Royal Mail could only do so much - the card only left Australia that month, despite being posted on 4 January 1889. Back in the UK, boomerang mail was a problem for a Norfolk couple at Christmas 2003 when a card was wrongly delivered to their house six times.
First time around Geoffrey and Jean Bailey opened the card and popped it back in the post when they realised it was not for them.
But even crossing out the mistaken postcode failed to deter the card from coming to their house in Aylmerton, which had the same name as one in a nearby village.
Mistakes do happen, but for one postie, stashing and burning the mail was the answer to meeting the demands of his round.
The Gloucestershire postman was given 180 hours community service in August 2003 for keeping mail in his attic and burning other letters in his garden.
He targeted junk mail for destruction - opening some letters to see if they were important enough to deliver - because he couldn't deliver his rounds on time.
But the fault doesn't always lie in the system.
Address antics
Never mind popping on the postcode, Royal Mail says its army of staff has to deal with some interesting addressing skills.
Take "To the Lady in Red, with the Blue Volkswagen, Camp Shop, Ingolmens", "H, daughter of the new bishop, somewhere in the Midlands beginning with B".
And "Louise, The House Near the Dangerous Bend, Somewhere Lane, Near the Disused Railway Station, Kenilworth", are how some of the letters it successfully delivered were addressed.
In 2002 the company said mis-addressed items were costing it �10m a year and today said it "substantially cut" the number of items mis-delivered, delayed or lost.
A spokesperson told BBC News Online mis-delivered mail had to be put in the context of the 21bn items handled per year.
He said in context that was relatively low, but if it was your letter it would be one too many.
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Louise, The House Near the Dangerous Bend, Somewhere Lane 
