Last year I bought two DNA kits from Ancestry, they each came with two international reply coupons to return the kits. (two dollars per coupon) My local post office refused to accept the coupons and asked me to return later in the day by which time they would have been able to make some checks on them. When I returned I was told they couldn't accept them and I had to pay for the stamps. This was my experience of international stamp coupons and I can quite well imagine someone trying to reply to you having the same problem and saying "it's alright I'll not bother". I later tried to exchange the coupons for stamps at the main post office only to be told I could only use them to post an item the USA - I still have them. Margaret Hall Wallsend. To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [DUR-NBL] Writing to possible relatives I noted that the original poster is in the US. I've had excellent luck with letters, but the names were unusual. Some people do back off, especially if elderly, from understandable fear of giving out too much information or worse. IRC coupons are sold at the post office in the US, but they are only good for certain countries and the last time I checked, the UK was not one of them. There are also international business reply envelopes available, but I don't know about them and couldn't find out more on the USPS website. Best regards, Carol B in NY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Mar 27, 2009, at 11:14 AM, [email protected] wrote: The other answers mentioned SAEs (stamped addressed envelopes) but > you can't > do that from overseas. You need to send two international reply > coupons with > each envelope. You can buy these at the post office but it makes it > quite > expensive and so much more difficult to do a large scale enquiry > this way. > > Best wishes, Irene >

This is from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website: http://ukinusa.fco.gov.uk/en/faqs/money-postage/international-reply It would seem to indicate that a post office in the UK should accept the coupons, no question. Ian Margaret Hall wrote: > Last year I bought two DNA kits from Ancestry, they each came with two > international reply coupons to return the kits. (two dollars per coupon) > > My local post office refused to accept the coupons and asked me to return > later in the day by which time they would have been able to make some checks > on them. When I returned I was told they couldn't accept them and I had to > pay for the stamps. > > This was my experience of international stamp coupons and I can quite well > imagine someone trying to reply to you having the same problem and saying > "it's alright I'll not bother". > > I later tried to exchange the coupons for stamps at the main post office > only to be told I could only use them to post an item the USA - I still have > them. > > Margaret Hall > Wallsend. > > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [DUR-NBL] Writing to possible relatives > > I noted that the original poster is in the US. I've had excellent luck > with letters, but the names were unusual. Some people do back off, > especially if elderly, from understandable fear of giving out too much > information or worse. > IRC coupons are sold at the post office in the US, but they are only > good for certain countries and the last time I checked, the UK was not > one of them. There are also international business reply envelopes > available, but I don't know about them and couldn't find out more on > the USPS website. > Best regards, > Carol B in NY >