Refund & Delivery Policy

People are often surprised by how long international letter post takes, so we publish both halves of the wait instead of one combined number.

• 1. Writing and posting. Your first letter will usually be mailed from Japan within 7 days. After that, your writer prepares a letter each month. We mail letters as they are finished and checked — there is no fixed batch day.
• 2. Transit from Japan to you. This is Japan Post's part, and it is the longer half. See the table below.

International postage is included in the price.

These are Japan Post's own published average transit times for letter-post airmail from Tokyo. They are averages, not a guarantee — Japan Post states plainly that these figures do not guarantee the number of days any individual item will take, and neither do we.

Source: Japan Post — List of Delivery Days (Letter-Post Airmail, Tokyo). Not listed? Letters reach most other countries within a comparable range, and you can look your country up on that same page.

Standard letter post does not include tracking. Japan Post only offers tracking on registered mail, which is a paid add-on and not available for every country. We tell you the date your letter was posted from Japan. We never display a "delivered" status, because we have no way to verify one.

We mail anywhere Japan Post delivers. If Japan Post suspends service to your country, we will contact you and either hold your letter until service resumes or refund that period — your choice. We will not bill you for a month we cannot post.

You should not be charged customs duty, import VAT or a handling fee for your letter. What we send is personal correspondence — handwritten pages in an envelope — not goods. Japan Post requires electronic customs data only when an item contains dutiable articles, and letters and documents are accepted with a plain handwritten address label.

For the United States specifically, Japan Post confirms that documents and bona fide gifts valued at 100 US dollars or less remain duty free and can be sent without prepayment of duties.

This is also why we never put merchandise in the envelope. Adding a small gift would turn your letter into a dutiable parcel, with a customs form, a possible import charge at your end, and a slower, more fragile delivery. The letter travels better alone.

If a carrier ever does bill you something for one of our letters, contact us — we want to see it, and we will cover it.

• Memberships renew automatically each month until you cancel.
• You can cancel at any time from your account. Cancellation takes effect for future billing periods — you keep the letter for the period you have already paid for.
• We do not hide the cancellation option or require you to contact support to cancel.

We distinguish clearly between a postal delay and a failure on our side.

• We never posted your letter at all — if 21 days pass after a billing date without us posting that month's letter, we refund that period. You do not have to notice it or ask for it; the obligation is ours. If you would rather wait for the letter than take the refund, tell us and we will hold it open.
• Quality problem (for example the letter does not respond to your previous reply, or is not a personal handwritten letter) — replacement letter, or a refund if you prefer.
• Mailed but never arrived — wait 45 days from the posting date we showed you, then tell us. We will have your writer prepare a replacement letter and post it at no cost, or refund that period if you would rather stop. Ordinary letter post carries no carrier compensation if an item goes missing, so there is no insurance claim behind this — it is simply us making it right, and we would rather say that plainly than imply a guarantee we cannot buy.
• Arrived damaged or unreadable — tell us what happened and we send a replacement letter at no cost. We don't ask you to return the damaged one.
• Duplicate or accidental charge — full refund.
• Change of mind after a letter has been written and mailed — not refundable, as the work has been completed. You can still cancel future billing.

Refunds are issued to the original payment method through PayPal. We may also offer a replacement letter or account credit where that is the better outcome.

We will contact you and offer options: a pause, a replacement writer you choose yourself, a prorated refund, or cancellation. We never move you to a different writer without your agreement.

Nothing in this policy limits statutory consumer rights you may have where you live. See also our Terms of Service.