METHOD OF PROCESSING MAILPIECES THAT ENABLES VIRTUAL IDENTIFICATION OF THE MAILPIECES TO BE USED WITH FORWARDING

In a method of processing mailpieces, a digital image of a surface of a current mailpiece is formed for the purpose of using OCR to recognize a recipient postal address for said current mailpiece, and, if it is determined that the recognized recipient address corresponds to an incorrect recipient address, a forwarding address is placed on said surface of the current mailpiece. In addition to said forwarding address, an OCR-detectable mark is placed on the surface of the current mailpiece, which mark indicates that the current mailpiece bears a forwarding address, and also constitutes an index for retrieving said forwarding address from a database.