Postwatch, the independent watchdog for postal services in the UK, has accused Royal Mail of failing to tell its customers how they can stop leaflets delivered by the postman.

The accusation follows the suspension of Roger Annies, the postman who told people on his round that it is possible to stop unaddressed mail distributed by Royal Mail by registering with the Door-to-Door Opt-Out.

In today's Daily Telegraph, a spokesman for Postwatch said Royal Mail is failing to give customers information about the Door-to-Door Opt-Out: "It should not be difficult for customers to opt out. They have a choice; however, at the moment it is a little prohibitive."

What has offended Postwatch in particular is that Royal Mail does not advertise the existence of the Door-to-Door Opt-Out; even the company's own website doesn't mention the scheme. The watchdog also points out that the opt-out service has changed its address "several times" recently and that people still had to write a letter to make sure that their wishes were carried out, even after they had phoned Royal Mail's customer services department.

A spokesman for Royal Mail acknowledged that the address to write to had changed twice and that the opt-out scheme is currently not mentioned on the Royal Mail website. "We don't publicise all our services," he said. "We have so many of them." However, he promised information about the Door-to-Door Opt-Out will be added to the Royal Mail website "within the next 24 hours".