Sample Personal Letters

A personal letter is written by a private individual and can be addressed to either another individual or a business.

Examples of a personal letter are the letter that a student would write a friend thanking him for a loan and summarizing his repayment intentions . . . a letter an interested buyer would write the owner of a car for sale . . . the letter one would write a hotel to confirm reservations . . . the letter asking the subscription department of a magazine to cancel a subscription . . . the letter alerting the billing department of a service provider to errors in an invoice . . . .

The personal letter deals solely with matters that concern an individual—not a group of individuals or a business.

A personal letter may also be written by an individual to make a personal announcement, such as a change in name or a change of address.

Regardless of the recipient and the reason for writing it, the personal letter represents you. Therefore, it must always say what you would say if you could be there in person, but without being overly emotional, casual, vindictive or careless.

A personal letter may be legally binding on both the person writing it and the individual/business to whom it is addressed.

[Date]

[Name]
[Title (if required)]
[Department (if required)]
[Organization (if required)]

Dear [First/Last name],

I hope this letter finds you well.

I am writing to bring to your notice an error in the September invoice [#] addressed to me.

The invoice says that I owe you $[#], while in fact the actual outstanding amount according to my calculations is $[#], which is less than a quarter of what your invoice mentions.

I would also like you to know that this is not the first time my invoice is showing an erroneous outstanding amount.

If you check your records, you will see that I was sent erroneous invoices on not one but four previous occasions since I signed up for your service in March 2009.

I am sure you will appreciate my patience in writing to the company directly on each occasion instead of going the legal route.

I would now like you to know that any future erroneous invoices will force me to cancel your service and/or result in a lawsuit.

I must also add that your service is the best I have experienced so far. It is unfortunate that my perception of your company is clouded by a billing error.

Please do let me know if you have any questions.

I look forward to seeing this billing error problem resolved amicably and permanently.

Please sign and return the attached photocopy of this letter for my records.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

[Signature]
[Name]
[Account details (if required)]

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