Anyone (with a better imagination than I have) fancy solving this mystery?

[HornsOfADilemma01]

My brain is fried by this, so I’ll just get straight to the point…

1. On 22nd May, I purchased a pair of sandals from one of the pop-up ads on Facebook
   
2. When they arrived, the sandals were really poor quality, nothing like the advert and they were too small for me (they’d actually sent a smaller size to which I’d ordered)
   
3. After many, many emails back and forth, the seller (who it turned out was based in China) eventually accepted the return and, in June, I posted the sandals back to them
   
4. On 2nd September, I received a refund for the sandals.
   
5. End of story and lesson learned - don’t order crap stuff from FB pop-ups!
   
6. Then today……..I receive a parcel, addressed to me, with a pair of the same sandals inside. Same colour, same style, but they’re definitely not the sandals I returned, they’re huge, about 4 sizes bigger than the ones I returned.
   
7. But this is where it gets weird….the address label on the front of the parcel is in my handwriting. 100% it’s my handwriting, absolutely no doubt whatsoever. Addressed to me. With these same sandals inside.
   
8. There’s a hand-written note in the package with the sandals, the note says that the sandals are too big, can a smaller size please be sent and gives the person’s name and full address for the smaller sized sandals to be sent. The note is written in a completely different hand-writing to the address label (the handwriting looks to be that of an elderly person, and the name given seems to indicate she’s an elderly lady, let’s call her Mavis).
   
9. There’s nothing else in or on the bag, no other clues. The bag in which Mavis posted the sandals to me had been turned inside out and re-used, and the address on the original label had been cut out with scissors.
   
10. The way my address is written on the outer bag is a bit different to the way I would write it…..I live above a shop, so I always write my address as shop name first, followed by door number/street name, town, city, postcode. However, this parcel is addressed door number/street name first, and then shop name, town, city, postcode. It also has “UK” at the end of the address, which I never write.
    
11. But the address label is most definitely in my hand-writing. In my wildest imagination, I cannot for the life of me work out what’s happened here!
    
12. How did Mavis, who lives in the north of England get my name and address (West Midlands) to return a pair of sandals, which were the same style and colour but a different size to a pair I returned to China more than 4 months ago?
    
    Can anyone come up with an explanation, no matter how weird and wonderful? As it is, I feel like I've woken up in some kind of twilight zone!

[Aquamarine1029]

Burn the sandals and call a priest.

Haha! Joking, but seriously, that's weird.

[Aquamarine1029]

To add, I would try to get Mavis' phone number and give her a call and ask her how she got your address.

[Shortfeet]

Wow
No idea, sorry. But it’s a great mystery!

[00100001]

[Seeline]

Did you have to put sender's details on the package that you returned?

It sounds as though the company likes to re-use packaging (you said the address had been cut out of the bag and then turned inside out).

I reckon they cut out your senders details and then attached them to the wrong parcel.

[Seeline]

Or maybe MAvis has tried to re-use re-used packaging and managed to cut out your address rather than the company's address to return the parcel.

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@Aquamarine1029

Burn the sandals and call a priest.

Haha! Joking, but seriously, that's weird.

That had crossed my mind!

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@Aquamarine1029

To add, I would try to get Mavis' phone number and give her a call and ask her how she got your address.

I'm planning to write to her to ask that. I've found her telephone number but I'm not sure where I'd even start to explain over the phone!)

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@Shortfeet

Wow
No idea, sorry. But it’s a great mystery!

It's mad!

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@00100001. Lol, I think you're right.....either that or I've slipped into some kind of parallel universe!

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@Seeline

Did you have to put sender's details on the package that you returned?

It sounds as though the company likes to re-use packaging (you said the address had been cut out of the bag and then turned inside out).

I reckon they cut out your senders details and then attached them to the wrong parcel.

If I remember correctly, I had to compete a customs declaration sticker to go onto the parcel, but I think that was just to outline what was in the parcel, approximate value, etc. Ibmight have had to put my name/address on, I can't remember.

I actually sell lots on ebay, and I always put a little "sent by" sticker on the back of every parcel I send (just in case an item is undeliverable). So I'm assuming that i put one of these stickers on the sandals parcel.

But that doesn't explain how someone got hold of a large address label, addressed to me, in my hand-writing. I honestly can't even remember ever writing an address label to myself.....

But it's 100% my handwriting.....

[giletrouge]

Is it actually written though or could it be a photocopy of you having written your address? Which could explain the weird order it's in. They copied your address in your writing and then cut it up and pasted it on wrong. That's where I run out of ideas, but I can sort of see how all this could happen in a chain of incompetence.
Seriously disturbing though.

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@Seeline

Or maybe MAvis has tried to re-use re-used packaging and managed to cut out your address rather than the company's address to return the parcel.

That was one thing that I considered as a possibility......that maybe Mavis had bought something from me on ebay and that's how she has my name and address. But I've checked back as far as I can, and I can't find any record of me selling something to Mavis. If it was via an eBay purchase, then it would have to have been recent, because I changed my surname recently (back to maiden name after divorce, and the parcel is addressed to my new/maiden name.

But, none of that explains how the address label is in my hand writing.....

[justanotherneighinparadise]

@Aquamarine1029

Burn the sandals and call a priest.

Haha! Joking, but seriously, that's weird.

🤣

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@giletrouge

Is it actually written though or could it be a photocopy of you having written your address? Which could explain the weird order it's in. They copied your address in your writing and then cut it up and pasted it on wrong. That's where I run out of ideas, but I can sort of see how all this could happen in a chain of incompetence.
Seriously disturbing though.

It's definitely written by hand, and it's even written in a black sharpie-type pen, which I also always use......seriously weird!

[HornsOfADilemma01]

I have been wracking my brain as to when i could have needed to write an address label, addressed to myself. It would have to have been fairly recently because I only changed my name this year. The only time I have ever addressed something to myself is when I used to provide an SAE for a repeat prescription, but that was an envelope and i haven't done that for many years!

[DrGachet]

Could it be a very complicated brushing scam, or something like that? It's usually random plastic tat they send you though.

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@DrGachet

Could it be a very complicated brushing scam, or something like that? It's usually random plastic tat they send you though.

Anything's possible but i can't see what's to be gained from it if it's a scam. There's nothing in the parcel other than the sandals and the little handwritten note on a piece of paper ripped from a book.

[heartshapedfaces]

of the billions of people on earth it wouldn’t be the most unusual thing in the world for someone to write in the same style as you

[Guardsman18]

My DS can copy handwriting perfectly. He would be a great forger but we don't encourage it obviously!

Something like that? Although why springs to mind!

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@heartshapedfaces

of the billions of people on earth it wouldn’t be the most unusual thing in the world for someone to write in the same style as you

Very true, but I'd bet my life on this address label being in my handwriting. I have quite a lazy style of writing capital letters, i tend to not define the letters very well. For example, I have to make sure I write a B correctly so that it doesn't end up looking like a D!

[HornsOfADilemma01]

@Guardsman18

My DS can copy handwriting perfectly. He would be a great forger but we don't encourage it obviously!

Something like that? Although why springs to mind!

Exactly... why would someone do that?

The person who sent the parcel is a real person, I've found her telephone number online.

It's not a scam, I'm pretty sure of that.

I think I'll contact her to try to get some answers.... and also to tell get that she won't be getting a smaller sized pair of sandals any time soon

[HornsOfADilemma01]

Oh and another thing... I mentioned that the packaging was an old bag which had been turned inside out to re-use and the original address cut out.

I've now had a good look at the partial address label on the inside of the bag and it's a Hermes label. Although there's no address, the distribution centre recorded on the label is "92 TYNE".

Im in the West Mids and Mavis in in the NE, which means that the bag was originally addressed to her (or someone local to her) and its definitely not a bag which came via me and which I've subsequently reused.

[FannysSteadiedBuffs]

Perhaps Mavis is your handwriting twin.

[citycitycity]

@FannysSteadiedBuffs

Perhaps Mavis is your handwriting twin.

but that doesn't explain the more written in a different handwriting