Post addressed to random people

[Fleanne]

Hi all, not sure where to post this, but hoping someone might be able to give me some advice.

We moved into a new house in November. Since then we have received post addressed to many different people - none of whom have the surname of the family we purchased from. Based on the envelopes, some of these are bank statements. We have returned everything saying “not known at this address” but as we get more letters to more different names I’m starting to worry (not sure what I’m worrying about exactly - fraud?). Does anyone have any advice on what I can do apart from just returning to sender?

I would worry about fraud too and might be tempted to accidently open them. If it looks like someone is using your address to apply for new bank accounts or insurance type of things then it is fraud. It can be reported through an online form on the police website.

I'd be worried about this, especially as the letters are addressed to different names as it is likely to be fraudulent applications. I'd agree with the other post - you need to start opening these things (accidentally) to find out what's going on. If they are applications for loans, credit card etc I would contact the police on the non-urgent number for their advice.

Thank you both. I was tempted to open the letters but I thought that was illegal? I don’t want to get myself into trouble!

We get this too, but mostly for the same surname - a person who has never lived here as I know the history from years back. I googled the return address and it is a collection agency but I just keep returning them.

ISTR it's illegal to tamper with the post with the intent to prevent it getting to the correct recipient. You would be opening it to find out how to best get it to the person it's addressed to, of course cough

I’d ‘accidentally’ open them

I’d open it without a second thought; if there’s anything relating to my home, particularly if it might be financial, I would argue that I have a right to know.

I’ve had a couple of such letters, one of which was to do with car insurance. I called the company, explained the situation, and returned the letter to them with a covering letter. I didn’t expect them to disclose anything about the addressee, but I wanted to be clear that the person and car were not connected to me or my home. They were fine about it, and I didn’t hear from them again.

I don't look at the name on my post before opening it I am the only adult in my house so I assume if it was put through my door it must be for me.

You're doing the right thing by returning to sender. You don't know who else might have lived with the previous owners, maybe as lodgers. There's no way you'll get into any trouble, you can prove when you took over the house but banks and other places are used to people moving around and having correspondence returned to them. It really is nothing to worry about. I've been in my house since the 1980s and still get the occasional post addressed to someone I've never heard of, I just do as you do, not my problem.

If your return to sender, hopefully it'll be picked up by their team if it's fraud etc

FFS, it isn't illegal to open someone else's post if your intentions aren't criminal!

Just open it, make sure it's nothing untoward and return to sender.

We had this quite a lot in our current house (it had been unoccupied for about a year before we moved it). I started with 'return to sender' buy this didn't work. I started opening the post and ringing the company that had sent it. I said noone by that name had ever lived here and I wanted my address taking off their data base. I wrote the same thing on the post and put 'as discussed on the phone call of X date.....' then put it back on envelope marked return to sender. It did soon stop after that....

Thank you everyone. I think I’ll “accidentally” open the last letter that arrived just to get an idea what it is before I RTS.