Have I just messed up - someone sent a letter to my address registered and I have just handed it over!

[MsFogi]

A lady turned up whilst we were having dinner to ask if we had received a piece of registered post for her. I got her to show my the photo from Royal Mail showing it had been delivered and it was in our post box (which I hadn't yet emptied today) so I let her have it. But I am now wondering if I did the right thing - why on earthy would someone end up with their registered post being delivered to my address (not my name but my address)? Is this the start of some sort of scam/someone registering something to my address? I am starting to worry now that I am thinking about it.

and she had driven to our house
Major red flag, the size of a car.

So how did she know your address to drive there if it wasn’t clear on the photo?

Unless she deliberately had it delivered to you which would be suspicious.
I would have returned it not known at this address.

I’d be a bit suspicious if she didn’t even say she’d accidentally entered the wrong address or give any explanation as to why your address was on there.

It’s unlikely but she could have fraudulently used a payment card and had the purchase sent to your address so it couldn’t be traced back to her. This shouldn’t be possible as billing details should be needed though. Or I have heard of people hacking into customer accounts and changing delivery addresses.

If you get anything else I’d return it/ say you’ve returned it if you haven’t had a chance yet.

Also if she had driven to your house then it wasn’t a case of selecting the wrong house number on a drop down box.

How did she know how to find you?!

On the proof of delivery it will have included the address it was delivered to. My Royal Mail tracking always has at least

If assume it was a mistake - either Road name or number issue (I used to live on king Henry road but there was also a king Henry street in a nearby area and we occasionally got post for them) or a number issue as others have said. Wouldn’t occur to me to think any more about it

I knew someone where royal mail delivered a package to the wrong town. It was addressed correctly (same street) but it had just ended up in the wrong town and therefore in the wrong letterbox. They got the delivery photo from the sender and realised it wasn't anything like their street so looked up the road on google maps and found there was one in a neighbouring town. Used street view to locate the house in the photo and sure enough, it was a match. They had to drive about 10 miles to collect it.

I think it's a scam to prove their (fake) address and I think you need to check your credit reports and contact action fraud

I would not have given it to her under any circumstances.

I wouldn't think anything of it, it could be her previous address and a mix up led to it being sent to yours.

I got a parcel of mine delivered to an address 10 minutes' walk away because the online autofill on my laptop got weirdly scrambled. So instead of:

Janet Jones
15 Imagine Road
Pretendville

it kind of came out as

Janet Jones
15 Pretendville
Pretendville
Imagine

or something... anyway there is 15 [Pretendville] Road in my postcode so the carrier just adjusted the postcode and took it there instead. Took me a while to work it out as my parcel was marked as delivered but definitely wasn't at my address. Similar could have happened to her?

Sounds dodgy. Sign up to credit expert, it's free Importantly, in addition they have a free for 30 days fraud alert ( £14.99 pm after that).

Lots of paranoia on here!

I'd assume someone made an error writing or filling in the address and she only realised when the letter was marked as delivered to a different house.

Wouldn't even occur to me think it was some kind of scam 😳

Our property was vacant for quite some time years ago, and a couple of people (not our former tenants) had used our address for benefit/social security accounts. Apparently its quite common so they can't be traced.

Same as dog registrations, so people can keep more than the legal number at home, they register the extra dogs to a property outside of the area, it might be a vacant block of land as an example, but have their postal address where they live. They tell the animal control officers the dogs are just visiting, which apparently is legal, and because the dog is registered, the AC officers cannot do anything to remove them....

Probably nothing to do with your situation, but just shows what people will go to for unscrupulous reasons...

It’s not paranoia

its a pretty well-known way of taking out credit cards in another name, and wracking up big bills

there are regularly posts about it happening on my local Nextdoor app, including people trying to intercept the postman to get the letters (containing credit cards) or knocking on the door and asking for the envelopes

Round here loads of post goes to wrong address. People post the photo on a local FB group asking if anyone recognises and someone tells them where it is. Not necessarily anything suspicious going on. You can try and google the person/look on FB etc and see if you can set your mind at rest perhaps.

It is possible that a company has been registered to your address. You can try googling your address to see if anything comes up and also look on companies house to see if the name of the person who picked up the envelope appears connected to your address.

What's odd is that if she'd made a mistake she would surely say.. "sorry about this typed 12 instead of 21" or I live on church Lane and somehow its come up as church Road.

If any more post comes for her return as not known at this address

I know an Alice Turner!!

It's a well-known scan, OP, usually they try to get to the letter (credit card etc) before you do. Report it to Action Fraud and keep an eye on your credit score for a while.

Scam, obvioulsy. They used your address, that's how she knew where to go.

I work in fraud and unfortunately we see these sort of scams all the time.

The best advice, I can give is to obtain a copy of your credit report from Experian and Equifax, and sign up to Clear Score which is a free service that can be downloaded as an app on your phone.

Clear Score may not show any linked names/addresses but if anyone opens up anything using your full ID details it should show on there.

As an extra measure, if you are concerned, you can request a protective registration through CIFAS. It does delay any credit application made from your address as it will flag up as potential fraud but the fraud investigators will take extra measures to ensure it is a genuine application.

Why did she say it happened? I had to go to the old house I lived in a few times for parcels as my teenagers didn’t change the address on their eBay accounts. Maybe it’s something like that.

Perhaps the sender put wrong door number

Ive done it before

Actually i did if a few weeks ago. I sent a gift to the wrong flat number recipient knocked on door and got the box

Mistakes do genuinely happen, it's not always a scam.

This week, our postie got himself into a muddle and delivered next door's mail to us.
I dropped it through their letterbox (number 7) and afterwards realised that although it was addressed to number 7, it had number 9's name on it. It was from a well known insurance company.