To get annoyed with being used as a postbox

[Hothammock]

About 2 months ago we started getting post for a name who doesn't live at my property, has never lived at my property. Conscious of the risk of fraud I kept a record of the company it was from and then did 'return to sender not at this address' and shoved it back in the postbox.

About a week later, a woman turned up to say she was a relative of a lady a few doors down and to ask if we were getting Mail for someone else. She got DH at the door who wasn't aware of the letter I had returned so he said no. She told DH that when the mail comes he should give it to their relative x neighbour and explained her own husband had set up a redirect and changed all his banking details etc to the wrong address-our house rather than their relatives house down the street.

I thought this was all a bit odd especially as the woman wasn't claiming to be the person on the letter, and it wasn't my neighbour coming to explain this, for all we knew it was a random stranger.

After this we started getting loads more post and some with redirected stickers on. Basically someone had set up a redirect with Royal mail to our house. It says it lasts to October 2021 on the envelopes!

We now get more mail for this person than for ourselves.

The woman hasn't been seen since and I haven't seen my neighbour either-she works shifts and hasn't made any effort to speak to me etc about this. She is a nice friendly lady and we chat maybe 2 or 3 times a year if we bump into each other on our street. She lives alone and is in the process of selling her house so the story of a relative redirecting post there until October doesn't add up anyway!

Aibu to shove it all back in the postbox as not at this address? I am really irritated about this random woman's husband using my address whether it's an accident or not, she doesn't seem to be doing anything to correct her mistake and surely I shouldn't just be handing over post addressed to x man to a random woman claiming to be connected to a neighbour. They do not even live at the neighbours house either.

It's really dodgy that some of it isn't even redirected now. I'd actually open it and contact those places directly if you can be bothered. Or just post back 'return to sender' like you said.

I might phone 101 for advice on this, even to just have it recorded.
It sounds very dodgy and I’d be very VERY wary.

Redirect it all to Doghead’s house?

I’d take the advice on here, but I think I’d also be going round to this nice relative’s house to inform her that you’re taking action to have the Mail stopped and the authorities are now dealing with it so the nice relative can inform the randoms etc and they might get all in a nice panic about this dodginess.

Speaking as someone who for many weeks had a mass of mail arriving for the former owner (who had evidently left the country, no forwarding address), simply returning to sender with ‘No longer at this address’ just does not work, certainly not if it’s unpaid bills. Anyone avoiding creditors can write that.

In the end (because of being made aware of a couple of unpaid utility bills) I had to start opening it and write to the orgs/debt collectors, explaining the situation.
Only after that did they all back off.
Please don’t anyone tell me that it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail. In such circumstances it is not.

This happened to my sister and it massively impacted her credit rating

Rubbish. Your credit score belongs to you, not your address.

I agree with going to the post office and saying you want it stopped. Sounds like fraud to me.

My daughter had a similar thing, turns out the family was trying to claim benefits for her address.
Cross through and return to sender!

It sound like fraud to me. I’d go to the post office straight away and also phone the police non emergency line.

Someone (who has no relation to the property whatsoever, someone who I know very vaguely) has registered a limited company at my address and set up a redirect to their actual address. I discovered it absolutely accidentally, by looking up my address in the postoffice database and discovering there's an active company registered.
I was completely shocked that someone could just do that, no proof needed that they own the property or reside at the address - and then there's an obligation on ME to have 7 years worth of financial evidence at the registered address.
So, OP, maybe worth also checking that there is no business registered at your address.

@myfuckingfreezer

This happened to my sister and it massively impacted her credit rating

Rubbish. Your credit score belongs to you, not your address.

It can impact through if the algorithm assesses you as "associated" with the other name on the address (ie assumes that you live together as a family). I know that some people living in unofficial HMOs had to sort this issue out too, at least it was the case a decade or so ago.

You can contact Royal Mail via their website about Redirection

We moved here and previous owners were living abroad. We were receiving new bank cards, credit cards, phone bills etc. Opened the letters and informed the companies. Letters stopped for a while but then had new phone contract sent. Obviously using bank statements or something as proof of address. Really annoying.

Someone prior to us living in our house had gone bankrupt and was chased for debt constantly.
In the end I opened all his mail as it caused too many problems if left or sent back in the post.
Bailiffs, unpaid parking fines and debting agencies- it was much better to clear it up and get it sorted out.
I would hazard a guess at benifit fraud; - he's moved in and his income would stop her benifits - type scenario?

I have done some detective work and the address under the royal mail redirect sticker is for a swanky 1mil London flat.
Two peoples names are covered by the redirect. I think that for the post sent directly to my house I will contact the companies directly, and for the post on redirect I will give my neighbour a little more time to get in touch and request it and if there is nothing from them, I will approach her and ask her to get it changed.
It could be a genuine mistake, but if she knows nothing about it I can take action.

the name wasn't de Pfeffel Johnson was it? Looks like he's been avoiding some mail twitter.com/PrivateEyeNews/status/1392391943695577091?s=20

whoopsnomore, and he may cunningly have used 'A' as the initial?

Echoing others who are suspicious of this. Don't redirect, they go to a dead letter office to be sorted and not back to the company. This may take months and at best the office will return bundles at a time which are nobody's priority.

I would say buy a large mail stamp. Send multiple items together with a letter back to the companies themselves, using either the name on that letter or the head of customer services, but ideally the first one. If you share any utility providers, or the DVLA is the source of the mail, explain your own account/licence ID and the month you moved in as part of your letter. Be specific that you have no connection with the person intended and that you have now received x letters since then.

Also contact redirection services. Being cut off or bailiffed is very stressful.

Talk to Royal Mail ASAP. You need this to be stopped and that's the only way.

Anything with your address as the original address, return to sender “not known at this address”. Ring Royal Mail and ask for any redirections to your address to be cancelled.

Similar happened to us a few years ago. We suddenly started getting redirected mail for a person we'd never heard of, who had never lived at our address. As the address under the redirection label was only a mile or so away we tied everything up in a bundle, added a note asking for it to stop and took it round to the original address. There was nobody home so we just put it through the letterbox.

I don't know if it was the right thing to do but it worked, we never received anything else. Still don't know if it was an attempted scam, a mistake (how?), or what. Weird.

@Hothammock

I have done some detective work and the address under the royal mail redirect sticker is for a swanky 1mil London flat. Two peoples names are covered by the redirect. I think that for the post sent directly to my house I will contact the companies directly, and for the post on redirect I will give my neighbour a little more time to get in touch and request it and if there is nothing from them, I will approach her and ask her to get it changed. It could be a genuine mistake, but if she knows nothing about it I can take action.

Why would you give her a chance to call again. Just contact Royal Mail and tell them the person doesn't live there. And just redirect all direct mail back to sender. If she does call again you can't very well give her post that's not for her anyway. Tell her to get it sorted asap.

I thought of something else perhaps worth posting here (a fairly specific cycle but worth having in mind if the circumstances align).

Some family members rented a property that had been empty over at least a winter and was marketed only in high summer. Part of the terms were that the letting agent would record final readings for gas and electricity and cancel with the supplier.

Without any heat some rooms showed up a huge mould problem on the walls. Very large bills and red top letters kept turning up for the prior tenant which we think covered the period when unoccupied, where the building had had to be heated while empty. These should go to the agent and/or the landlord but neither had a traceable utility account so it was again a regular issue coming back to the tenants. If you are renting and your agent terms include that they are in charge of the notifications for utility readings, insist that you see the date on which the former account was closed and insist on having a copy of the request when they come to notify at the end of your tenancy. I would also make the effort to double check with the company around the end of their 30 day notice.

After this we started getting loads more post and some with redirected stickers on. Basically someone had set up a redirect with Royal mail to our house. It says it lasts to October 2021 on the envelopes!

I'd lodge a complaint with the RM about this: when a redirect is set up the confirmation is sent to both the old address and the new address, so if you didn't receive notification that a redirection was being put in place for your address (at which point you could have challenged it), RM are at fault.

If you can show RM that the persons named on the redirection have never lived at your address, and that you did not authorize and do not want a redirection to your property, they will have to terminate it.

Although the more I think about this, the more baffled I am that you didn't take this up with RM the very first time a redirected letter arrived at your address. If that was me, I'd have been on the phone and getting it cancelled within minutes.

You're strangely passive about all of this

His initials aren’t B O by any chance?

There were bag loads of post for a previous occupant. I tried to track him down to send the stuff on. I found he had set up company after company (think financial/property), which were quickly dissolved, all while moving every 6 months or so to different addresses across the UK.

Pretty sure some dodgy-ness involved. I just put back in the post to senders in the end.

@Itwasjustresting

Ignore Doghead. You have a potential nightmare on your hands. Been there, moved house in the end to get away from it.

Sign up to all the credit reference agencies and make sure no loans are being taken out to your address. Although technically the loan is to the person not the address it can still cause problems. If there is any way to get an alert put on your address get that done so you can see if debts are starting to pile up.

Open any of the letters that look like they are from banks. It’s only a crime if you’re intending to act to the person’s detriment. Again, you are looking for any evidence of loan defaults.

Get ready to write a lot of letters to bailiffs.

Have a standard letter ready and send to all of the official organisations that are writing to you - something like Mr X does not live here and has never lived here, please correct your records and advise me when you have done this.” Don’t just reply on Return to Sender for financial stuff.

The credit reference agencies are the big thing to sort as everything else flows from that.

I agree.

Ive had quite a few issues with the previous occupants not sorting things out properly, but it's largely died down now.

But this seems very deliberate and I agree it sounds odd.

So yes to getting proactive, it's easier to sort now than later, when you find evidence of loans, etc, and you are struggling to prove it wasn't you using a false name, etc.