Sports club keeps using my address

[TeddySunflowers]

Help! There's a sport club near my house, they have a building in an field nearby and I guess my house is the closest to it.

They keep using my address for all their deliveries and pick ups to the point now where I'm getting delivery people knocking on my door every morning sometimes twice a day and it's becoming really invasive and stressful because it's constantly disturbing my day, quite often they come early and wake me up, or hammer on the door while I'm in a meeting, and when I explain that I'm not the sports club and they've used my address without my permission, they argue with me as if I'm wrong! Then insist on showing me the order with my address on it as if that'll somehow convince me I'm not standing in my own home. It never used to be this bad and I used to try and be helpful when I first moved in but after accepting a parcel for them they turned up and we're immensely rude and I decided screw that I've just done them a favour for no reason. So I don't accept parcels, I don't even redirect the drivers any more in hope that it would deter the club from using my address but they still do it.

I know it's not the fault of the delivery person but I am slowly losing my patience with it. We've told the club to stop I've also contacted the delivery company to tell them to stop but it makes no difference. I don't know what else to do 😫 hellpp!

Can it be theft if its addressed to OP?

Can you put a plastic box in your garden, with a sign all mail for "wanker club" in here.

Then just let it fill up and don't pass it on

I would probably take in the parcels and then refuse to give them to the people at the sports club, saying they were addressed to your house which is clearly not their club so you’re worried it could be fraud or a scam and you’re going to return them to the company. Then just write a big ‘return to sender - unknown at address’ on each parcel and stick them back in the post box. I’m sure after a few of their parcels have been kept from them in this way they will be pressured into using their actual address.

Wow! What are they playing at?

Why on earth would you get the parcel for someone being so rude? You were a doormat and they've continued to treat you like one.

Fgs, the police are not needed in this situation.

This

I'd accept the parcels then ignore THEM at the door when they come round to collect.

Sign for them with the word "Thanks".

Hold them to ransome and say they can have their parcel once the address is changed.

Or say parcel collection is between 8am and 8.15am on Saturday mornings only.

Or tell them your parcel signing service is £20 per parcel?

Or just get the courier to throw it over the fence in your back garden to deliver it!

Just regarding the “correcting email address”, I was always trained not to do that at all as you could get in trouble due to GDPR. As in you case, you could be sending personal info to the wrong person, or maybe they just didn’t want to give you their actual email address.

Even if the mistake is something like “gmail.con” com we were told to call the person off possible in order to amend the email address, but never correct it.

I would be going to a solicitor to have them send a cease and desist letter, and I would also file a complaint with the police so you can have absolutely everything on record.

No way! solicitors charge to write letters- wtf should OP pay for that?? Just send a letter notifying them that you have informed them multiple times the address is wrong and then make it inconvenient AF for them to pick them up- dont answer the door etc. Its not a crime to go out or to not answer your door. Once they start getting massively inconvenienced they'll stop.

I'd start selling their parcels.

The problem with this is- the ICO dont really do much even when GDPR is breached. I've contacted them twice after being harassed by unwanted emails, texts and again when the CCG "lost" my dad's medical records etc and they did absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course they say contact us but when you do, I assume they are so inundated they focus on large breaches of information.

Haven’t RTFT but I would also agree with a cease and desist threatening them with misuse of private information, also apply to Information Commissioners Office for breach of GDPR and finally send the club a Subject Access Request with your address - it won’t help you but it’s a massive ball ache and means they have to provide you with every single piece of documentation they have with your address on it.

I knocked on with another pile, his wife was on the phone and just looked at me distainfully through the window and kept me waiting.

This is one of the most outrageous parts of this kind of behaviour: when people presume to use you as their free mail and parcel-drop facility without ever actually asking you - and then treat you like a nuisance when you kindly try to pass it on to them!

I was assuming cricket but golf sounds like a better guess actually!

OP you seem adamant they have their own address, how can you be certain? It just seems so unlikely they would do this for no reason and risk not getting their deliveries? It must be a right pita for them especially when they get so many. There has to be a reason that they are doing this.

You are absolutely right to be raging though, do you know anyone that could give you legal advice? Surely there has to be a way to put a stop to this. It would drive me mad too, you have my full sympathy!

I like that suggestion , he'd be perfect for it

Who are the parcels from mainly? Amaxon?

Crown Green Bowling.

And SHARE the name of the club/web addy so that all of us helpful MNers can also leave a review, visit their FB page, etc.

I also agree that you just need to send an email with high fees for each package delivered to you, a fee for accepting the package, a fee for storing the package in 1 hour increments and a fee for releasing the package, which you will not do without proper ID that will be photographed in case of fraud. I think 50 for accepting, 25 for each of the first four hours and 35 for each additional hour for storage and 75 for releasing of each package to a qualified (ID'ed) person. Also, for putting your address on their site, 500 for listing it and 500/month to keep it listed. Send it so that the letter has to be signed for (to the president or chair of the club). The fees start the day they receive the letter.
They are using your house as a business, so start charging as if you are one. You can charge whatever you want, so make it worthwhile and very, very expensive.

The next time someone pulls up, rolls down the window and yells at you to get them their parcel, laugh, turn away and lock the door in their face.

@FUPAgirl I'd start with royal mail.. https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode
They have several ways of finding an address.

I think you’re using the wrong tact. Start accepting everything. Deny it all. If they turn up at your house don’t answer the door. If they catch you in the street simply look confused and say “but this isn’t the club?” and walk away. They’re still eventually getting their crap at the moment, so it’s only difficult for you and the delivery drivers. You can make that stop. Share the annoyance.

And get a criminal record for theft. Please don’t.

To expand, the OP clearly knows these parcels aren’t hers. Making collecting them inconvenient (say by saying collection only at 7 am on a Sunday) is fine.

Taking ownership rights over them as required for selling them is not.

’Finders keepers’ is not part of British law (and yes I do mean British, this applies to Scotland as well) except in very strictly defined circumstances which this isn’t.

Yes, I wonder if OP can legally keep all the stuff as they repeatedly send it to her address. I know she doesn’t want it.

No. There is specific law that says you can keep unsolicited goods without paying for them - they have to be sent to you for a start.

These goods / letters are not being sent to her, the club is just using her address. Also, it isn’t the person sending them to her who is at fault.

If the OP chooses to take them in, it’s the same as your neighbour taking in your Amazon parcel. Doing so doesn’t make it theirs.

I had an almost identical issue (but only once and a genuine mistake) when a new neighbour accidentally gave my house number to a website when shopping. I had no legal right to keep the parcel (I wouldn’t have done anyway, of course).

If you have household insurance, could you get some legal advice/support through that, regarding the picture that they have put up with your contact details?

I'd definitely be putting up a large sign saying "This is not 'Dickheads Sports Club' and they are using our address incorrectly, no parcels for them will be accepted here", and then don't answer the door. If the delivery company leave the parcel outside, let it rot. If the people from the club start coming onto your property to collect the parcels left in your garden/porch etc, then I'd be tempted to take out a civil case against the club, e.g. banning their members from entering your property.