Dumb Previous House Owner... AIBU?

[zingally]

First of all, I am happy to be told I'm being a cowbag. :)

A bit of relevant background
We moved into this house in September 2024. We purchased the house from a single woman named *Jane (widowed) in probably her late 50s/early 60s.
About a month after moving in, we received a "final demand" in the post for a small amount she owed to O2.

She hadn't left a forwarding address, so I enquired with the estate agent who handled the sale, and Jane begrudgingly gave them "permission" to give me her new address (a house on the other side of our large town). I dutifully re-posted it and thought no more of it.
Then in about December we received another "final demand", still for O2 and the same amount. I put this one in the post to her as well.
I've also sent on Christmas cards, and various mailings from different animal charities.

Fast forward to about September this year, we received a credit card from a reputable bank in the post, for her. We kept hold of it for a couple of weeks, expecting her to get in touch when she realised her error (after all, she knows where we live!) But she never did.
At this point, I was getting fed up of being her forwarding service, cut the card in half, and posted it BACK to her bank, with a covering letter.

Fast forward again to this week. We received ANOTHER credit card for her (same bank)! We roll our eyes and put it to one side - how on earth has she not changed her address on her BANK?!
Then today we received a "PIN reminder". Her ACTUAL PIN NUMBER.

In all honesty, I feel disinclined to put her new address on it... I've done it enough times now.
Would I but a total cowbag if I just returned it "Not known at this address"? Solely because I think she's stupid?

According to the Postal Service Act 2000, 'A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him' - it's only illegal if you do it maliciously. You have reasonable excuse, as they are clearly important and you're trying to resolve the issue, not go on a spending spree with them. It must be so frustrating though.

Just keep writing 'Not at this address' and putting them back in the post. We did this with several bailiffs' letters for the previous occupants of our house. We eventually opened one because they just kept coming and we were getting stressed about them turning up at the door. We rang the number on the letter and said they'd moved (I think we gave them the estate agent's details, but it was 19 years ago so I'm not sure), and we never heard from them again.

"Beer ? What beer? "

I’ve had exactly the same thing happen - same name but Avenue/road. House was probably less than 1 minute walk away and I frequently dropped stuff mistakenly delivered to my address to them, but they returned it saying not at this address so I had my account frozen whilst at work and only found out when I couldn’t pay for lunch and bank said it couldn’t be reactivated till the next day so had no way to pay to travel home 🙄

My sister's friend's hairdresser's neighbour got sentenced to 5 years in prison for opening a previous owner's bank statement. True fact that.

Just return to sender, it's been over a year.

She probably hasn’t redirected the mail but I paid for mail to be redirected for a year and some mail still found its way to my old address so even paying for the redirection service isn’t foolproof.

I don’t think there is any need to call her “dumb”. It is pointlessly rude.

We occasionally get post for people who lived here years ago. When we first moved there was loads and to start with we would pass it on as the family lived near by. But after a while (like a year or two) that got annoying. The volume definitely decreased after I wrote “no longer at this address” on the envelopes and put them in the post box. It goes back to the sender, and they eventually change the addresses. I was even getting stuff from HMRC for one of them! It’s a minor inconvenience, not a reason to name call though.

Have you never lived in a property before? This is perfectly normal. How hard is it to cross out your address, write RTS and pop any post in the postbox when you bumble past one?

It's illegal to open other people's post.

I've been in my house 7yrs and still receive letters for the previous owners. They were here 20yrs so hardly surprising. I was 20yrs in my last house too and I daresay they get the odd bit of mail too. It's hardly an inconvenience.

Argh!! So annoying!!! It was sheer luck for me that I hadn't tried to use my card after the block had been put on, and also that my payment date was approaching so I phoned them up to find out my balance.

Write ‘not at this address - return to sender’ on it and put it back in the post box. Don’t be opening other people’s mail.

Yes It's not exactly a strange and unusual situation getting post for the previous owner.

From the get go, if you receive something for the write "No longer at this address' and put it back in the postbox. Not rocket science.

This. Every time.

I've lived in my house for 14 years. I still get bank stuff for a previous owner despite RTSing every envelope with "not known at this address since 2011" written across it.

It takes 5 seconds out of my day. No hardship.

It's against the law to open mail that is addressed to another person.

You should always, write on the envelope 'Return to sender, not known at address'. This simple act alone would have likely prevented all this carry on!

@Misanthropologie

I did not say being a widow confers anything - please quote me?

I love threads about mail.
1- misquoted law and it keeps going
2-how many people believe RTS actually does anything
From my experience it does fuck all

When we moved into our house in 2002, for two or three years we received post addressed to a former occupier. Only, it wasn't the couple we'd bought the house from, whom we'd met when viewing it. They had lived there for ten years, so this post was addressed to someone who'd moved out over a decade ago! 🤷‍♀️

In my experience of this as someone living in a house that was previously occupied by someone with debt, it is incredibly unpleasant to have the baliff knocking on the door at 7.00 in the morning. I had repeatedly sent back the payment reminders with "Not known at this address" and it makes no difference. The baliffs are absolutely useless and just turn up at the last known address. I pointed out that a quick google search shows you exactly where the person now lives but supposedly they aren't allowed to do that. In the end I forwarded the next payment reminder letter to the person's place of work which may be morally wrong but certainly led to him updating his contact details/paying off the debt as I never received any more letters or visits from the baliff!

for the bank card and pin I wonder if it's the bank at fault. I once asked for a new card and provided my new address, received nothing, asked bank again and checked they had my new address, yes they did, third time, still nothing. Finally I went to my old address (student house) and there were three bank cards and three pin numbers! Luckily the students had just thrown all post into a box.

RTS depends on the company- many due process that information but if they can’t get another address they keep that one. So if the lady had moved abroad, but as she’s just across town and potentially has registered for council tax and to vote at that new address, it’ll be straightforward for a company chasing payment to find her.

I'd send the bank stuff back to her bank but anything else I'd bin.

This does not work!

And BTW, for those who have said it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail, it is not if you’re doing it for a valid reason, e.g. in our case, the person was believed to have left the country, no forwarding address left with either estate agent or solicitor.

In fact we had all this twice - 2nd former owner also believed to have returned to his country of origin. He was the freeholder of the property and we needed to contact him, since we wanted to buy the FH.

In the end, I used a tracing service - he was living just 3 miles away under another name - because of debts attached to the freehold! They found him inside 10 days and when I asked how they could be sure it was him they said, ‘We have our methods!’

To be fair to the person who quoted you originally, your comment read as if it was unfair to call a widow those things, implying that a widow can be neither. Otherwise why is it an issue to call them that? If you do something stupid expect to be called stupid…

For those saying she wasn’t dumb… you don’t think requesting a pin reminder without updating your address first isn’t dumb? It’s certainly not the most savvy thing she could have done!

NO IT'S NOT FFS

Lol, really? She must have done something dodgy then as it's not against the law

It is illegal to open mail not addressed to you!! Yes you can be prosecuted!!