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?

No, that is not correct. Detriment doesn't mean 'mildly inconvenienced'. The woman having to call her bank to find out where her card has gone, or having to order a replacement would not be considered a detriment in this case. And again, the law is about intent, not the end result.

And the OP has always either forwarded it on or, more recently returned it to the bank, she clearly says this in her OP.

Jesus, calm down.

I'd say I'd "acted to their detriment" if I'd "whoo hoo"d at having her credit card and pin number sent to me, and trotted off for a jolly to the shops! I haven't done that, and wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. That would be "detriment".
Opening some post, with no indication on the envelope who it is from, addressed to someone who last lived here 15 months ago, with a history of having this address linked to unpaid bills... Any reasonable person would go, "yeah, fair enough."
The card arrived on Wednesday, and the pin arrived this morning. I've hardly been sitting on them for ages, plotting how to use this information.

Anyway, I've sealed the envelopes back up and labelled them to return to sender, and they'll come out with me tomorrow to go back into a postbox when I see one in a convenient place to stop.

Thanks to everyone who gave calm, sensible advice. In future, I'll just bin obvious junk and forget about it. Anything I'm unsure about will get a return to sender.

People are talking about opening it being the offence though. She could chuck it in the bin and it still woulnd't be returned to sender, but apparently magically no offence.

It's perfectly reasonable to make sure you're not going to get bailiffs at your door.

Just put it in the bin, no need for any drama

Noooo it’s not.

I have moved house 4 times.

even if you think you’ve updated everything stuff inevitably slips through the net.

i pay for a years redirection each time. Some institutions can be a fucking nightmare to update though.

just make a pile by the door mark it return to sender and it’ll sort itself out.

You may scoff but it is still illegal

I never said a prison sentence, it is still illegal though

I'm not scoffing at the illegality.

I'm laughing at anyone thinking the OP would ever go anywhere near a prison for this! 🤣🤣

I never mentioned prison

It isn't. The law has been linked to and posted enough times on this thread for you to clearly see that it is not illegal to open someone's post UNLESS you are doing so with the intention of causing them detriment. Its a misconception that gets trotted out on here all the time, because people have misunderstood the law.

It's weird how obsessed Mumsnetters are with the illegality of opening someone's mail, but nobody ever mentions that it's illegal to be drunk in a public place on any of the many threads about Christmas work parties/drunken husbands etc.

When did I say you mentioned prison?

I was replying earlier to the PP who did mention prison and you interjected to remind me it's still illegal, like most of us didn't actually know 🙄

Why is the myth perpetuated that it is 'illegal' to open post not addressed to you.? It's NOT illegal. She is a dick obviously. Just return to sender the lot if you can be bothered. Otherwise, bin. You've done your bit OP.

18 years of TV license demands for a previous occupier. And he wasn't even the person we bought it from...

We had the same issue when we moved into our current home ten years ago. The man that we bought it off also ran a business registered at home and we got his business mail as well as his personal mail including all of his bank statements for a couple of years. We even got all of his kids presents from various relatives delivered here the first Christmas. For a while he'd pop round every so often to collect them and I'd remind him to update his address, but then he moved away and stopped coming. I then started crossing out his name and address on everything that arrived and wrote "Return to Sender - Not Known at This Address" on everything and stuck in back in the postbox. Took another year or so of doing this, but now we receive absolutely nothing in his name, not even the junk mail.

Do NOT forward credit cards she’s taken out usingYOUR address to her!! Contact the bank/CC company yourself and give them her details and tell her what she keeps doing and tell them her new address so they can deal with it! Also message her ONCE more and tell her to sort out her address and that anything that comes to your house with her name on will
gp straight back into the post box or if it’s a credit card it will be destroyed as that’s FRAUD!!!

Actually also go to your local Royal Mail delivery office and ask them to stop delivering anything for this woman to your house too - they will put a flag on her name and make sure nothing gets through to your house and ALSO that nothing she has with YOUR address on does either so she will then have to sort it out herself as all these fraudulent activities - she’s clearly not able to get a CC using het new address as sounds like she’s built up a load of debt so is now using your address!!

I would 100% return anything financial to the bank. You don’t want her credit file linked to yours! Especially as she invites final demands. I would be returning all mail to sender now tbh.

You do realise that opening someone else’s mail is a criminal offence even if it comes to your address.
Best thing to do is write on not known at this address and pop it in the post box you could even include her new address if you wanted to.

I forwarded the previous owners mail for 3 months, then collected everything in a large envelope and sent it without any postage to their new address, and wrote, ‘please set up a redirection’. They did.

It's linked to her, not your address.

Don't open her mail.

Return to sender.
When we moved house, I paid for the Royal Mail forwarding service for a year. She could do that and if not bothered to, then it's not your responsibility to redirect her mail indefinitely.

It's annoying - when we bought our first house we got post for almost everyone who had ever lived there and it was a 100 year old house! That included debt collection for the people we bought off and porn catalogues for the owner before them.

Specifically about the bank though, when we moved again my bank changed my address details straightaway but DH had a terrible time getting his to do the same, it took months with multiple attempts. I think I'd pop a note in the post to her telling her if she's tried to change her contact details at her bank, they've not updated their records and she needs to let them know.

We had this off our previous owners… PLT parcels, speeding fines, parking fines… alsorts… we just started writing RTS not at this address since xxx date. They messaged us asking if they could come for their post like 2 years after we moved in, we said no sorry we RTS them because you turning up for stuff every now and then wasn’t working for us and they needed to change addresses.. they were fuming saying they were waiting for stuff.. not our problem