People down the road with no address using ours!

[houseofisms]

We live on a road with a camping/touring park down the end. There’s only 4 addresses on our road (including the holiday park)
we often get loads of post for random people whom we assumed lived here previously but from years ago (we suspect it was an unofficial HMO at some point due the Yale locks on every internal door so not an issue, they just get binned)

we had a few Amazon packages delivered here by people staying at the park and needing an address to send it to (without asking) Annoying but fine.

about a year ago, the manager of the park knocked on the door asking for their credit card!!! (I must have binned it but said I hadn’t seen anything) turns out that they can’t get a bank account due to no address (they live in a big caravan with their feral kids on the park so no address) bad credit and this card was their only way of getting money. It took us flippin ages to get it removed from our address as the company refused to make amendments without full details etc.

Ive just had an Amazon delivery in their name! (Partner took it in thinking it was for us)

AIBU - suck it up and behave like a good neighbour and wait for them to collect

YANBU - leave the parcel outside in the pouring rain with a note asking not to use our address again

*they are quite loud and scary and I don’t like confrontation

You need to send ANYTHING you receive back to the sender marked 'not known at this address'. Don't bin it.
And if anyone comes looking for their post, tell them you've sent it back, and they shouldn't be using your address.

Refuse and return "addressee not known".

Sign on your door "addressee ONLY".

Return everything to sender.
Contact Royal Mail and local council who I think are in charge of postal addresses, there’s no reason they couldn't have a post box - our local gypsy site has a big postbox on the gates?

Credit card using your address? Um, hello, wake up. That's fraud and potentially very damaging to your credit history. I'd not be being so blase about this.

I was going to ask if you had thought about contacting the credit reference agencies so that they know exactly what is going on.

Agree you need a sign saying you won't take parcels in for anyone other than addressee actually stop accepting these parcels, any post return to sender with a bit NAME NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS emblazoned across the front and check the electoral role and credit file for linked persons - it will be a holiday license that does not allow full time occupation and/or dodging council tax.

Stop immediately. Perhaps put a note on your door that you don't accept post and packages for people who do not live at your address.

This was my first thought!
Check your credit rating, if they're having credit cards sent to your address you need to check your files and make sure everything's ok as well as tell them they're nothing to do with you.

The owner maybe has appalling credit or even that the bank refused him credit when they saw he lived in a trailer? Or he's trying to con you by using your address for financial products. Either way it's not your problem.

Just refuse any parcels for anyone other than yourself and if you've a regular postman try and explain it's only you and xyz living there so pls don't put other named post through the door.

You can tell the caravan guy he needs to speak to Royal Mail about setting up a postal address file. If his address somehow hasn't been registered with them. Or pay for a PO box that goes to a locker?

Hand everything back to the delivery driver.
Don't pass anything on to the fraudsters using your address. It is fraud what they are doing.
Write not at this address return to sender on all letters and post them in a letter box.

Not any use for Amazon, but for anything delivered by Royal Mail, you can ask at the sorting office for only stuff addressed to people who live at your address to be sent to you. They did this for a friend of mine whose nextdoor neighbour who kept having his bank stuff sent to hers.

Royal mail deliveries are to an address, not a person, and a postie delivering letters wouldn’t be allowed to not deliver them because a name doesn’t match, so a sign saying who you accept mail for won’t help.

I doubt Amazon or other parcel deliveries will take much notice either.

You can tell Amazon and other companies that a package for someone else has been misdelivered and they need to collect it at their own expense within 30 days or you’ll keep it, I think.

You need to try and catch your Amazon driver and have a word explaining what's happening. Then tell them to take the parcels back. Perhaps put in a complaint to Amazon saying that you will only accept orders with X Surname and everything else will be binned.

Do you use Amazon much? you could just start off binning all the parcels though that might get your property blacklisted from future orders.

update…. I’ve contacted Amazon and they are collecting on Friday. It’s also been escalated as fraud on their system. I shall now hide and not answer the door until then! 😂 (they are scary people and kept coming to our door last time and even asked ME to deliver it to them!! 😣)

It does sound like they are illegally living there all year round 🙁Either way they need to sort out a P.O. Box or something else.

I doubt they'll do anything. I reported an incident where somebody bought a surface pro through microsoft using my credit card details and the Police or Action Fraud never did anything about it, despite them leaving a delivery address down in London.

Wake up and smell the coffee OP!!! THIS IS POTENTIALLY VERY SERIOUS.

The credit card spells potential fraud and you need to dissociate yourself completely from these people at the caravan park. Their mail is none of your affair. Its not a question of being a good neighbour but of risking your own good name. Anything which cannot conveniently be returned to sender (packages etc) I would bin and deny all knowledge if randoms turn up at your door. "No sorry nothing here for you" Or leave them out in the road. Yu are not legally obliged to take care of mail for other people. Why should you have to go to the hassle of contacting sundry couriers and then wait in for them to collect?

Over the past 20 years Ive had a few incorrectly delivered packages. Most were for another house clearly marked. Two were for someone unknown at my address. I stord them in the garage for months and no one clamed them. Finally Ibinned them.

Get a ring door bell and dont open to randoms.

Your mistake was taking stuff in originally and saying this was "fine". You've got to take a hard line on this stuff. Especially when they have no address - the absolute cheek!

Check your credit records too, as this may be having an impact on that. Keep yourself to yourself, don't get involved in other people's post issues, and just always say no.

(we got into a situation in 2020 where the postie and couriers worked out that me and my partner both worked from home, so made a beeline for us with everyone's parcels. Our indoor porch looked like a sorting office. We were too nice, and then we decided to just stop. Especially when the same people refused to take ours in when we were out)

Have you checked your credit files as well? You don't want your name/house having marks against it as could cause you all sorts of problems in future.

It can also be fraud orders. They order then file a refund or chargeback claiming it was never delivered to the address because it's not really their address...

Oh that's not good! I had to contact Action Fraud once and they were very good, but I suppose it depends on how busy they are at the time etc. I hope you got your money back!

This!

For Amazon:

If you receive a package or item that you didn't order:

1. Confirm that it was not a gift that was sent to you.
2. Check with friends and family to find out if they ordered the package.

If you confirm that the package addressed to you wasn't ordered by you or anyone you know, report the package online by going to the Report Unwanted Package form.

The photo taken by the delivery driver would disprove that, and give rise to an allegation of theft.

True, although OP says that most parcels are left by drivers without waiting for the door to be answered; a photo of a parcel left behind a bin or in front of a closed door is not evidence that the OP received it.