Opened their mail

[Daftsheep]

Elderly bed bound relative has carers visiting at home several times a day. They have recently opened my relative's mail, mostly birthday cards and a parcel but today my DM was checking through a waste bin and found an envelope in it addressed to our relative. It had been opened and was a bank statement showing details of the various payments and how much money is in the account.

This is wrong isn't it, they should nor be opening our relatives private mail as they have no authority to do so. They are there to help feed and do personal care for our relative. My DM is PoA. What should she do? Thanks for any advice.

Is your relative asking the carers to open their mail for them?

I don't think so. But we will find out. It's the fact that it had been put in the bin too, lucky DM checked.

You should contact the care agency first thing they have no authority to do this, and should not under any circumstances

Firstly, I’d be reporting to the company and to the police. These carers should not come again.

secondly, I’d speak to the bank. Ask if that bank account needs to be closed and open another. It could be compromised.

thirdly, I’d be putting a lock in your relative’s credit as this is ripe for identity theft.

financial documents should going fired go to the POA. Put in place a locked box where the post is delivered or have all post delivered to pos with a post forwarding put in place with the post office do this cannot happen again.

It's possible your relative asked them to open the mail.

When my mother had carers, I had POA and the agency asked me what I'd like them to do about mail. I told them to go ahead and open it.

Having said that, I had already asked the bank to send all correspondence to my address, so the carers never encountered any mail from the bank. As POA your mother can make this arrangement with the bank.

Please speak to your relative before you accuse anyone of anything and potentially loose them their job.
Is it not possible that your relative has asked them to open the mail? And potentially dispose of it?
Obviously, without permission, they shouldn’t be opening it.

It is probably a bit of a greyer area with regard to care agency staff, but it isn't illegal as such to open another person's post. It is illegal to use the contents of someone else's post for nefarious purposes - to defraud someone, for example. It isn't illegal to open an envelope addressed to someone else.

Thanks everyone, good advice. I'll tell DM to ask our relative first. I don't think they'd have told the carers to open the mail unless it was suggested to them first. So maybe if the carer said some mail arrived should I open it. Relative has always been very independent before they ended up bedridden and is quite a private person. My DM visits frequently too so really there's no reason for opening mail (especially not when it's marked P&C). Quire concerning to think that identity could be comprimised. Will check though and I'll mention about arranging to get things sent to DM's address as PoA instead. Thanks.

The fact that a bank statement was binned seems off. The carers, even if instructed to open it, should know to shred or store away that type stuff. It makes you fear they were trying to hide that they'd stolen? But hopefully it's not that. Just find out if they've been given permission.

Apparently it was in the bin with other empty envelopes. I have messaged my DM with the advice, thanks.

@Daftsheep tbh if they were shifty and trying to hide financial documents then they wouldn't just be openly in the bin. I presume no transactions on the bill looked amiss or weird? Nothing gone missing?
Just make sure they use the shredder for banking docs for binning as well.
Hope it's all fine x

I don't think there was anything on the statement that looked dodgy but this is the first time this has happened. Will check all ok with the bank just in case. We don't have a shredder but they shouldn't be shredding our relatives mail anyway. DM will check everything on Monday so fingers crossed all ok x

@Daftsheep good idea. Yeah, I meant they may have shredded it on instruction for security reasons. It's probably a good thing to get for them.

If your relative does not have the capacity to open or deal with the contents of her mail, then your mother should probably get all her mail redirected, not just mail from the bank. I found it simple to do a Royal Mail redirection using my POA.

I don't think they'd know what a shredder is and would probably view it with suspicion. They can open the mail OK but can't get up to collect it. A locked mailbox might be a good idea. Would definitely be a good idea to get mail redirected. Will see what happens tomorrow when DM visits.

Turns out relative had asked carers for a knife and opened the mail herself. Not sure how it ended up in the bin though.