Real-life MMD: Whose lens is it anyway?

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Comments

  • cwc1899 wrote: »
    It is absolutely NOT yours to sell!

    You should NOT have opened it and should have, straight away, taken it back to the post office with 'not known at this address' or 'return to sender' written on it.

    You are a thief by the mere act of opening someone else's mail and think how you would feel if this were your parcel.

    SHAME ON YOU!

    This is ridiculous. It's not unreasonable to open the parcel to try and find out who it's come from.

    Send it back to the Post Office with 'not known at this address' written on it. I assume you mean there was no sender's name, not no addressee. It's not your problem, anyway - just let the Post Office sort it out, and forget about it.
  • Go ahead and do as you suggest.

    Either the former occupier just can't be bothered to collect it, or it wasn't ordered by him/her anyway. You've done all that's expected of you and, if it came to somebody knocking on your door to claim it, you can rightfully explain that the package was unaddressed.

    I imagine that's what really happened was someone ordered the lens, it wasn't delivered and they claimed on their insurance or the supplier sent them another one.
  • djb77
    djb77 Posts: 17 Forumite
    I had a similar experience to this but my parcel contained a CD. The parcel had no return address on it so we opened it (I know technically you are not supposed to open mail not address to you but did not have any alternative - to find out where to send it back to).

    We have lived in the property for 35 years and we know the previous occupiers name and the name on the parcel did not belong to them either.

    All that was in the parcel was the CD no note or how to identify who sent it. We ended up giving it to a charity shop.

    I do not see any problem selling the lens and giving the money to charity especially as it has been over six months. Also, if you handed it back to Royal Mail and they could not find the sender (if it had no return address) what would happen to the lens then - Is it like handing something into the police after "x" months you can claim the item as your own?

    If I had ordered something, had not received it I would check with the sender to see what had happened to it. They would then inform me where it was sent - I could then go a collect it from that address.

    If you are still worried about selling the lens you could actually go to the letting agents if it is near and inform them that you may have a parcel for the previous tennants and an they pass on the message as it is unlikely that they would divulge any information concerning previous tennants as would be against Data Protection laws.
  • Ebay will have the senders address !
    :coffee:
  • Ebay will have the senders address !

    Why do people keep saying to contact Ebay? There were no details included in the parcel to suggest it came from an Ebay seller. The OP merely states they checked the value of the item using Ebay - presumably by verifying how much similar lens were selling/sold for.
    MSE_Debs wrote: »
    It turned out to be a camera lens worth £180 (according to eBay)

    Tbh, if the address was correct (number, post code, etc) then I'd suspect it was a competition win. I often forget what I've entered. Most companies do include a "with compliments" slip but it's conceivable that some might not.
  • I'm a few days behind on this one but nobody else seems to have mentioned this.

    It's not 100% clear from context whether the lens is a new item from a first-party seller to a customer (unlikely given the lack of invoice) or a second-hand item sent from the previous owner to a new owner.

    If the latter, has the OP considered contacting the manufacturer and quoting the serial number? All optical equipment should have a unique serial number, which the manufacturer may be able to trace back to the original owner if the lens was bought directly from them or registered for warranty.

    They probably won't be able to give out any information about the previous owner (Data Protection) but if they have an original name and address on file they may be able to take the lens and reunite it with, if not the current owner, then at least the person who sent it to them.

    Of course this opens up a couple more possibilities for less then ethical behaviour; someone at the manufacturer could swipe it for themselves, or the original owner might get it back and sell it again rather than passing it on to whomever it was destined for in the first place. But if you start going down this route you could drive yourself crazy.

    Given a lack of information about either the sender or the intended recipient I'd say the manufacturer is your best option for reuniting this with its legitimate owner.
  • Tulip1 wrote: »
    I don't really think that enough effort has been made to try and contact the previous occupiers. Emails don't always get to their destination. A phone call to the letting agent would probably be more effective.
    From personal experience, some letting agents are about as much use as a chocolate wall against an ion cannon.

    Plus, the letting agent can also hide behind data protection instead of offering to pass on a message.
  • cwc1899 wrote: »
    You should NOT have opened it and should have, straight away, taken it back to the post office with 'not known at this address' or 'return to sender' written on it.
    How many times do we have to explain this?

    The carrier's responsibility for an item ends once it's delivered to the address stated on the label/paperwork. It's not illegal to open an item delivered to your address as long as you don't intend to deprive the actual recipient of its contents or use them to commit a criminal offence.
  • JayD
    JayD Posts: 696
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
    Forumite
    I agree with all the others here who say perhaps you could make more effort to track the sender. After doing ALL that you could have done to re-unite the lens with that person and if you fail, then I would say, do whatever you want with it.
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