Using my address

noapron

People who were new neighbours a few months ago, had something mistakenly mailed to my address. I didn't recognise their name (they'd only just moved in round the corner) so guessing it was just a number mistype, I knocked on a couple of doors and found them and they were grateful. A couple of weeks later a letter arrived for them with a handwritten address - this I thought odd because you tend to let your friends and family know your new address accurately, but in posted it through their letterbox. A few months on, yesterday, a catalogue arrived for this person, with my address again. As this person has only lived in the house a few months, she must have at least given her new address for this catalogue to arrive but yet again has given my house number. Once is a mistake, but three times? Should I be jumpy about this? I called to inform the catalogue company that I was not the person named on their database as living at my address. She informed me it was a cash only account (how does that work with mail order?) and not to worry she had removed the address.

If it happens again I know I will need to ask her to make sure her address is corrected, which her boyfriend assured me she would do the first time. At base i'm worried this person has applied for a loan or a card using my address and the bills will end up on my doorstep.

My sister was scammed a couple of years ago. She got hefty bills from a book club she didn't belong to in the name of a person she didn't know. In the end, after being treated like a liar aver the phone by the book club personnel and the threat of legal action on their part, they came to her house and finally believed her, admitting it was their computer error (though as far as she knew she was not on their database) or someone who had randomly used he address.

RadoJo

You can sign up to Creditexpert for a free month's trial to check any applications made against your address - it might be worth doing this for peace of mind to check that nothing untoward is going on.

noapron

Thank you that's a good idea. I'm sure I must be over reacting, but In this day and age of shredding anything with your address on it rather than just throwing it away, your address is a first step to gaining knowledge about you. And if you move, you tend to be certain to get it right when you first use it, especially if say you have anything official that needs to be posted to you.

somethingcorporate

I think the cash account refers to it not being a credit account, so she has to pay for everything upfront rather than having a credit limit she can rack up a large debt against.

I'd just keep an eye on your credit file.

peachyprice

Are your door numbers at all similar, with 1's that could be mistaken for 7's or for example?

Huomenna

As I don't know yours or her address I can't say for sure what the issue is, however we have had problems with wrongly delivered post where I am...

I live at '2 Fleming Court, ****** Road' there is also a '2 ****** Road' about half a mile away. I've always given people and companies my full address, but there have been a number of times part of it gets left off - I have found that this usually (but not always) occurs when the sender uses the print it yourself postage on the royal mail website as there is a section where you input a couple of details and RM fill out the rest of the address - well in my case it misses out 'Fleming Court'.

Now the postcode for the 2 houses is different and you would think that considering how often RM bangs on about always putting the right postcode, that they would still be able to deliver to the right house - not so. If 'Fleming Court' is missed off they deliver it to the wrong house despite the difference in postcode and name. As a consequence I contacted RM to tell them that their website isn't generating my full address and post is getting wrongly delivered - I never got a reply.

The house that got my post would stick it back in the letter box, but they clearly thought it was my fault that things were being delivered wrongly ie. that I wasn't giving out my full address so I had to write them a note explaining everything.

What's worse than above is that I used to live in a road called 'Amhurst Gardens' down which my family had two houses, both of which received post on a daily basis for a road called 'Primrose Place' - now those look nothing alike, how can they possibly be mistaken for each other? The only similarities in the address were the house numbers and town name. It took 4 emails of complaint to RM before that stopped.

Hopefully in your instance it is nothing sinister and simply a case of people/companies not taking care over properly addressing, possibly in combination with the Royal Mail not delivering properly.

Now I'm off to finish filling out a claim form for a letter that was delivered today with a third of the envelope and letter missing (torn off)...

Dizzy_Ditzy

Huomenna wrote: »

As I don't know yours or her address I can't say for sure what the issue is, however we have had problems with wrongly delivered post where I am...

I live at '2 Fleming Court, Pagham Road' there is also a '2 Pagham Road' about half a mile away. I've always given people and companies my full address, but there have been a number of times part of it gets left off - I have found that this usually (but not always) occurs when the sender uses the print it yourself postage on the royal mail website as there is a section where you input a couple of details and RM fill out the rest of the address - well in my case it misses out 'Fleming Court'.

Now the postcode for the 2 houses is different and you would think that considering how often RM bangs on about always putting the right postcode, that they would still be able to deliver to the right house - not so. If 'Fleming Court' is missed off they deliver it to the wrong house despite the difference in postcode and name. As a consequence I contacted RM to tell them that their website isn't generating my full address and post is getting wrongly delivered - I never got a reply.

The house that got my post would stick it back in the letter box, but they clearly thought it was my fault that things were being delivered wrongly ie. that I wasn't giving out my full address so I had to write them a note explaining everything.

What's worse than above is that I used to live in a road called 'Amhurst Gardens' down which my family had two houses, both of which received post on a daily basis for a road called 'Primrose Place' - now those look nothing alike, how can they possibly be mistaken for each other? The only similarities in the address were the house numbers and town name. It took 4 emails of complaint to RM before that stopped.

Hopefully in your instance it is nothing sinister and simply a case of people/companies not taking care over properly addressing, possibly in combination with the Royal Mail not delivering properly.

Now I'm off to finish filling out a claim form for a letter that was delivered today with a third of the envelope and letter missing (torn off)...

i hope thats not your real address that you have posted on a public forum for all and sundry to see and possibly abuse? It wouldnt be hard to get the location

If it is, I would suggest that you edit your post pretty quickly!!

pimento

We had a bailiff call a few weeks ago. Nobody was home and they put a "call me" letter through the door.

When I read the letter it was for council tax arrears in a name I'd never heard of. When I looked closer, the house number was 264. We live at 246. Even the bailiff hadn't noticed he was at the wrong house.

When I called the bailiff to advise him, he blamed his sat nav...

Huomenna

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

i hope thats not your real address that you have posted on a public forum for all and sundry to see and possibly abuse? It wouldnt be hard to get the location

If it is, I would suggest that you edit your post pretty quickly!!

Well I've edited it but as you quoted it doesn't make much difference :P
What are people going to do with the first line of my address though? You can get a real address from anywhere if you want to so I don't see what writing one line of mine can do? Not being funny I'm actually genuinely interested.

Huomenna

pimento wrote: »

We had a bailiff call a few weeks ago. Nobody was home and they put a "call me" letter through the door.

When I read the letter it was for council tax arrears in a name I'd never heard of. When I looked closer, the house number was 264. We live at 246. Even the bailiff hadn't noticed he was at the wrong house.

When I called the bailiff to advise him, he blamed his sat nav...

We get that from delivery drivers turning up at our house and looking confused when I say I haven't ordered anything. I tell them they want the house further down the road and they always say their sat nav told them to stop there.

pmduk

Queen of cheap now you've told the OP to amend her post you may want to amend you quotation of her post showing the very details you wanted her to hide.