Mail for unknown person suddenly started arriving at my address

baz8755

Hi,

I have lived in my house for nearly 12 years.

In the past week I have received 2 items of mail for a person I have never heard of and is not even the previous resident.

The items in question are a set of O2 PAYG SIMs and a Toolbox catalogue, the items have the correct full postal address and I have tried directory enquiries to see if anyone near me has the name on the items.

I am concerned that someone is using my address for nefarious purposes and was wondering how I can prevent this mail and protect myself.

Regards

Baz

Mishomeister

Once, about 2 years ago, I have started to browse an internet on trying to find some ways of how to earn some money from home, I came across some Russian website(It was in Russian and based in Russia and as it is my first language that was fine with me ), which has described the ways of earning some cashback by completing some tasks through the cashback websites. Most of us know the websites like Greasypalm where you would earn for example £1 for ordering some free simcards through them for example. This Russian site has however stated, that because you(Russians) live in the country(Russia) where no such a things available, you need to have a US address(why not to use UK address if you deal with UK cashback website) to get this rewards, so as most people in Russia non surprisely would not have US(UK) address, it was advising to find a phone book for that country online and pick up a random resident from it with an address in this country and use his details to set up an account with a cashback site. That migh be one of the things, that have potentially happened to you.
Another thing migh be that someone in the UK has set a multiple accounts with a cashback site, with a random legit address(yours) to be able to complete the task(ordering the SIM cards etc) many times, so to get rewarded many times.
The only thing, that I could think of is for you to write 'Not known at address' on envelopes and drop them back in to the post box, hoping that the companies(O2 for example) will see that a mail is returning, so not pay the cashback to the guy that is using your address. If that worked, that would possibly mean that an address thief would stop using your address, as he would not get anything out of it anymore, however I can not obviously guarantee, they will not pay a cashback on returned items.

Mishomeister

You can also try to contact O2 and try to find out, which cashback website was the order referred from and if they tell you, get in touch with the cashback site, advising them, that someone is using your address details fraudlently, so they could block fraudsters account.

easyhost

Mishomeister wrote: »

You can also try to contact O2 and try to find out, which cashback website was the order referred from and if they tell you, get in touch with the cashback site, advising them, that someone is using your address details fraudlently, so they could block fraudsters account.

who's says it was due to someone using a cashback site?

Mishomeister was talking about something that happened 2 yrs ago, does not say this is whats happening here.

just return the mail Not known at this address

halibut2209

And check your credit file!

elsien

Returning it saying not known at this address won't make any difference. When it happened to me (again with mobile phones) I opened the letters, contacted the companies in question and explained the situation. One refused to talk to me quoting data protection, but the rest were quite helpful and made a note so that nothing else got sent out.
I have no idea what the person was trying to do, but I later found out they were working their way up the house numbers on the street, and it certainly wasn't an innocent mistake.

Mishomeister

easyhost wrote: »

who's says it was due to someone using a cashback site?

Mishomeister was talking about something that happened 2 yrs ago, does not say this is whats happening here.

just return the mail Not known at this address

However that is the most likely thing that has happened, because the only benefit for you to order a O2 free sim cards to some random address is to get a cashback, maximiles etc.

MamaMoo_2

I have had that a few times. Just chuck it away. I found that mine was due to someone signing up for a freebie site, but they put their house number and postcode in, and obviously the computer had got one digit wrong meaning it generated the address wrong. As long as your credit file is clear of fraud, you should be ok

baz8755

This morning I phoned Toolstation and got them to remove the offending entry from their system, they also said the information came from 'Lifestyle Online Data' tried googling but could not find what this is.

O2 on the ther hand were less than helpful and said they could not remove the entry from the system as they wouldn't be able to find the records, despite the fact I knew the Name,Address and phone numbers on the sim cards. After 10 minutes going round in circles I gave up.

Someone mentioned to check my credit file, how do I do this and what will it cost.

Cheers

Baz

maninthestreet

Happened to me a few months ago - I got a delivery from a catalogue company left on my doorstep, addressed to a person I had never heard of, but with my address. None of my neighbours had heard of this person either. After a little further investigation, I discovered the person in question lived in the next street to mine (same house number as my house, same postcode) who had ordered something from the catalogue website, but had mistakenly chosen the wrong street name after entering the postcode and being presented with a drop-down list of addresses for that postcode.

shaun_from_Africa

It could be this baz.

http://www.lifestylesonline.co.uk/



This is where you need to go to check your credit history

http://www.experian.co.uk/
&
http://www.equifax.co.uk/