Some sort of fraud?

sandsy

Not sure if this is the right place to put this but here goes....

I was opening all the post this afternoon when I got in the house and I opened a letter that was correctly addressed to our address. However, when I got into it it was actually addressed to someone else - but it declined that person for a bank account!

BUT .... no-one of that name has ever lived at our address!

Now I don't know what to do. Could someone use our address to try and open a bank account? It got declined as it failed the credit rating check. Could that impact on our credit scoring?

Do I need to tell anyone?

pickleiamin

Its shouldnt impact your Credit record as thats on your name and not an address.

Could it be phishing mail? Contact the bank it came from?

ChiefGrasscutter

Cross through the address/name on envelope and return to the sender with some message on outside written on envelope to say "never/not known at this address - return to sender"

Make a note in your diary of this - just in case anything more happens in the future - at which point you can say " envelope was returned to sender on date X as evidenced by a note in my diary - not my problem anymore"

2pennyblue

better still: photocopy it and then return it.

System

In theory, if a letter is not addressed to your name, then you should not open it (even when the address is correct).

You should make a note of the return address and the name it was addressed to and the date received, then cross out the name & address with "Not at this address" (or similar wording) and return it to the sender, who should take action to correct their records.

If you later receive more mail addressed to the same person from the same company, you can make a formal complaint to the company involved.

antrobus

BAA1 wrote: »

In theory, if a letter is not addressed to your name, then you should not open it (even when the address is correct)...

What theory would that be?

The law (as in s84 Postal Services Act 2000) is quite plain;

A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him.

So long as you have a 'reasonable excuse' and are not acting with the intention of causing anyone any 'detriment' you can open any letter delivered to your property with impunity.

As far as the OP's question is concerned, yes it might be 'some sort of fraud', but then again it might simply be that some MWS simply typed the wrong house number into the system. Return to sender with a covering letter if necessary if you're worried about it.

jalexa

antrobus wrote: »

So long as you have a 'reasonable excuse'....

That's an interesting. But what would the "reasonable excuse" be if the envelope has a different person's name and the rear of the envelope has a "return to" address?

In financial data protection terms, nobody, not even the householder, "owns" an address.

pmduk

"I picked the letter up and opened it without checking the name and address"

An entirely reasonable excuse with the added benefit of being true.