'Notice of Sale' sent to our Address but addressed to wrong name. What do we do?

antrobus

cattie wrote: »

Isn't it an offence to open mail addressed to another person, when you haven't been given permission by said person to open it?

No.

Apples2 wrote: »

Don't open that can of worms, it will ramble on for pages.

That's only because they're a lot of people out there who have it wrong.

wnoktnwbr wrote: »

It's an offence to open someone else's mail in transit (before delivery) but if it's been delivered to your property with your address on it you're allowed to open it.

Pretty much correct.

S84(3) Postal Services Act 2000 makes it an offence to open mail that has been "incorrectly delivered". Clearly if a piece of mail arrives through your letter box with your address on it, then it has been correctly delivered by the postal operator.

VictimOfImpersonation

Three things OP, before you put the episode to the back of your mind:

1. If you have never seen any post to this same name at your address previously and you have no idea of their link to your address then remain on enquiry, because ...
   
2. (and especially if you have lived at your address some time) you may have a vulnerable postbox i.e. fraudsters know they can "farm" bank statements and the like as they are delivered.
   
3. Simply marking the correspondence "not known at this address" may not be sufficient to do anything immediate at the credit provider. Might be best (for the name you don't recognise) to persist and tip off the loan company fraud department if you can.

If you live in a block of flats with the postboxes all in a bank on the wall or even outside in some freestanding frame, then your postbox will be a target for those who carry keys and/or split bamboo sticks and do the dipping.

Of course if your post falls through a conventional letter box a distance onto your very own door mat then forget it ... the risk of dipping is insignificant.

If your box is "vulnerable" what else could it mean? Well it could mean you are also a target for say replacement credit card and PIN interception e.g. through fraudsters having found out enough about you to try their luck calling Lost and Stolen at your card company and ordering a new card and a PIN reminder.

Read my other posts and you'll see how easy it is for them sometimes.

What happened to you happened to me (two different strange name credit card statements arrived from different banks) a month after I had found out that my own accounts had been taken over through interception of post. The reason two other poor unfortunates' names were now arriving on statements at my address was because my postbox was easier or more inconvenient to intercept than theirs and when their accounts were taken over by fraudsters he first thing they did wss a change of address. The victims had no idea until I opened the post and contacted the fraud departments directly at the credit providers concerned whic is what I suggest you do to save some other victim a lot of trouble because they may not have any idea yet.

Not all of the post which fraudsters trigger gets intercepted by them ... they miss some. It's a numbers game to them. There is almost no police work going on to stop it even when they are caught on CCTV using the cards for example.

As I say, if your post is not vulnerable to dipping, forget most of what I've said, but if it is, then probably worth checking your own accounts carefully and getting a free credit report from one of the main CRAs to make sure it looks as it should with no strange new accounts or searches.