Jacobs Bailiffs Letter - person not known

mumofronnienreggie

Opening someone else’s mail is allowed in certain circumstances under the Postal Services Act 2000. It is only an offence if you open someone else’s mail ‘without reasonable excuse’ or if you ‘intend to act to another’s detriment'. For example, if you are receiving bank statements/cards in someone else’s name then you should act on that immediately. You should tell the sender, either by returning it marked “not known at this address” or by opening the mail and calling any number provided within. The “reasonable excuse” for opening such items would then be that you were helping to prevent fraud against the companies involved.

sghughes42

Very interesting.... Actually, the phrasing is intending to act to a persons detriment *and* without reasonable excuse. That does make a difference.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/section/84

Actually, I guess you could argue we are attempting to act to this person's detriment - we want her to pay what she owes, not pay it for her!

Seriously, we had no intention to act to their detriment and I'd say heading off an unjustified visit by bailiffs would be excuse enough.

Could I suggest, mattannar, that your time may be better spent giving useful advice rather than irrelevant and in this case incorrect information? I have noticed over the years that the quality of help on this forum seems to be getting worse and worse. There are some very helpful folk around but also some who just seem to want to take a pop at people.

sghughes42

For pity sake, do people never read threads properly?

We opened the letter by mistake. This was mentioned much earlier in the thread.

I have also made the point that if we had realised it wasn't for us then there is a good chance we'd have had a visit from a bailiff - returned mail takes a while to get back to the sender and they were demanding payment within 7 days of them sending the letter.

If I'd been in when they called I would have known how to deal with it. However, as my wife isn't English she would not have known not to let a bailiff in which could have caused us many more problems.

I've also answered the point about it being an offence to open mail by posting a link to the actual regulations which make it clear that in these circumstances it is not an offence. Did you read them?

And what exactly am I supposed to offer on a thread that I started asking for help and advice?

Whiner

sghughes42 wrote: »

We received a letter today from someone called Jacobs chasing a debt of over £2500 from Salford City Council.

There is no-one of the name on the letter living here and as far as we are aware has never lived here. We have been here over a year and this is the first we have heard of this.

We also have never known anyone of this name, nor have either of us lived in Salford.

So just bin it. Why worry about it? Its not meant for you so don't concern yourself.

Whiner

mattannar wrote: »

If the letter wasn't addressed to you, why did you open it?
It is an offence to do so.

The amount of people that spout this ABSOLUTE RUBBISH is incredible.

Whiner

sghughes42 wrote: »

If I'd been in when they called I would have known how to deal with it. However, as my wife isn't English she would not have known not to let a bailiff in which could have caused us many more problems.

Not letting them in is the way to deal with it when the debt IS yours.

If the debt is not yours, you can let them in, explain the situation, show them some I.D. as proof, and they will say thanks for your time, we'll be off now.

sghughes42

Whiner wrote: »

Not letting them in is the way to deal with it when the debt IS yours.

If the debt is not yours, you can let them in, explain the situation, show them some I.D. as proof, and they will say thanks for your time, we'll be off now.

I think the problem is that we are always given a very negative impression of bailiffs and the advice always seems to be that once they are in they can take what they like.

I'd like to hope what you say would be the outcome but hopefully by heading it off before it happened we achieved a less stressful outcome.

I should make it clear that there was nothing on the envelope to suggest it was a communication relating to a debt so we didn't open it for any reason other than by mistake.

elsien

I think they just trawl for similar sounding names.
My name is Ms jo Smith (As an example) I get regular calls from debt collectors for a Mr Smith Javier where they've transposed the names and got the gender wrong. No one of that name has lived here for the last 20 years, if ever.
I tell them, they take me off the system then a year later it happens again. Never got asffar as court letters, but getting completely the wrong person isn't unusual.

Whiner

sghughes42 wrote: »

I think the problem is that we are always given a very negative impression of bailiffs and the advice always seems to be that once they are in they can take what they like.

I'd like to hope what you say would be the outcome but hopefully by heading it off before it happened we achieved a less stressful outcome.

I should make it clear that there was nothing on the envelope to suggest it was a communication relating to a debt so we didn't open it for any reason other than by mistake.

I can certainly understand your concern here. For example, what happens if they come in, and then don't listen to you and just decide to take everything!!!

Fortunately, that doesn't happen in this day and age with regulations etc.

What actually happens is some (usually pretty big) blokes come in, and it may well seem intimidating, but they'll sit down and explain whats going to happen before they do it. This means that if the debt isn't yours, they WILL listen and then will go, without taking items (levying distress, is the official term).