someone fraudulently using my home address to open a bank account!

wems

Hi

Hoping someone can offer some help here. My property is currently empty and is about to be sold at auction next week. Today I received a letter addressed to someone that has never lived at this property. I opened it and it's a visa debit card for a current account that this person has opened with Ffrees bank. I'm concerned that someone is using this address fraudulently which could impact on the sale of the house so any ideas of what I should do please?

TIA

gunsandbanjos

Shouldn't impact your sale, just phone the bank and tell them you received the card to your address. They should sort it out for you.

gamerboy

Return to sender and inform the bank. I have Googled it and I can see it's not an actual bank, it's just a current account with a Visa debit card, I presume that it's a prepaid account?

wems

Thanks both, they put me in touch with Action Fraud so I now have a crime number and it's being dealt with

gamerboy

wems wrote: »

Thanks both, they put me in touch with Action Fraud so I now have a crime number and it's being dealt with

Good, hope you get it sorted

dr_adidas01

wems wrote: »

Hi

Hoping someone can offer some help here. My property is currently empty and is about to be sold at auction next week. Today I received a letter addressed to someone that has never lived at this property. I opened it and it's a visa debit card for a current account that this person has opened with Ffrees bank. I'm concerned that someone is using this address fraudulently which could impact on the sale of the house so any ideas of what I should do please?


Legally your not allowed to open someone else's mail, Under the Postal Services Act 2000!!

You should have scribbled out your address and put on the envelope return to sender, not know at this address.

Receiving someones mail wont impact on the sale of your house at all!

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/contents

IanManc

[QUOTE=dr_adidas01;68705880

Legally your not allowed to open someone else's mail, Under the Postal Services Act 2000!!

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/contents[/QUOTE]



No.


Section 84 of the Act governs postal offences.


84 Interfering with the mail:
(1)A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he—
(a)intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post, or
(b)intentionally opens a mail-bag.
(2)Subsections (2) to (5) of section 83 apply to subsection (1) above as they apply to subsection (1) of that section.
(3)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.
(4)Subsections (2) and (3) of section 83 (so far as they relate to the opening of postal packets) apply to subsection (3) above as they apply to subsection (1) of that section.
(5)A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) or (3) shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.


Wems did not commit an offence, as he/she had a reasonable excuse for opening the post (because he/she owns the property, the mail was addressed to the property and wems knows that the addressee has never lived there) and was not intending to act to a person's detriment (as he/she was trying to find out what was going on, rather than trying to steal the contents or deprive the addressee of them) and so did not act without reasonable excuse or with the requisite mens rea (mental element of an offence) for an offence to be made out.