Credit card received at my address not anyone who lives here

Ergates

IanManc said:

dr_adidas01 said:

scott_lithgows said:

zagfles said:

Why are you opening mail not addressed to you? If you get mail to your house with someone else's name which you don't recognise, just write RETURN TO SENDER - NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS on the envelope and put it back in the post. It will then get delivered back to the credit card company who can look into why they're sending mail to the wrong address. It could be eg a previous occupant who hasn't updated their address.

Nah,stuff that.Dont give the fraudsters a chance.
Too many porch pirates about to care about the letter of the law

Too many companies sending their products but not able to verify who actually lives at that address.
If they are unable to provide their new address to the CC company then they are unfit to hold a CC

Perhaps in your area there maybe Porch Pirates about.  

However under the Postal Services Act 2000 it states. 

"The Postal Services Act is clear that a person is committing an offence if they deliberately open post which they know or suspect has been incorrectly delivered to them.

"If you receive mail intended for another person, such as a previous owner, it should be returned by marking the envelope ‘Return to Sender’ and placing it in any postbox.“ 

Perhaps the company who sent the CC were given the wrong delivery details, or the right house number but wrong postcode which does happen  

I’ve had a few incorrectly delivered letters and even Christmas cards over the years. I just write “return to sender, not known here” on the envelope, which usually stops any other ones for the person arriving again. 

As they say “A little kindness goes a long way”!!

That is not what the Postal Services Act 2000 actually says, which is:

(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.

If post is addressed to your property then it is correctly delivered. Royal Mail delivers to addresses, not to people named on envelopes.

If you open a letter addressed to your address and the person named on it does not live there then the specific circumstances outlined in the legislation need to be present before it will be an offence.

If for example, the name on it is a former occupier then a reasonable thing to do would be to forward it if you have a new address for the person, or return it to sender. You wouldn't have a reasonable excuse to open it.

If the name is one you recognise as a neighbour then you would just pop it through their letterbox if you're a normal kind person. 

If it's a name that isn't a former occupier or a neighbour and it is your address, then it is arguable you have a reasonable excuse to open it to try to find out what is going on. Or to to put it another way, the prosecution would have to prove that you did so, without reasonable excuse and intending to act to someone's detriment, which is pretty much impossible in the circumstances.

The legislation is designed to catch people stealing while working in the postal service or, to use the phrase that has already cropped up, acting as "porch pirates",  and stealing post which has been delivered, which is common in flat complexes.

As far as the OP is concerned, they are clearly not dishonest or intending to act to a person's detriment. If the company doesn't get back to the OP quickly then I would send the card back to the card company with a covering letter explaining why it has been opened and that the person doesn't live there.

I'd only begin to consider contacting the police if getting post delivered in that name became a regular thing. One letter is likely just to be a simple mistake.

Moreover - if the post came through your front door you'd have a pretty impenetrable defense of "I didn't notice the name until after I opened it"

zagfles

These threads always seem to lead to a tedious debate about legality, but the point is the simple way to deal with misdelivered mail is "return to sender - not known at this address". That's why banks always have a return address for misdelivered mail, so they can look into it. Obviously if it's a previous occupant you have a forwarding address for, or the postie has put the mail through the wrong letterbox, you can take other action but for a letter, especially a bank type letter, delivered to your address but a name you don't know, just "return to sender", quick and easy, and will inform the sender they're writing to a non existant person or someone at the wrong address.

Ergates

zagfles said:

These threads always seem to lead to a tedious debate about legality, but the point is the simple way to deal with misdelivered mail is "return to sender - not known at this address". That's why banks always have a return address for misdelivered mail, so they can look into it. Obviously if it's a previous occupant you have a forwarding address for, or the postie has put the mail through the wrong letterbox, you can take other action but for a letter, especially a bank type letter, delivered to your address but a name you don't know, just "return to sender", quick and easy, and will inform the sender they're writing to a non existant person or someone at the wrong address.

The threads often end up there because in a lot of them people keep raising the myth that it's illegal to open mail with someone else's name on it.

CKhalvashi

dr_adidas01 said:

scott_lithgows said:

zagfles said:

Why are you opening mail not addressed to you? If you get mail to your house with someone else's name which you don't recognise, just write RETURN TO SENDER - NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS on the envelope and put it back in the post. It will then get delivered back to the credit card company who can look into why they're sending mail to the wrong address. It could be eg a previous occupant who hasn't updated their address.

Nah,stuff that.Dont give the fraudsters a chance.
Too many porch pirates about to care about the letter of the law

Too many companies sending their products but not able to verify who actually lives at that address.
If they are unable to provide their new address to the CC company then they are unfit to hold a CC

Perhaps in your area there maybe Porch Pirates about.  

However under the Postal Services Act 2000 it states. 

"The Postal Services Act is clear that a person is committing an offence if they deliberately open post which they know or suspect has been incorrectly delivered to them.

"If you receive mail intended for another person, such as a previous owner, it should be returned by marking the envelope ‘Return to Sender’ and placing it in any postbox.“ 

Perhaps the company who sent the CC were given the wrong delivery details, or the right house number but wrong postcode which does happen  

I’ve had a few incorrectly delivered letters and even Christmas cards over the years. I just write “return to sender, not known here” on the envelope, which usually stops any other ones for the person arriving again. 

As they say “A little kindness goes a long way”!!

That is not what it says, you have to be acting to the detriment of someone else.

As far as I can see, OP in opening the letter is acting in the interests of the company who have issued the card, and in the interests of the person for whom the card was received by ensuring that there can be no fraud on the account.

OP has therefore done the right thing completely in opening the letter.

I dealt with some post the other week that was incorrectly delivered, which happened to contain £10 in cash and a handwritten letter. I opened it, contacted the sender via a company whose invoice was included inside, established the correct address and hand delivered it there. It was the same street but a different number. Again, this is acting completely within the law and actually in the interests of everyone, not to anyone's detriment.

zagfles

CKhalvashi said:

dr_adidas01 said:

scott_lithgows said:

zagfles said:

Why are you opening mail not addressed to you? If you get mail to your house with someone else's name which you don't recognise, just write RETURN TO SENDER - NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS on the envelope and put it back in the post. It will then get delivered back to the credit card company who can look into why they're sending mail to the wrong address. It could be eg a previous occupant who hasn't updated their address.

Nah,stuff that.Dont give the fraudsters a chance.
Too many porch pirates about to care about the letter of the law

Too many companies sending their products but not able to verify who actually lives at that address.
If they are unable to provide their new address to the CC company then they are unfit to hold a CC

Perhaps in your area there maybe Porch Pirates about.  

However under the Postal Services Act 2000 it states. 

"The Postal Services Act is clear that a person is committing an offence if they deliberately open post which they know or suspect has been incorrectly delivered to them.

"If you receive mail intended for another person, such as a previous owner, it should be returned by marking the envelope ‘Return to Sender’ and placing it in any postbox.“ 

Perhaps the company who sent the CC were given the wrong delivery details, or the right house number but wrong postcode which does happen  

I’ve had a few incorrectly delivered letters and even Christmas cards over the years. I just write “return to sender, not known here” on the envelope, which usually stops any other ones for the person arriving again. 

As they say “A little kindness goes a long way”!!

That is not what it says, you have to be acting to the detriment of someone else.

As far as I can see, OP in opening the letter is acting in the interests of the company who have issued the card, and in the interests of the person for whom the card was received by ensuring that there can be no fraud on the account.

OP has therefore done the right thing completely in opening the letter.

Done the "right thing" by getting all stressed about it, trying to contact the bank by email/phone and thinking of getting the police involved?? Whereas she could have just written "return to sender - not known at this address" and put it back in the post box and let the bank sort it. Simple. Banks always have return addresses, they are very interested in misdelivered mail for obvious reasons. But their processes will be based around getting postal returns rather than being informed by email or phone.

Handwritten letters maybe different, although even then I'd return to sender and let Royal Mail sort it out - they'll open the letter if necessary to try to establish a return address. Personally I wouldn't want a nosey neighbour reading my letters even if they meant no harm