someone opening late mums post....

sarahg1969

It is an offence to open or delay mail addressed to someone else if you intend to cause harm to that person by doing so.

Just opening the post (with reasonable excuse - not defined by statute) is not an offence.

bestpud

Opening post is not the problem here imo.

When I say I open post, I do so to see if there is any sign of an address so I can return it. If not, I reseal it and place it in the post box with a note saying they are no longer here. I would never try and gain from someone elses post!

However, the people keep sending these things. Even the Post Office bond letters I mentioned keep arriving!

Plus for the people before us, we were getting Inland Revenue letters for about 6 months and they were all reposted! We started putting the forwarding address (as we had it) and, when that didn't work, we began returning them with a note simply saying they no longer lived here. In the end, dh took their new address into our local tax office and told then to sort it out!! It still took them as couple of months but they did stop them.

What exactly do the Royal mail do with such letters? If they are ignoring them then it is surely no better than the current householder chucking/keeping them?

PBA

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

I cannot believe how many peple open others post! It is illegal to open someone elses mail, even if it arrives at your address.

Nope. See the Postal Services Act, section 84:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000026_en_8#pt5-pb1-l1g84

"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."

Deliberately playing devils advocate, maybe the new occupier here has been opening the post as they didn't want to bother OP by forwarding on junk mail. Then when they came across something important they passed it on. Nothing's been done to anyone's detriment.

gunsandbanjos

PBA wrote: »

Deliberately playing devils advocate, maybe the new occupier here has been opening the post as they didn't want to bother OP by forwarding on junk mail. Then when they came across something important they passed it on. Nothing's been done to anyone's detriment.

Did you actually read the thread? 'Nothings been done to anyones detriment'? They tried to cash an insurance policy that belonged to her mother!

sarahg1969

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

Did you actually read the thread? 'Nothings been done to anyones detriment'? They tried to cash an insurance policy that belonged to her mother!

We know that. But the assumption that the simple act of opening the post is a criminal offence is wrong.

It seems that a criminal offence (at least one) probably has been committed in this case, and the OP needs to press the police for some action.

magoogy

to update on this - a police community officer called into see the woman and gave her a sheet of paper informing her that to open and keep HM mail is infact an offence, they have warned her but, arent prepared to take it further by asking post office for tape, etc.....

when we sorted out the insurance by phoning them we did inform them of the womens intent to cash the money so im sure they will be taking action, but, my sister said she is going to phone them today sometime and ask them to confirm this.....

at the moment we will be putting it down to experience and make sure we have double checked everything and informed everyone who need to know - we have paid for another years redirection but, that is all we are allowed now....i informed all catalogues/gas/elec/water, etc the same week she died so all that was immediately sorted.....just a pity she didnt leave bad debt behind her so they couldnt get credit now ...thatd teach her...

thanks all....

vetfred

bestpud wrote: »

Opening post is not the problem here imo.

When I say I open post, I do so to see if there is any sign of an address so I can return it. If not, I reseal it and place it in the post box with a note saying they are no longer here. I would never try and gain from someone elses post!

What exactly do the Royal mail do with such letters? If they are ignoring them then it is surely no better than the current householder chucking/keeping them?

Basically, if you receive mail addressed to someone else and you have no redirection address to send it to them, you mark it "this person does not live here, return to sender" and put it back in the post. It doesn't matter whether there is a return address visible, the Royal Mail will deal with it from there.

When I worked for RM, what happened when a letter was undeliverable and had no return address on the envelope was that it got sent to Belfast where the Royal Mail team there open it - they are authorised to open those particular letters and members of the public aren't.

If it can be returned then it will be and, if not, I believe it's destroyed at the sorting office.

In relation to the main matter, good to hear things seem to be progressing.

magoogy

am absolutely fuming once again over this - the postman dropped some more mail off today from mums which was re-directed and it was a statement for £440 worth goods from grattan purchased in mums name in 07, when she died in 06......my mum was a customer but we informed them of her death and enclosed death certificate - any money due wouldve been less than £50 as mum never got much from catalogues and i remember none of her catalogues were any more than £50 so she cant say it was mums debt.....

have informed their fraud department who are looking into it but, have said if she doesnt admit liability there isnt much they can do - if she admits it she will be just made to pay the amount back...

have phoned the police to inform them and they have now said to leave it in the hands of the catalogue as they are the only ones losing out - not true, what about our feelings? my mums good name? they arent prepared to take it further and are leaving it with the catalogue...

so - next step im going to pay her a visit to nicely inform her we know what shes up to and she better stop it....

andyrules

magoogy wrote: »

am absolutely fuming once again over this - the postman dropped some more mail off today from mums which was re-directed and it was a statement for £440 worth goods from grattan purchased in mums name in 07, when she died in 06......my mum was a customer but we informed them of her death and enclosed death certificate - any money due wouldve been less than £50 as mum never got much from catalogues and i remember none of her catalogues were any more than £50 so she cant say it was mums debt.....

have informed their fraud department who are looking into it but, have said if she doesnt admit liability there isnt much they can do - if she admits it she will be just made to pay the amount back...

have phoned the police to inform them and they have now said to leave it in the hands of the catalogue as they are the only ones losing out - not true, what about our feelings? my mums good name? they arent prepared to take it further and are leaving it with the catalogue...

so - next step im going to pay her a visit to nicely inform her we know what shes up to and she better stop it....

Please don't try to deal with this yourself - go to the CAB and ask for advice. From what you say, someone - most likely this woman - is committing fraud. I thought that was a crime.

sarahg1969

Have you spoken to a police officer about this, other than someone on the front desk?

If it were me, I would be putting my concerns in writing to the police, and hopefully they might take things a little more seriously.