getting post for someone who has never lived here

melancholly

so two more letters came today - both with the same return address. openned them up and they were both from the same bank, chasing money owed under two separate agreement numbers. rang them up (nasty 0870 number!) and shouldn't get any more. glad i did this before it was passed to debt collectors!! i'm slightly concerned that someone can just change their address to somewhere they don't live and then disappear owing money, but at least we don't have to worry about anyone turning up on the doorstep!

thanks everyone!!

Paul_Varjak

Try to find the person on here: www.192.com.

Failing that, look on the electoral roll for someone of that name living near you.

surreysaver

jonnyb wrote: »

if you open mail addresses for someone else, who would know ?

found this on uk.answers.yahoo.com :

Interfering with mail - Postal Services Act 2000 Section 84

Triable Summarily (Magistrates court)
6 Months and or a fine (Max)

A person commits an offence if they without reasonable excuse intentionally delay or open a postal packet in the course of transmission by post or intentionally opens a mail bag.

A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person's detriment and without reasonable excuse, opens a postal packet which they know or suspect to have been delivered incorrectly.

If you work for the Post service you could commit other offences under Section 83 triable either way (Magistrates or Crown court) and get a sentence of 2 years and or a fine.

If it has been delivered, it is no longer in the course of being transmitted; if it addressed to your address, it is not incorrectly addressed!

ginny82

After 5 years living at my current address and despite all my RTS's on any mail that was not mine, I kept getting letters from Lloyds Bank. They all appeared to be statements and junk mail. Then one day a new bank card turned up (judging by the feel through the envelope), followed a couple of days later by a nice new PIN number!! I did open this one. I contacted the bank straight away by phone and haven't received anything else since. I can't beleive some people can be that careless with their personal details. But that's prob just coz I'm one of those freaks who shreads everything and anything with my name and address on it.
Anyway muy advice is to stick with just sending it back to the sender- after all it doesn't cost you anything to do thid.

melancholly

hmm.... so now this morning we got another letter chasing this mystery person for money. i rang them up and after helpful people last time, the woman on the phone was abnoxious. after telling me that we won't get any more letters, she has now said that they will continue to use this address until they get another one :mad::mad:............ that can't be right, surely? this guy hasn't lived here in the 4 years i've been here, or the 4 years before that when the landlady did.... how can they take an address with no basis?!

if this gets escalated, could debt collectors potentially turn up at my home chasing someone who has never lived here?!?! that's madness, surely?!

is there any way i can deal with this? i can keep sending letters back or binning them, but that still means that some randomer's debt is associated with where i live..... ARGH!

pinkpong

This hapend to my friend. They bought a house which was previously empty for a year. So the scamers use houses like this for borrowing money aparently quite common. I will ask her what they had to do to stop it , I think the police was involved.
We had a similar senario after i opened the letter that the debt collector will be commin, my hubby found where the woman was living and copied and sent all the letters to her addres.
I don`t envy you it can be quiet scary time.
Hope it ends up ok for you.

shaymenRup

Bear in mind, that scammers also use this line of approach with debtors. Most companies won't just accept "an anonymous phone call". Put your concerns in a letter to them and emphasise that this is likely to be fraud!!

melancholly

have just spoken to consumer direct and they also told me to write a letter and to send it recorded delivery. if i'd ever even heard of this person i'd happily give the band their details to chase!

got 2 more letters for the guy today, one is a default notice and one is a letter from a solicitor............. i'm am so angry that their fraud measures are this pathetic that we have to deal with this.

Zebedee69

Its a tough one, at present its so so easy to get on the electoral role as there are no checks and once your on it for a few months you can apply for loans and cards etc etc. Its possible to apply in different names and then leave without a trace as the system is so flawed. Houses that are unattended for months/years and rental properties are particularly vunerable as well as shared postal rooms found in Nurses Quarters and Student Accomodation. I think most student unions and nurses quarters are pretty hot on it though returning all non resident mail quickly and specifically keeping addresses off the radar regarding electoral registration. Any nurse or student thats trys will tell you how hard it normally is to get on the register once in diggs and now you know the reason why!

Companies normally search the electoral role to find where the debtor has vanished to but of course if someone doesnt want to be found then they can quite easily fall off the system leaving you with random letters falling on the mat!

There is a Gone Away Network (GAIN) which holds details of debtors that move without giving their new address. It doesnt realy help much though except to stop a particular name and address combination being used indefinately.

Only thing to do is return the mail to sender and keep doing it even if it takes forever! And it will take forever as companies agregate debt collection cases into millions so they will tend to just blanket send letters and call any number they can to try and get a result.

Bailiffs have no rights at all especially if the debtor has gone away. If they "barge in" then ring the police and tell them a strange man has broken into your house. Somple!

Its a pain in the !!!! though..................

melancholly

but they're not even on the electoral roll at this house! (at least nothing showed up for them when things came through for the local elections - and we got a form a few weeks beforehand to confirm who was here and their name wasn't on that either). they have never lived here and suddenly a bank will just accept our address to send solictor's letters to?! it's terrible!

we returned all the mail quickly and they just keep on sending it. it isn't a 'student' house either. i'm a phd student but the rest of the people living here all work. i've been here nearly 4 years so it's nothing to do with previous tenants...... which makes it all the more annoying