Recently, several pieces of mail have arrived at my house addressed to an individual who has never lived here. (I’ve lived at this address for 15 years, and the house was four years old when I bought it, so I know who all previous residents were).
We all sometimes get misdirected mail. But this is different: the mail lists his name and my address.
At the very least, this guy has a wrong address entered somewhere, and isn’t getting some of his mail.
In addition, I’m wondering if there is any attempt being made to commit fraud (one of the letters is from Bank of America).
I did a phone book search for people in the area of this guy’s name, and turned up no current listings.
I’ve thought of calling Bank of America, and telling them that this guy’s mail is arriving at my house. But I’m not sure how they’d respond to such a call.
And I don’t want to mess with opening someone else’s mail.
How should I proceed with this?
Take the mail to the post office. They should be able to sort it out. They will notify the senders that this is not a valid name/address combo.
Was the Bank of America thing junk mail or a real letter? It might be hard to find the right person to call, but if it were me, I’d call Bank of A. to tell them about it (even if I have to open the letter). You want to be sure that nobody is trying to take out a second mortgage on YOUR house!!! (Sorry to be an alarmist, but that’w just how I am. Hopefully it’s just a data entry mix-up of name and address.)
p.s., I also agree with what CynicalGabe said, that you should notify the post office. Maybe the P.O. has somebody who looks into identity theft???
How could it possibly be identity theft if the mail is addressed to a different person? It sounds like something innocuous, like a mistyped address.
Dewey, the scenario ratatoskK describes is the sort of thing I was speculating on: not identity theft, but more like identity creation.
I have no idea how feasible such a thing would be (can a creative crook take out a second mortgage on a house they don’t own?), but I’d rather not find out when I sell the house ten years from now.
And even if it’s something that I wouldn’t personally suffer from, I’d still like to prevent the bank from getting ripped off.
“Identity creation” is more plausible than identity theft. It’s possible, as ratatoskK suggested, that someone is attempting to obtain a mortgage on your home (although usually they are clever enough to redirect the mail so you don’t learn of the scheme until it’s too late). But I wouldn’t open that letter, since it’s not addressed to you.
As a slight hijack, I’m getting mail to my apartment, addressed to:
<Different Firstname> <One letter different last name>
The mail, which appears to be mostly junk, is for Richard (not my name) Feldman (almost my name) at the exact same address. The previous occupant was not Richard Feldman. Should I be concerned about identity theft?
Upon reflection, I can’t believe that existing verification procedures could allow such a scheme to work. If I’m wrong, these procedures aren’t really worth much.
I can understand creditors’ plight when identity theft happens: they didn’t know that it wasn’t me who took out that credit card and racked up those bills.
But if someone not using my name takes out a mortgage on my house, why the eff is it my responsibility to help the loan company verify that they’re got their collateral.
If I give some guy money in the belief that I’m buying the Brooklyn Bridge, does the borough have to give me the deed?