For the last 5-6 months I’ve been getting mail from NTL and then a debt collection agency.
Every time I send them back with RTS NOT THIS ADDRESS scrawled across the envelope.
The letters are not for me they are for somebody else, I have lived at my address for 13 years and have never heard of this person.
Last Friday I got a phone call, it seems they are taking ME to court for non payment of a cell phone bill…a cell phone which I don’t own???
I’m looking forward to it 
I still get mail for people who moved out ten years ago! And for some stinkin’ relative of theirs who freakin’ lives(d) in Israel!
About a month ago I got a retirement investment CHECK for previous owner. How stupid is that? They didn’t fill out the correct paperwork, I guess.
Damn, I wanted to keep that check. Opened it by mistake, I did. Yep.
I love this! Please show up at the court. I must know what the judge has to say when you explain the problem. Yes, I know the courts are very busy and we shouldn’t make matters worse.
<snerk> People don’t use this line nearly enough to satisfy me.
Eons ago, I had a roomie who gave a fake name but our real address and phone number to the hospital when she went to the ER. She had no insurance and, apparently, no intention of paying. In fact, she moved out shortly thereafter, leaving me to deal with dunning mail and phone calls. Fortunately, they ended within a couple of months.
I’ll tell ya, I don’t think ANYONE likes people who don’t tell people their correct mailing address. (people who work in the post office say REALLY mean things about them :rolleyes: )
I also deliver the mail I sort and I am obligated to deliver each piece of mail to the address stated on the envelope unless the addresseee has contacted the postal service about their move (or in one case a guy died leaving a MOUNTAIN of debt and his kid called and said, don’t bother delivering any of his mail, he’s dead and I sold his house…that guy’s mail I’m still diligently tossing 3 years later). Even if I know Billy doesn’t live there, I HAVE to put it in the mailbox. (no no Canada Post is a PERFECTLY reasonable organization, they have no archaic policies its all very efficient :smack: )
Although… if you, say, accidentally open something not yours and then tape it up really reallly messily, accidentally set your coffee on it so there’s a ring of dried coffee, take a phone message on the back, and then let your kid write in crayon that this person doesn’t live there, then take it back to the post office and say…sorry this person doesn’t live here…well, I got a special permission once to not deliver mail to a house where a letter came back just like that…It was a gloriously destroyed piece of mail…heh
Now where was that advice six years ago when I needed it? 
We got mail (and on one memorable occasion, the bailiff on our doorstep) for the previous tenant - including some bills with obvious nasty red writing visible through the envelope. This went on for about 3 or 4 years.
Actually, I’m not sure now when it stopped - it just started tapering off one day and now I realise I haven’t had anything for her in about 2 years…
oh oh oh NO
i forgot to put the disclaimer:
I am not your mailman, you are not my postal customer. That was not postal advice. It was * hypothetic and accidental *
I fully intend to appear.
I also shall be bringing copies of the envelopes which I scanned, copies of my letters to them and also copies of my e-mails to NTL.
I’ll be very surprised if I don’t come away quids in
At my old house we were getting bills from NTL for a previous tenant. I sent at least five back with “Not known at this address” or “STILL not known at this address” written on it. They never took the hint and kept sending them.
At the new place I received a bill from the electric company. It seems the previous tenant didn’t bother to pay the bill for 12 months. I’m getting someone’s bank statements too.
At an old apartment of mine, we would get monthly Social Security-type checks for a previous tenant. The man they were addressed to would call us to tell us to hold onto it; he’d send his daughter in the next few days to pick it up.
This happened for the first three months I lived there. I guess the people I’d moved in with were used to this situation. I was perplexed. Dear Duder, call your case worker; have them change your address in their system; stop bugging us!
The routine ended when the guy bitched us out for not making sure we were at home when it was convenient for the daughter to pick up the check. (Why, oh why, when we’re doing you a favor, should our schedule revolve around what time will work for you to pick up your shit?) The daughter finally caught us at home a week later. We stopped receiving his checks after that. Heehee.
Few women can resist the allure of the Dirty Sanchez.
I hope SpikeyKitten joins.
I accidentally opened a piece of mail from the city, thinking it was my natural gas bill (I didn’t look at the address first.) It turns out it was a court summons from the city for a previous tenant as she was already in contempt of court for not appearing for a citation for expired registration on a car. I wonder how long it’ll be before she gets pulled over again.
Apparently, I got a recycled number assigned to my cell phone because I have been receiving calls, messages, and texts for a fellow named Attam for the past year. So far, I have deduced that he is from the Middle East somewhere, speaks Arabic, and is probably a student and TA at a University here in the States.
I explain politely to everyone who calls that Attam doesn’t have this number anymore, but sometimes they don’t speak English and I, unfortunately, do not speak Arabic. It makes me slightly paranoid, what with the Patriot Act and all. I can’t help but think I’m flagged and tapped with these calls in Arabic from God knows Who coming from God Knows Where. I hate my Government for making me question my own privacy and liberties. Sigh…such are the times.
Attam whoever you are, if you happen to see this, Kryollos text messaged you and is worried about you.
My USPS postal carrier husband says that if getting mail for a previous deadbeat resident is happening on a regular basis, you need to tell your carrier or his/her supervisor, so they can make a note for that spot on the route. If it’s one on a rare occasion, it’s probably just a simple mistake.
SpikeyKitten: In the US, a similar change-of-address card lasts 6 months, but it’s free. You could probably submit another one after the expiration, but the post office obviously prefers that you contact your correspondents in that amount of time and deal with it at the source.
That being said, I’m in the situation where now and then we get calls for an inlaw who used to live in the apartment upstairs, as well as (occasionally) not one but two former romantic partners of this inlaw. Since same said inlaw owes us a few thousand dollars for back rent that we paid, I’m torn between saying “why yes, I have the new address and phone number, here you go” and not saying anything so that the repayment keeps coming (under the assumption that getting served/having a creditor catch up/etc. would cause this inlaw to not pay us).
Funny, I went to the post office shortly after moving in here and asked them about this. The lady told me that I had no choice but to sit there and put “not at this address” on every piece of mail and put in back in the box. Actually, she told me I could buy some rubber band and just make a big stack and leave them (individually marked, of course) on top of the mailbox.
So much for trying to stop it at the source. Much easier to just chuck it.
Be more entertaining to pretend to be Nick. “Yeah? Well fuck you. I dare you to sue me. You’ll never see a dime. My best friend’s brother is a lawyer and he says collections is a fucking joke. Do your worst, ass-weasel. I’d love to see you try.”
note: do not do this, story is for entertainment purposes only, if erection lasts longer than four hours seek medical attention
Well as long as you don’t actually say that your’re Nick I fail to so what law(s) you’re breaking.
spikey kitten, if only my carrier was as diligent and capable of actual thought as you. After getting the same letter back three times (I could tell it was the same one; it had my writing all over it), I just black out my address and it goes away first time now.
Once upon a time I got sued by Columbia House Records. Sort of.
This is because some joker ordered a pile of (actually really quite shitty CDs) from Columbia House and failed to pay for them. This may or may not have been the previous tenant at my apartment - nobody knows.
The notices came addressed to Jessica Rabbit.
Jessica fucking Rabbit.
The first few times I saw one, I rolled my eyes and scrawled a “Not at this address” and chucked it back in my mailbox for disposal.
Then the process server came. I explained to him that my name is not Jessica, nor am I an animated sexy redhead married to a large white rabbit. He refused to believe that I was not actually Jessica Rabbit in a particularly clever disguise. He refused in the face of my producing photographic identification displaying my real name and photograph, as well as my lease which indicated the date I began residency (some two months *after * the fateful order with Columbia House).
Eventually, I got tired of explaining all this to him, repeatedly, on my lawn, so I went inside and commenced studying for the Patent Bar. (I was a third year law student at the time.)
After a while, when repeated ringing of my doorbell and yelling on the porch failed to elict a response from me, he left.
But he came back! Every. Single. Day.
We went through the whole scene a dozen times or more.
Eventually, he missed me and suckered my roommate (who worked nights and therefore didn’t recognize him on sight, although I’d been bitching about him to her) into signing for the summons (after lying through his teeth to her, by the way).
I was so irritated by the whole production, I actually responded to the summons. Actually my entire civil procedure class responded to the summons. I’d told my professor what was going on - because I wanted a little clarification on the law regarding proper notice (which we were covering) and how it applied to this situation. He decided that this was an opportunity not to be missed for the class. He also served as my attorney - because, really, why the hell not?
We brought visual aids.
I have no idea where he found the poster of Jessica Rabbit, but it was priceless anyway.
All in all, it was kind of a farce. The judge knew my prof - knew him well, actually. Hell, the judge knew me. I’d been assistant clerking for one of his brethren and he’d seen me in the hallways and spoken to me in the elevator.
The funniest part was that Columbia House refused, steadfastly, to drop it. The judge told me later he was prepared to just excuse me from the summons and make it clear that further attempts to serve me would constitute harassment (that judge was particularly keen on punishing overzealous collection agencies - there had been a few in recent years in the area who had resorted to some really underhanded tactics, and a really very fascinating fraud racket involving some of them, but that’s another story) until Columbia House kept yapping.
Instead he dismissed the entire suit with prejudice. Jessica Rabbit got to keep her dozen CDs of exceptionally shitty rap/hip-hop music free and clear 
Oh, and my civil procedure class got to watch how one goes about challenging a summons based on defective service and notice. The judge was kind enough to provide a lecture on proper service and notice during his ruling.
'Course the lawyer for the collection agency was a little embarassed.