I work in a bank. I had a call from a person saying they had opened another person’s letter from the bank at their address. The person was saying that the letter was addressed to a similar name to her. I immediately asked her why she would be opening mail addressed to someone else. She-the person replied that she could do it as it was her house now.
My supervisor, who was listening to the call, later told me off for giving bad service. She said I should not be telling off anyone for opening mail. My supervisor said she( my supervisor) could open any mail addressed to her house no matter what name was on the letter. I replied that I thought that was illegal but was not sure.
Please could someone reply
There’s two separate issues here.
First, is it unlawful to open mail addressed to someone else?
Secondly, is it your business as a bank customer service agent to offer customers unsolicited advice as to the legality of opening mail not addressed to them?
On the first issue, it’s not an offence under the postal offences provisions in the Commonwealth Criminal Code. Depending on the circumstances, I suppose it could be an offence under the applicable state criminal code or privacy laws. My impression is that Australian privacy laws are not well developed, though. It may very well be a civil wrong for which the addressee of the letter could sue but, again, the outcome will depend on the circumstances.
On the second issue, it’s definitely not your business. It’s not what the bank employs and pays you to do, and it reflects badly on the bank, so they won’t want you to do it. Plus, it may be an offence under the legal practice legislation of your state or territory to give advice of this kind to the public, unless you happen to be a legal practitioner with the appropriate certificate to practise.
From here: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/post/frequently_asked_questions
To BlinkingBlinking- as the daughter of a postmaster I would have done the same thing in your situation. Quite frankly aside from possilble legal ramifications it is just bad manner to mess with stuff that doesn’t not belong to you (mumbling something about people being raised by wolves).
Oh and **UDS **I’m having trouble finding anything in the OP that would be constituted as legal advice - I see a telling off (which the mail opener deserved) which was probably not appropriate in a customer service situation. I see nothing that indicates the OP is pretending to be a lawyer or giving any sort of LEGAL advice (there’s a bit of MORAL advice happening in my opinion)
On rereading the OP I see you’re quite right. She told her superviser that she thought it was illegal, but she didn’t tell the customer that, just that she shouldn’t do it - advice which was correct as a moral statement, if perhaps unsought and unwarranted (and I can see why the supervisor thought it should not be offered). However, the OP does imply that she told the customer that she shouldn’t open the mail because she believed it to be illegal to do so - i.e. that was the justification she offered to her supervisor - so she may in fact have intended legal and not moral advice.
The prohibition in the Postal Corporation Act 1989 on opening or examning mail only applies to mail which is in the course of post, and in the control of Australia Post. It wouldn’t apply to opening mail which has been delivered to your house. The Criminal Code creates some related offences - e.g. interfering with a mail receptacle - but doesn’t seem to be directly to prohibit opening mail not addressed to you. On a quick look at the Crimes Act, I don’t see anything directly in point.
The mail was sent to her address and the name was very similar to hers.
Mail sent to my address, to a name similar to mine, but not exactly my name, and which was intended for me has come from, among others:
- the national goverment (corrected on first try),
- city hall (corrected on first try),
- pretty much every utility company I’ve ever had (it usually takes 3-4 attempts to get it right, often more; both my firstname and my lastname have been repeatedly deemed unacceptable by their computers)
- several banks
- the insurance company holding the life insurance that’s linked to my mortgage
And that’s when I’m in my own country, where the firstname is rare but not amazingly so and the lastname should really not be that much of a problem. The advent of scanners and outsourcing abroad of documentation management has worsened the issue: previously, people would lose parts of the name, turn me into a male and/or typo a specific part of the lastname. Now, I’ve gotten things like Mazia instead of the María (that company’s document management service is in Morocco).
I think Nava makes a good point - it would be perfectly reasonable to open mail that arrives at your home address in a very similar name to your own, on the assumption that the name spelling could be an error.
I don’t think the OP should have ticked the caller off. I think they should’ve actually thanked her for calling to let the bank know - most people would probably have just tossed the letter in the bin.
I also think we’re beyond the age when bank managers were treated as authority figures - I’m a customer, dammit, and I would be really pissed off if a bank teller thought it was okay to tell me off for anything, let alone for opening a letter that THEY have sent to MY house. I should tell them off for littering my doormat and adding to my phone bill.
I received a statement from American Express. It wasn’t until after I opened the envelope and unfolded the paper that I noticed that the statement was for my neighbor, whose name is completely different from mine. I have an Amex account, so I hadn’t looked beyond the return address on the corner to see if the letter was for me.
Really, I think it would be considered an innocent mistake.
Well thanks for the replies. It seems it is not illegal. I would say immoral in most circumstances though. I was certainly surprised by my supervisor saying she could open any mail that came to her house no matter what name was on it.
Working at a bank bank security is usually the number one priority. So when a person says they opened a letter for someone else which contained a credit card I tend to think the person a little dodgy.
You seriously go through all your mail, piece by piece, to make sure it’s addressed to you? :dubious:
Unless you live alone, I don’t know why you wouldn’t. You’ve got to figure out whose it is, anyways.
But, more importantly, the lady indicated she knew it wasn’t hers.
No she didn’t. She said the letter was addressed to somebody with a similar name to hers. It’s entirely reasonable to assume that there may have been some sort of printing or transcription error, and that the mail was intended for her.
Yeah, I live by myself, so I don’t always look at who my mail is addressed to. I also have a last name that’s an uncommon variation on a much-more-common one, so I often get mail that’s “not addressed to me” because of a misspelling, even though it’s *intended *for me.
Hi,
I was buying a property last year and before settlement, finance from the Commonwealth Bank didn’t approved.
Therefore i was in default for not settling also the vendor’s house would of been taken by the bank because he has default payments on his home loan.
So on settlement date I put in some money to help him by paying the default interest that he owes and pay all the expenses that he need paid. Also 5k for him and his daughter to spend xmaz together.
Whiles that wasn’t a problem for him because I am paying his homeloan repayment for him. I said if I can’t get finance again could I sell the house to someone else.
“he agrees” and we were doing inspections every 2nd weekend to show everyone in because my finance wasn’t approved.
A few months later he saw my ad in the paper and also Commonwealth Bank sent a letter to his house to advise me that the interest rate is going to rise etc. (Bank’s mistake)
After reading it. The Vendor thought I got the home loan and didn’t want to pay him. ie thought I was paying games with him.
Anyway he turned around and break the agreement. Got his lawyer to try and get more money from me for not settling on time therefore I am supposed to pay default interest and what ever cost that it involves him.
I lost the court case under for not settling on time, but judge said that I can sue him for my deposit and legal costs which my lawyer file a judgment against him. (he ignored the allegation) so I can effectively bankrupt him if I want to.
He recently got his friend to file a Judgment against me for all his costs etc. (120k which my lawyer just said its a load of BULL)
Because the opening of this letter from which the commonwealth bank sent him that cause the whole deal to change.
Can I effectively sue the bank for issuing it or can I sue him for opening mail that doesn’t belong to him?
Daniel Duy
Hey Daniel, you might want to put this in its own thread, and perhaps clean up your writing style a bit so it’s clearer to us readers exactly what you are asking.
Cheers
Yeah, Kam, that will make the mod’s job knowing they needed to shut a thread asking for legal advice in breach of the rules a whole lot easier and I’m sure they’ll appreciate that 
Daniel, I can’t comment on your question but may I suggest that next time you put an offer in on a house you make it “subject to finance”?
Hey, just giving the noob the benefit of the doubt Prinnie. 
I don’t understand why you would be surprised that someone might accidentally open a piece of mail that’s addressed to someone else but which is put in their own mailbox.
I live alone. I get a lot of mail. I think the record for the most mail I’ve ever gotten is 25 pieces in one day, and it probably averages about 8 to 10 pieces a day. I subscribe to a number of magazines and have in the past ordered things from catalogs. Nearly all of what I receive is junk mail. I suspect that about one piece of mail in a thousand in my mail is addressed to a different address or is addressed to my address but is for someone else (even though I’m the only one who’s been at this address for the past twenty years). Sometimes, basically just out of exhaustion, as I sit in front of my computer simultaneously opening my mail and reading my E-mail, I don’t notice that the mail is addressed to someone else and open it.
RE: Austrailian Law and the mail.
So it appears that, in Australia, it’s not illegal to open a letter that is delivered to your home, but not addressed to you. What can you do with the contents?
Example:
A few years ago, we bought a house that had previously been used as a church head quarters. Apparently one of the things handled out of this office was to send boxes of materials to associated churches, which the other churches would order and pay for.
On 2 occasions we recieved an envelope with the church headquarters name and our address listed both as the sending and the receiving addresses. In these envelops, you could see a cashier’s check. (yes, we held them up to a light, to see if we could figure out to send them back to). So, if it was legal for me to open these envelopes (they were addressed and shipped to my street address) would it also have been legal, in Austrailia, for me to cash the cashier’s checks?
The same people managed to forget that they hadn’t lived in the house for 2 years before we bought it, and ordered a laptop computer delivered to our house. They did manage to contact us about that one, with a request to call them when the computer showed up.