Okay, would YOU get all snarky over this?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here at the Strongs, we have a routine for mail: if you bring it in from the box, you pull out the obvious bills and toss them into a particular basket on the downstairs desk, and on Saturday afternoon I pay whatever bills came in that week. The rest of the mail gets skimmed through. You open mail address to you, you put the mail addressed to the spouse on the fourth step of the staircase, and junk/resident stuff you can open or not as it interests you, and then you leave it on the third step for spouse to look at or not, who is then responsible for throwing it out. Works fine for us, has for decades.

So after lunch I started in on the bills. Gas, Visa, Verizon. Rip open, find the ‘now due’ amount, write check, rip open, find amount, write check, rip open, find the amount… Hmmm. The phone bill is quite a bit higher than usual, like $40.

What’s up? So I flip the bill open flat, and now I can see that the amount paid last month was basically the same as the new amount due – and I KNOW I didn’t pay that much last month.

So I finally really look at the bill, and it’s addressed to our next door neighbor. Ooops.

So I stuff the bill and return envelope and the assorted bits of advertising and such back into the envelope as best I can (I just rip envelopes open brutally, what can I say?) and walk it next door.

When Neighbor comes to the door I hand him the envelop and say, “Hey, we got your bill by mistake. Sorry for having opened it.”

And then the neighbor gets all snarky about it! “Why did you open my mail? It’s clearly addressed to me! It’s a federal crime to steal someone else’s mail” and so forth. I apologized another time for opening it, told him I wouldn’t have if I’d realized it wasn’t mine, but hey, we use Verizon, too, and so I’d assumed–"

He kept going on how I SHOULD have checked the address, how HE ALWAYS checks the address, and on… Finally I just snapped, “Why don’t you report it to the post office?” and walked away. :mad:

See, my thinking is that A) it was the Post office’s fault for misdelivering the mail and B) it’s perfectly reasonable to assume a bill from a company you use that shows up in your mailbox is indeed for you and C) I did you a favor by bringing the bill over to you. I could have simply thrown the bill away and left you at risk of paying late! Maybe you don’t owe me any great thanks, but I don’t think you have any cause to bitch at me. :mad:
And, hey, what’s the problem? Invasion of privacy? I now have proof positive that you use a telephone?? And you were paid in full last month, so it’s not like I found out you are a deadbeat or anything. Sheesh.

2

He was a dick. It was an honest accident that any reasonable person should be able to understand was an honest accident. I could see being huffy if you’d opened a package or some kind of obvious personal mail, but mistakenly opening a bill which was dropped in your own box? Clearly not a foul, and something I doubt the feds would be very interested in.

3

When that situation comes up for me, I throw the bill in my paper shredder. Saves trouble about opening someone else’s mail, and most people know when a bill is due, and to whom to send payment, so the neighbor won’t miss the missing bill.

If it wasn’t opened, I would have taken it to the neighbor’s house, however.

SSG § Schwartz

4

Does that mean that you paid more than you should have last month?

And does that mean that his bill went unpaid and he spent an hour arguing with people from the phone company insisting that he hadn’t received his bill? Might explain his reaction.

But yeah, he was a jerk. Honest mistake.

5

Another vote for “he was a jerk.” I really wish my life were so easy as to have the energy to get worked up over an honest mistake.

6

Hey, lesson learned. If you ever get that neighbor’s mail again, throw that shit away. Other neighbors you continue to be neighborly to.

Definitely the guy was being an asshole; you did nothing wrong.

7

Yeah, that was an over reaction. In the future, if you get his mail (whether you opened it or not), just toss it back in your mailbox and put the flag up. That way he won’t know who did it and if he’s going to fly off the handle about someone touching his mail he can wait the extra day for it to come back to his house.

BTW, if the situation escalated that fast and he start talking about it being a federal crime I too would have suggested he call the postmaster or FBI and report me.

I’ve never gone as far as the FBI, but I’ve told several of my customers that if the don’t like the way I do things to report me to the health department. This is typically after they tell me something is a violation and don’t believe me when I try to explain to them that it’s not a violation…in fact it’s a requirement.

8

Well, now you know! The next time you get a piece of the neighbor’s mail just put it back in your mailbox marked, “not at this address” and let the post office and Verizon take care of it, even if you already opened it.

You tried reasonable courtesy and it was loudly rejected. You owe your neighbor no future courtesy or consideration.

9

He was an ass.

We commonly get an envelope or two for the nearest neighbors, and they get ours, and no one has every flipped out about it. We just carry it over to one another, chat for a moment and move on. I know I’ve opened one before that was a neighbors, same situation as you, and other than joking about how I should have been extra neighborly and went ahead and paid it for them, they weren’t perturbed in the slightest.

10

Meh, it was an honest mistake. That situation wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

11

Seems like an honest mistake but the neighbor has a point, why can’t you be bothered to see if it is addressed to you?

12

I get a bill from Honda for my car each month. If one month I got my neighbor’s bill (which, BTW, would have a very similar address as my own), I really doubt I’d realize it until it was opened.

13

This.

Maybe an offer can be made to the neighbor to cut the erasers off all his pencils as an offer of snarky contrition.

14

be…cause it was a mistake? People get into a bill paying routine and aren’t focused on it like it was a poisonous snake waiting to bite them.

Have you ever run a red light, drifted off the road or made some other non-earth shattering mistake driving a car?

15

So am I the only one who thought this would end with Mrs Strong having made $40 worth of mysterious long distance phone calls? :slight_smile:

But yeah, uncalled for. You even gave a courtesy apology for opening the letter by mistake. I’d have thanked you for walking it over to my door.

16

sugar and spice…I thought it was over someone forgetting to pay the bill last month!

But yeah, he was a jerk, and I don’t believe for one minute that he checks the address of every single piece of mail he opens, that’s complete BS.

When you get a piece of mail that looks like the same piece of mail you’ve received every month for the last I don’t know how many years, you just rip, you’re not examining it to be sure it’s supposed to be in your mailbox.

17

He probably had a couple calls to a 1-900 number on there; that’s why it was $40 higher than your bill.

18

Neighbour was a jerk. You did nothing wrong. I wouldn’t really glance at the address on one of our common bills, either. f it were me, I’d have thanked you for bringing it over, and responded “no worries”, after you apologised for opening it.

It’s a phone bill, not a state secret. I’d rather have an opened bill walked over to me than miss a payment.

19

Or he has other mail which he wouldn’t want anyone to see.

20

Heck, I always thank my neighbors when they give me my mail that was delivered to them. And I return their mail that was delivered to my house. Yes, the sorting machine and/or our letter carrier have Issues. Now, I’ve never opened someone else’s mail, or had my mail opened…but I think it was an understandable mistake.

Now that you know he’s an asshole, I don’t know if it’s LEGAL to throw away any of his mail that lands in your mailbox…but I’d certainly be tempted to do so in this situation.