That would basically imply that it was his wife trying to screw with him, though. Unless your divorce cases were based on this person going to great lengths being a totally uninvested third party with no connection to either of them other than an intense desire to cause their divorce.
The USPS has, on three occasions, delivered to me things not intended for me.
Two of the cases involved people getting a name match in a phone book and sending stuff to the wrong “First Name Last Name”. You are observing a birthday for someone and you don’t know what city he is in. I’m guessing these birthday things were intended for a person who did purchasing for a huge MegaCorp in the area.
The third was the USPS clerk handing me a box addressed to an entirely different name and address.
He placed the box on the counter face down.
None of these cases required the presence of a malicious third party.
I think there’s also a logical fallacy built into that one; i.e. divorces involve malice, therefore malice implies divorce.
The other thing these cases have in common is that they do not particularly resemble what happened to me.
No, I did not say it was always the spouse, and there are obvious options to a “third party with no connection”, aren’t there? Parents, siblings, best friends, and lovers can be dragged into, or willingly entangle themselves in, divorces.
My point is that logical arguments against the likelihood of malice aren’t really valid, because malice often isn’t logical. I only brought up divorce because that is the context I saw this in most often. I’ve also seen the behavior in corporate offices, condo associations, heard about on church boards quite a lot … Divorce is just one context.
Oh, no, malice just implies family.
Hey mods, Mangetout emailed me and said he wants this thread closed.
I accept that in cases like divorce or neighbour dispute, people can do nasty things.
I agree that sometimes shop staff make mistakes.
I think that just trying to cancel an order, where there is little inconvenience involved, is almost certainly just a mistake.
Mangetout, if you do have an enemy, they seem pretty incompetent!
That is actually strikingly consistent with the character of the only likely candidate we know of. 
But I agree now, there are more likely explanations than the one I first imagined.
iswydt.
Speaking of sausagey fingers and rings and things that could hurt my feelings, I bought a ring I had fallen in love with once and assumed it would be ordered. I was a size ten and this didn’t cost any more than the others, and again, I didn’t expect them to have it in stock. Why then did the woman have to tell me at least three times that such a large size would have to be ordered, with a tone of voice that implied gargantuan beings like me never buy this ring? Yes, I know I am a big person – I can still buy myself a ring if I want!
They’re not THAT big!!