Mail order fraud or why you shouldn't put your full name on your letterbox

Complaints Corner
21
I'll be sure to pass that on to the police officer who agreed with my approach.

22
Typically I'm never at home at the times the postman calls so I just get the collection slip and then toddle off to the post office to pick up the parcel at my convenience. Fortunately the "post office" is actually in a pharmacy so the opening times are more liberal than for a regular small post office. As I need to show an ID, some kid is not going to be able to steal anything.

With all the relaxation under COVID, and parcels being just left on people's doorsteps, there is plenty more scope for abuse.

23
She didn’t say anything about not putting your name on the mailbox correctly. Where did you get that idea from?

What she advised was not to put your full name (first name plus surname) on your letterbox which actually makes perfect sense.

We don’t even have our initials on pour postbox, just the surname.

24
I dont know how to say this, but you dont need to walk around reading letter boxes to get addresses. This might have been the case this one time - and given that we are talking about some kids clothes are we probably dealing with an amateur. But mail order fraud works mostly with stolen addresses off the internet. I received an amazon gift card in the mail and a day later was a romanian at my door demanding the parcel. I told him I returned it already... he was rather upset... but left.

My letter box was poorly labelled, so I am pretty sure thats organized and the guy with the van spends his day collecting parcels sent to people... I assume the amazon gift cards are a practical way to launder money.

25
I know that, I’m not stupid but people clearly do also take names from letterboxes as demonstrated in the OP so it obviously happens.

It’s never a bad idea to warn people of the possibility, I’m sure she’s not the first person it’s happened to.

If you have your number in the phone book, which admittedly is not common these days, it’s advisable not to put your full name there either.

26
Do and when you are missing some mail perhaps he'll help you find it.

27
So if you actually make an order under the name of "Mettler Müller" and it gets delivered, because, well that's what's on your nameplate you can surely refuse to pay for it because it's an implausible name? Police are not necessarily the best people to ask about the law.

If you get this stuff you don't need to do much about it. Sending it back is your good will and of course you want to fix the mistake if it's a genuine error. Googling "receiving random parcels" might also help.

If you just have "Müller" on your mailbox, you run into trouble if there's another Müller. Also if you If you get an unsolicited parcel addressed to "Mr.Müller" how does that help using your logic?

28
You got that the wrong way round, there's nothing for you to prove.

Since you get to keep, dispose of, or otherwise use, what was sent to you without your order, it's the sender who has to prove that it was you who ordered it. Your case looks very much on the level of a mistake so you have to (or should) inform the sender.

I think there's no reason to shoulder the cost of a registered mail in such a case, or the postage to send it back (a malicious recipient might even claim to not have received the goods). Instead an email should do, telling them to pick it up by during or at a time that's convenient to you.

As for changing the label:

Why make someone else's problem yours? And even incur costs to do so?

Yes it's good and recommendable to help the neighbors, no doubt. But these are profit-maximising companies, whatever you do to help them just increases someone else's profits. Plus, by bearing their cost you remove the incentive for them to solve the problem, they'll only do that if their costs make it worth doing.