Community Chat

[Imaoldhippie]

I have had this happen to me.  After several attempts to get the address changed by returning it, I kept getting mail from the sender.  I just trashed it all.  It eventually stopped.

[CelticCrafter]

Black out the name and address or put a blank label over it.

[Spurt]

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@Anonymous032819 wrote:

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@Venezia wrote:

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@Anonymous032819 wrote:

I will sometimes get mail for people who have lived at the house that I am now currently occupying.

In the past two weeks, I have received mail for three different people.

One is a Christmas card, one is tax documents from the VA, and one is a medical bill.

On each I wrote in big letters, "RETURN TO SENDER - THIS PERSON DOES NOT LIVE HERE".

I dropped them off at a curbside mailbox.

I'll be dammed if they weren't returned to me.

I am trying to do the right thing, by getting the mail to the proper recipients.

I guess I am going to have to make a trip to the post office and hand them to a postal employee, telling them that these people don't live at that address anymore.

I have never heard of these people, nor do I know where they currently reside.

Hopefully the mail won't boomerang back to me again.

Sheesh!

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@Anonymous032819 - I'm not sure how you know what's in these pieces of mail, but I would ignore the advice to "trash them".

It's a federal offense to open or destroy mail that is not addressed to you.

I think your decision to hand them to a postal employee is probably the best idea.  Anything from the VA and a medical bill needs to be delivered or, failing that, returned.  Even a Christmas card could be important.  You don't know what else could be in it.

Another thing you could try is blocking out the "to" address. That way the post office would only have the return address to go by.

I know it might be frustrating but I'd treat it the way I'd want something meant for me to be treated.  Plus, it's the law.

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@Venezia 

How do I know what's inside of the envelopes?

It says on the envelope what's inside.

The VA one says "FOR YOUR TAX RECORDS ONLY. Important Tax Information Enclosed" .

The medical one, the return address part says ""******** Radiology Medical Group"

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@Anonymous032819 

Our previous post person thought I was his assistant and that I would deliver mail for him ---at least that's what I thought because I got a lot of the neighborhood mail in my box.... It's easy to know what's inside when it's "jury summons", credit card bill, or the envelope says, "your insurance card enclosed".....or it's a catalog......

There were a couple pieces of mail where the addresses weren't even in our neighborhood.... so I wrote on the envelope. "try again---you're not even close"....and dropped it in curbside mail....

And there was no pandemic going on either---so no excuses...

[Snoopp]

I have taken misdirected mail directly to the post master.  That sometimes helps, at least for a while.

[HisElk1]

My FIL recently had a birthday; he's in his 90's.  DH mailed him a birthday card on Nov. 17, hand delivered it to our local PO.

Normally, we would hear from him via call or email thanking us for the card - heard nothing.

Last week, right before Christmas the birthday card was back in our mail box with a yellow sticker saying "Undeliverable".  However, we sent him a Christmas card and he received that.  He never moved.  DH took the birthday card to the PO and asked why - no one could explain why.  So it took 6 weeks to get the birthday card back to us.

Nothing makes sense.

[chickenbutt]

I don't know why they did that, but they seem to with a fair amount of frequency.

What I do is to ALSO block out the 'to' address so that the only address showing becomes the 'from' address and that's where it will go.

I know that 'return to sender. not at this address'  should work because it's the right thing, and it always used to work, but somehow or other some mail will still come to the addressee, as you already know.  

The impression I get is that, sometimes, they just assume that it was delivered to ANOTHER address instead of the one on the envelope.   

[Spurt]

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@chickenbutt wrote:

I don't know why they did that, but they seem to with a fair amount of frequency.

What I do is to ALSO block out the 'to' address so that the only address showing becomes the 'from' address and that's where it will go.

I know that 'return to sender. not at this address'  should work because it's the right thing, and it always used to work, but somehow or other some mail will still come to the addressee, as you already know.  

The impression I get is that, sometimes, they just assume that it was delivered to ANOTHER address instead of the one on the envelope.   

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@chickenbutt 

Or perhaps the original sender isnt aware of an address change and just re-mails to the same incorrect address....

[chickenbutt]

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@Spurt wrote:

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@chickenbutt wrote:

I don't know why they did that, but they seem to with a fair amount of frequency.

What I do is to ALSO block out the 'to' address so that the only address showing becomes the 'from' address and that's where it will go.

I know that 'return to sender. not at this address'  should work because it's the right thing, and it always used to work, but somehow or other some mail will still come to the addressee, as you already know.  

The impression I get is that, sometimes, they just assume that it was delivered to ANOTHER address instead of the one on the envelope.   

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@chickenbutt 

Or perhaps the original sender isnt aware of an address change and just re-mails to the same incorrect address....

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That makes sense, too.   The scenario I envisioned was one where the postal folks just put it back into circulation and it, again, went to the addressed instead of going back to the sender at all.

It reminds me of a time, 20 years ago, when we bought this house, had to get new phone numbers, and this one business kept calling us, thinking it was the number of a doctor.  I kept telling them that this was NOT that doctor's phone# (verifying the number) but they kept calling.  I felt like screaming sometimes because this went on for years.  I was glad when I ended up with phones that have the 'block' feature.