Are you allowed to open other people's mail?

basmic · 24 Aug 2006 at 07:31

I ask, because a letter was addressed incorrectly - wrong house number. So the people must have decided to open the letter, to find out what it was about (they were assuming it was for the previous owners).

They'll have decided that since the person posting the letter out incorrectly addressed it, to post it to me. But I'm quite offended by this - although I can almost appreciate their honesty by posting it to me.

Bah, it's probably me having an early morning mood swing!

basmic · 24 Aug 2006 at 07:33

I should add that the envelope looks steamed open - or badly opened!

Sone · 24 Aug 2006 at 07:34

i have had lots of mail for neighbours, which usually gets opened with the rest of the post. They were snotty about it so now it goes straight in the bin

I think you can open letters as long as they are addressed to your address. although i have never heard anyone getting in trouble for pening post delieverd to there house

basmic · 24 Aug 2006 at 07:36

Sone said:
i have had lots of mail for neighbours, which usually gets opened with the rest of the post. They were snotty about it so now it goes straight in the bin

I'm feeling a little snotty about it myself. But at the fact that they had the honesty to deliver it to the correct address, has softened the blow a little.

I'm just not impressed with their opening of other people's mail, when all they need do is put a strike through the address, and write "not at this address" on the front.

Kol · 24 Aug 2006 at 08:22

In our house we constantly get mail for previous tenants. We just save them all and then one day we'll just inform the sender that they're no longer at this address.

Thing is, some of them look quite important and holding them upto the light reveals that they're so sometimes think we would be doing a favour by opening them. But we don't... well, I don't. Not sure about Jon!

Larnica · 24 Aug 2006 at 09:09

Sone said:
i have had lots of mail for neighbours, which usually gets opened with the rest of the post. They were snotty about it so now it goes straight in the bin

Not smart tbh, could be an important letter.

Grrrrr · 24 Aug 2006 at 09:16

I posted a similar thread yesterday and got this answer..

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000026.htm

A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person's detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him.

JodieO · 24 Aug 2006 at 09:23

It would depend if they knew it wasn't for them or not. Personally I don't check the mail before I open it, I just open it all and that's that without checking each envelope.

MNuTz · 24 Aug 2006 at 10:12

Order yourself some hardcore sex catalogues but accidentally address it to them with your name on. They wont open any more of your envelopes after that

We get neighbours mail now and again, its never opened and i always pop it round for them and i dont really know any of them. Id never open anyone elses post.

matthew_o50 · 24 Aug 2006 at 10:13

As there's mail for 8 people coming to our house the name and address is always checked. We would never open someone elses mail unless it was by accident. For example mum misread a letter for next door and opened it a few weeks ago. As soon as she realised it wasn't for us it was put back in its envelope and brought next door. The girl didn't seem to mind as she knew it was an accident. We still receive mail belonging to the previous owner of our house so we save it all up in a drawer and give it to them when it starts to get full (we know where she lives).

D.P. · 24 Aug 2006 at 10:15

Living in a student flat we would recieve dozens of incorrect envelopes every day. We just searched them for money and then binned them... actually, they were just binned.

The funniest thing we saw was a PO re-addressing serviuce thingy where someone had paid to re-direct mail to a new address, except they got the address wrong and went straight to us!

Lopéz · 24 Aug 2006 at 10:31

I'm genuinely surprised at how many people seem to open mail without even reading who it's too. I wouldn't dream of opening someone elses mail, what a total invasion of privacy.

JodieO · 24 Aug 2006 at 10:36

Lopéz said:
I'm genuinely surprised at how many people seem to open mail without even reading who it's too. I wouldn't dream of opening someone elses mail, what a total invasion of privacy.

Me and Cliff always open each other's mail because it's usually bills, nothing interesting ever gets delivered lol. I don't think I've ever opened any mail that's not been for us though, the next door neighbours did once when we were in London and it was a payslip for Cliff (long time ago when he did some contracting) but it didn't really bother us, they were an old couple and we were friendly with them. They did apologise though and that was sufficient.

basmic · 24 Aug 2006 at 12:55

MNuTz said:
Order yourself some hardcore sex catalogues but accidentally address it to them with your name on. They wont open any more of your envelopes after that

I'm very tempted - but what if they keep them to themselves. :eek:

MNuTz · 24 Aug 2006 at 13:01

basmic said:
I'm very tempted - but what if they keep them to themselves.

That would be classic

You could go around and ask them if they had some post delivered there