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DirtyDigz

Mystery mail - Is my home address being used in a scam?

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In the past couple of months I’ve been sporadically receiving postal mail addressed to my house, but for someone else’s name (let’s call them “Dan”).

The mail has mostly been what looks like Doctor/Dentist bills.  I did accidentally open one up and it was a notice from an insurance company telling Dan that his coverage had been suspended and several recent bills were not covered.

Yesterday I received what looks like a W2 for Dan from a Limo company that’s about 20 miles away.

I bought the house about a year and a half ago; Dan was not the prior owner.  I checked with next door neighbor who knew the prior owner for several years, he didn’t recognize Dan’s name.  

I did not receive any unexpected W2’s last year around this time.

I’m concerned that Dan is using my address in some kind of scam.  Luckily I have a locking mailbox so I know he can’t be coming by to steal any mail.

Should I be doing anything other than writing “return to sender/no such person at this address” on Dan’s mail and putting it back into the mail stream?

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You aren't being scammed, they are more than likely. 

One way for things like that to happen, and it's usually medical bills and similar, is for someone old  to either owe someone or for the company to be making claims against medicaid. Things approaching charity care where they have to show proof of billing attempt. 

Non legit is someone wants services and doesn't want collections agents to know where they are so they are using your address. Don't feel bad, they are using someone else's phone number too and they are getting it worse. 

I've had both happen to me. The phone thing is a giant pain in the ass. Every place will call and harass you. then it will turn into collections agents who won't believe that you aren't them. You will however learn how shockingly stupid and lazy people are. 

My favorite was being called about information on a mortgage application for person X.  My answer was, this isn't X, they gave you a bogus number, they are lying to you and I currently get collections agent calls for them for at least four other debts. You would be an idiot to lend them money.  Six months later the same mortgage company is calling me back asking why X hasn't paid any of their bills. I'm like. because you are morons and didn't listen to me when I told you they were trying to rip you off. 

Super fun. 

I did at some point have someone put my mail on hold at the post office, but no idea who. Nothing ever came that was new and interesting. However, I would recommend that you set up informed delivery with USPS in case someone is trying to use your address for something other than a black hole for bill collectors. 

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1 hour ago, DirtyDigz said:

Dan was not the prior owner.  I checked with next door neighbor who knew the prior owner for several years, he didn’t recognize Dan’s name.  

Is it possible that Dan lived there years ago before the previous owner.

Go look him up on the Internet, you'll find out if he lived in that area ever before.

I've been recently receiving some medical bills for a guy that owned my house two owners ago, and I've been here 5 years, and that guy is dead.

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I do have informed delivery service set up, but thanks for the recommendation.

Did some googling this afternoon and did find a record claiming Dan lived at the address from 2009-2013.  Perhaps the prior owner rented to Dan for a period.  Strange that I did not receive any mail for Dan prior to December.

The W2 is most concerning - that means someone is working under Dan’s name and my address in at least the last year.

I’ll just keep marking the mail “return to sender” for now.

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I’ve had similar things happen to us..W2’s , medical bills, cell phone bills, being sent to my house with my address, but someone else’s name. There is a family in a nearby town that has the same street address as us,( but in the other town). I brought all that stuff to them, thinking the mail had been misdelivered, but it wasn’t for them either. 

I marked it as return to sender, and never heard anything else from the senders. 

 

Several years ago, I had a very strange scam run using my address. 

For several weeks in a row, mysterious packages showed up at my doorstep...I’m talking like 10-20 PER DAY. Everything from high end luggage, DJ equipment, musical instruments, kids clothes, ‘ethnic’ hair products. All kinds of shit, Stuff we didn’t order. We literally had a houseful of stuff we hadn’t ordered piling up. All of a sudden, the packages stopped coming. 

The packages were all addressed to me, but with my last name misspelled. I checked all of our bank accounts, credit cards, and our credit reports. Our cards and accounts had not been compromised, nor had our credit profiles been used to open any fraudulent accounts. 

I called the township PD, and a detective came out to investigate. He was as bewildered as I was..thought that my house was being used as a pickup for these packages while we were not home. I upgraded my security, made my wife become VERY aware of her surroundings, and took some time off work to keep an eye on things around the house. 

The detective contacted the companies who had shipped all this stuff, and found they were purchased using a ‘rechargable’ Visa card (like a Visa gift card, I guess) over the internet. He told me that none of the companies wanted any of it back, as they had been paid for it through this Visa gift card. Lol. I was stuck with all this crap and no room for it!

I gave it all to Goodwill....I didn’t know what else to do with it!

Lots of weird scams out there, I’d encourage you to dig into it as deeply as possible. 

 

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1 hour ago, DirtyDigz said:

I do have informed delivery service set up, but thanks for the recommendation.

Did some googling this afternoon and did find a record claiming Dan lived at the address from 2009-2013.  Perhaps the prior owner rented to Dan for a period.  Strange that I did not receive any mail for Dan prior to December.

The W2 is most concerning - that means someone is working under Dan’s name and my address in at least the last year.

I’ll just keep marking the mail “return to sender” for now.

Actually I’d call the irs about the w-2

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1 hour ago, Displaced Texan said:

I’ve had similar things happen to us..W2’s , medical bills, cell phone bills, being sent to my house with my address, but someone else’s name. There is a family in a nearby town that has the same street address as us,( but in the other town). I brought all that stuff to them, thinking the mail had been misdelivered, but it wasn’t for them either. 

I marked it as return to sender, and never heard anything else from the senders. 

 

Several years ago, I had a very strange scam run using my address. 

For several weeks in a row, mysterious packages showed up at my doorstep...I’m talking like 10-20 PER DAY. Everything from high end luggage, DJ equipment, musical instruments, kids clothes, ‘ethnic’ hair products. All kinds of shit, Stuff we didn’t order. We literally had a houseful of stuff we hadn’t ordered piling up. All of a sudden, the packages stopped coming. 

The packages were all addressed to me, but with my last name misspelled. I checked all of our bank accounts, credit cards, and our credit reports. Our cards and accounts had not been compromised, nor had our credit profiles been used to open any fraudulent accounts. 

I called the township PD, and a detective came out to investigate. He was as bewildered as I was..thought that my house was being used as a pickup for these packages while we were not home. I upgraded my security, made my wife become VERY aware of her surroundings, and took some time off work to keep an eye on things around the house. 

The detective contacted the companies who had shipped all this stuff, and found they were purchased using a ‘rechargable’ Visa card (like a Visa gift card, I guess) over the internet. He told me that none of the companies wanted any of it back, as they had been paid for it through this Visa gift card. Lol. I was stuck with all this crap and no room for it!

I gave it all to Goodwill....I didn’t know what else to do with it!

Lots of weird scams out there, I’d encourage you to dig into it as deeply as possible. 

 

Nobody said average criminals are rocket surgeons. ( that’s why they get caught)

Nothing was worth keeping?

 

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I still get calls on my cell for some chick that had my number before me.  But I've had it for 20 years now, lol!     Sounds like she is still running up debts and using my number.  Sort of annoying to wade through the voicemails every day, but this is why I never pick up unless I see a number I know.

 

If you want to watch some fun, go on youtube and search Kitboga.

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18 hours ago, AlDente67 said:

I still get calls on my cell for some chick that had my number before me.  But I've had it for 20 years now, lol!     Sounds like she is still running up debts and using my number.  Sort of annoying to wade through the voicemails every day, but this is why I never pick up unless I see a number I know.

I had some collection agency calling about someone I didn't know. I eventually started telling them things like they were never going to see their money, and that they would never take me alive, I was still buying weed with all the money, I'm fleeing the country, etc. Good times.

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We have a VOIP phone line via Comcrap they we have had for over 10 years, and NEVER used, much less given out the number to anyone. It constantly rings with some collection agent or another looking for a deadbeat lady who doesn’t pay her bills. I ran a number lookup on my VOIP number, and found it was listed as Shaunette Davis, or something like that. I guess she had the number in the past, and STILL gives it out to her creditors. 

Although we don’t use or answer that phone line, for entertainment purposes, I may borrow your technique, Handyman! Might be good for some fun!

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1 hour ago, Handyman said:

I had some collection agency calling about someone I didn't know. I eventually started telling them things like they were never going to see their money, and that they would never take me alive, I was still buying weed with all the money, I'm fleeing the country, etc. Good times.

I had a collection guy call for a card I never had. This went on for most of a year.  He refused to listen to any reason. He had a name and accent of Hispanic origin. So I started in with how disappointed he must have made his mother since this was the best he could do with his life. He went ape shit. I thought he was going to cry. He never called again. 

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