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I’ve been dealing with an interesting issue at my personal residence that could easily happen at our Airbnb properties. About 3 weeks ago I received an “O” magazine at our home address. It was addressed to an individual unknown to me. We are the original owners of this home (25 years) so I know it’s not a past resident. I wrote it off as an address mistake and put it in the recycling bin. The following week I received a GQ magazine addressed to the same individual.
Now my interest is piqued and my internal fraud radar is on high alert. I started researching and it appears that this may be a scam to establish residency at my property. It is most common among convicts and scam artists.
I contacted each of the magazines, letting them know that this person is unknown, does not reside here and asked them to cancel the subscriptions. I then marked through the bar code and wrote on the magazines “No such person” and “Return to sender” and dropped it off at the post office.
I also checked my credit reports to ensure this person was not linked or A/K/A on my credit report.
I read several stories where this false address info for magazines is being used by law enforcement and police show up looking for these folks.
If this isn’t the end of it, I’ll file a complaint with my local post office. I hope this information is helpful to others.
I’m surprised that any authority that someone would use to establish identity would accept a mailed magazine as proof of residency rather than something like a utility bill. I’m a bit baffled by this one. So I look forward to seeing how this turns out.
I don’t think any authority does. This would be used for financial fraud (credit cards, personal loans, etc.) where the creditor is simply checking if an address is associated with a person.
It never occurred to me that you could file a complaint at the post office about something like this.
We had a situation here 17 years ago. Not mail fraud, but still odd. I bought this house from a family who lived here four years. When I moved in, I started receiving their mail, along with mine. All their mail. Bank statements, subscription magazines, personal letters, Christmas cards, bills, junk mail—even a few gifts.
At the beginning, I collected a bundle and took it to my Realtor, asking her to give it to their Realtor, as I had no contact info for the family. Their Realtor gave it back, saying she no longer had contact info for them that was still valid. This was two or three weeks after they moved out and I moved in here.
We’ve joked over the years that they must have gone into witness protection.
By now, we get only the occasional thing addressed to them. Never occurred to me to alert the Post Office!
Still get mail for previous occupants, and there were several over the years. Pension statements, water and electricity bills addressed here but for properties in a completely different town, bank correspondence, and so on.
We’ve returned it to the issuing bodies, handed it back to the postie, put the subject address of the bills on and popped back in post box. Now, it goes in the bin.
Many years ago some colleagues of mine had, at the time, a unique form of retribution for clients who pissed them off. With the assistance of the girl in the newsagents next door they used to collect the inserts (pre paid postcards usually) often found in magazines to apply for more information about a multitude of products.
They would take great delight in signing the poor individual up for information to be received about everything under the sun. Sometimes as much as thirty or forty at a time.
I considered it cruel and refused to participate. Honest.
Thanks for info. I have had similar mail coming to a man three times in the past few weeks. I’ll go to the post office tomorrow and see what can be done.
