We quite often get mail addressed to people that have never lived here. We mark it ANK or No such person and the postman takes it away.

Yesterday FedEx left a package addressed to my house but for someone that’s never lived here. I called FedEx, got hung up on twice, finally got connected to a customer service rep in India that not only couldn’t understand the tracking numbers but also couldn’t understand why I’m returning the package that was sent to me. I tried to explain that it’s my house but no one lives here by that name. “Oh, it’s delivered. Is ok then? Thank you.”

I just set it back outside hoping someone will come by and pick it up. Don’t know what else to do.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark123,

A nonexistent person at your address. You didn't order anything. Toss it in the trash? You have no obligations.

Fedex knows who shipped it and from where.
You can usually find that by tracking the package online.

If FEDEX will not help, I would open it.

If it something like drugs inside notify the police.

A scam is to pick random houses and often empty ones and have a package delivered and pick it up before the owner can.

Or it just could be an innocent error.

I get peoples mail from the wrong address addressed to me several times a year.

Mostly someone hit the wrong dropdown on a menu when doing address verification for shipping.

Open it. If it's something you could use, consider it a gift from an anonymous donor. If you can't use it, donate it to Goodwill or some other charity, sell it on e-bay, or karma it on SF.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
A nonexistent person at your address. You didn't order anything. Toss it in the trash? You have no obligations.

That’s my thinking as well but in case the person just consistently writes my address on their orders I try to at least let the sender know there’s some sort of nuttiness going on.

Is this common? I get all kinds of mail, almost daily, for someone that doesn’t live here. Mostly junk mail but sometimes credit cards, DMV documents and other seemingly important stuff. It stinks of fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, returning the mail never stops it.

Unscrupulous Amazon sellers do that so they can write fake reviews. They create fake accounts, use some randos physical address, "buy" their cheap ChiCom crap, mail it to the rando, and they write their own "verified purchase" review claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Most expensive part of the scam is the shipping. Send out 40, pay $400 total in shipping, $80 on actual cost of ChiCom crap. Add in some fake unverified reviews on top of it. They probably bought hundreds or thousands of units of the ChiCom crap off alibaba, mark it up 1000% to 3000%, and pocket tens of thousands of $ selling the rest before anybody realizes it's crap with fake reviews.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tatortodd,

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
… I get peoples mail from the wrong address addressed to me several times a year.

if it were that infrequent I’d be less concerned. A package is weirder than a letter though.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
Mostly someone hit the wrong dropdown on a menu when doing address verification for shipping.

That makes sense but wouldn’t you make sure to tell the shipper to be careful after not getting your mail and packages for so many years? The wrong mail has been happening since 2004 but this is my first package.

20 plus years ago before shipping was a quick and easy thing like it is today. You know you ordered something and 3-4 weeks later you had it?
I came home and there were 4 boxes about 4’x4’x4’ sitting on my driveway with the proper address but improper name.
Return address was Redline Oils. I called UPS and they said not our problem we dropped it at the address we were told to. I gave Redline Oil a buzz and they said to just keep it.

I presume it was some sort of retail starter kit. Couple of displays and a sampling of pretty much every type of lubricant you could think of.
I was in a couple Mustang Clubs then so I kept what I could use and gave away the rest.

Looking forward to seeing what is inside your package.

Call the police. Seriously. In the DC metro there was a crew shipping 10kg boxes of marijuana to not entirely random addresses for a confederate to intercept. The PG cops knew of it, saw to it the homeowner picked up and took it inside whereupon a tactical team swarmed the house of the Mayor of Berwyn Heights, MD, an entirely innocent man, terrorizing the family and killing the Calvo's two black labs. None of the cops suffed any punishment.

Strange. I have never had this happen to me EVER. Sometimes I get the neighbor's mail, but nothing like this.

Me either, but I might not mind if someone decided to send me 10kg of grass.

take it to a fedex location and leave it there - scratch pout your address on the label first

let them deal with it

I would open it and find out what is inside. You might have better chance of returning it to the owner. Like others have said FedEX will not care as they delivered it to the listed address.

I received a box that was actually addressed to me, with no return address nor sender information.

A carton containing around a hundred pair of Daisy Duke type mini-shorts, new, with tags.

My wife took them to GoodWill or Salvation Army or someplace like that.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
I received a box that was actually addressed to me, with no return address nor sender information.

A carton containing around a hundred pair of Daisy Duke type mini-shorts, new, with tags.

My wife took them to GoodWill or Salvation Army or someplace like that.

You didn’t keep at least on pair for yourself?

What a jip.

I would open it.
Decide from there.
You can always repackage it.

You tired to do the right thing and FedEx in't interested. You have fulfilled all moral/legal obligations.

Open it, it's yours.

If you like it keep it, if you don't give it away or toss in the trash.

Never happens to me. All I get is the USPS driver don't understand the numeric house system in the neighborhood that he's been delivering to for the last 20+ years. If the weather's nice I walk it over to the correct house. If it's crappy outside, I write on the envelope WRONG ADDRESS and raise the flag.

Isn't there usually a return address on the shipping label ? Sometimes it is possible to get an idea where the package came from by checking where the tracking originated from.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
In the DC metro there was a crew shipping 10kg boxes of marijuana to not entirely random addresses for a confederate to intercept.

Woohoo, free weed.

Anyway, people in almost every jurisdiction have been shipping and receiving one to a few pounds of weed to other people's addresses for decades now, as it's vastly safer than receiving it at ones own address when living in occupied territory / places that are out of their minds when it comes to the Devil's Lettuce...

Neighbor is an accountant or something and gone to work all day... FedEx drops weed off on their stoop unbeknown to them, collect package, hope you're not bum rushed by door kickers and chihuahua shooters, get some Doritos if it goes well... #winning

A tale as old as the postal service and weed itself, or since the 70s at least... I think I was 15 or something when someone's older brother described how it worked. Or maybe I saw it on Weeds or The Wire or something like that. Hard to recall.

Either way, rest assured, it's a veritable institution so vast and common that nobody has the resources to stop it, and this long has been the case. There's 300 or so million people here and a gaggle of addresses and neighborhoods. It's too easy.

Those new fangled Doorbell Cams may finally put a dent in the practice, though. Heck, the success rate of anti weed LE might even go up to 4%, from 1% or 2...