Insurance Fiddle

Possible black listing against your address. Seems to be a strange thing to do though - what happens when the person with the insurance wants to make a claim and it's for a different property ?

I think its car insurance James 

Ah ok, that makes a bit more sense. Were they English sounding names ?

Mike, there's no implication for you.  There are three reasons for that.

Firstly you have acted in good faith and 'Return to Sender' is the appropriate action; second it's an offence to open mail not addressed to you (so you couldn't reasonably be expected to know the contents); third it's for the insurance company to detect the fraud, not you (and for the police to investigate after it's reported to them).

james n posted:

Ah ok, that makes a bit more sense. Were they English sounding names ?

I deliberately did not mention that, but nicely suspected;    all were either typical arab/muslim or eastern europe/russian sounding names.

Huge posted:

Mike, there's no implication for you.  There are three reasons for that.

Firstly you have acted in good faith and 'Return to Sender' is the appropriate action; second it's an offence to open mail not addressed to you (so you couldn't reasonably be expected to know the contents); third it's for the insurance company to detect the fraud, not you (and for the police to investigate after it's reported to them).

Huge,  there HAS been an implication,  its ongoing & I expect it to be resolved,  but you hear stories  ..................     

The law on opening mail is about the intent to harm the person who the mail was intended for, opening to correctly find that addressee would not be harming them.......but open to a lot of legal interpretation. Having had a spate of letters which turned out to be for an individual being chased by debt collectors.....return to sender did not work. Opening letter and ringing them up, stopped the letters arriving?

I presume these are car insurance policies? I would be a little concerned that any claims made on them, fraudulent or otherwise, would be associated with your address, and insurance companies would jump at the chance to increase your own premiums based on their 'statistics'.

If someone takes you to court without independent evidence of a connection between yourself and the criminals (i.e. the connection to your address through SIRA isn't enough), then you may well have a good case for malicious prosecution - just remind the insurance companies of that.

Insurance companies will always 'try it on' to squeeze people into turning into witnesses against co-conspirators, so run the tactic backwards, tell them that if they continue persecuting you, you'll seek damages for distress and if you're getting any stress symptoms (such as difficulty sleeping etc.) go and see you GP - then you have concrete evidence of actual harm done by them.  If that doesn't work use the threat of action for malicious prosecution or, if multiple insurance companies are involved that may constitute conspiracy to pervert the course of justice on their part!  (Insurance companies collude via the SIRA database, so the connection between them is easily proven, they would have to defend on the grounds of intent, and that needs them to prove reasonable evidence against you (not just suspicion from commonality in a database).  Up the ante, at the moment they feel that they are in a win-win situation and can pressure you as much as they want, with complete impunity; snatch away their security blanket.

Oh yes, and CC the letter to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Instead of just putting RTS on an envelope, you should cross out the address and then write "Not Known At This Address - Return To Sender" or "NKATA - RTS" for short.  Then post it back. This means you don't have to open the letter (there may well be unfortunate implications for you if you do so) and clearly shows to whoever sent the letter that the address they have for the Addressee is incorrect.  

Hey peeps,  please don't turn this into a legal discussion,   I am extremely well represented in that regard.   I posted this more as a heads up to the forum incase you get some of these mails.  My advise based on what I've learned is always RTS. 

Yes Chris you are getting warm. 

Even if there's nor return address on the outside, you don't have to open the letter anyway, that's for the post office to do

Mike, if you haven't already sought legal advice, then you might want to get in touch with your nearest Citizen's Advice Bureau.  They often have volunteers with a legal background, quite often retired solicitors, QCs even, and they may be able to help steer you clear of any problems further down the road.

Edit: Apologies.  My post crossed with yours above.  In which case my first post should be all anyone needs if in a similar situation receiving letters with unknown addressees.

That's why you need to involve the Financial Ombudsman - if they raise your premiums without a proven link, they are acting contrary to the Data Protection Act and FCA rules.  I used to work in Financial Services, and this type of action was banned many years ago - I'm really surprised to hear that they are still doing it.

Richard,  I appreciate the post, as I said in my other post I'm extremely well represented in that regard with a family legal business.   All that needs to be completed is to scrub my address off any/all records,  that has been done with the case in question,  but their may be some links that cannot be sanitised.

Mike, there is another thing to do, using the General Data Protection Regulation 2018

If you haven already done so, get everyone at your address to sign a letter stating that they are the only people who have a legitimate relationship to your address.

Explicitly state that under 'Right of Rectification' specified in the GPDR as the data owners, you require all recipients to amend all your data that they hold to reflect this information.  Other than the signatories to this letter no other party exists with a relationship to this address.  No contrary information from other sources may legally be processed in 'Automated Decision Making including Profiling' or under the terms of 'Legitimate Interest' or any other provision of the GPDR.    This information may not be modified by information from third parties who are not signatories to this letter.

They have one month to comply with this, and must inform all third parties to whom they have passed any of this information (this deals with sanitising the external links, but you may wish to explicitly specify 'including credit reference agencies').  They also have a duty to provide full restoration for any financial loss they have caused by the inaccurate automated processing.

They (all the adults over 18) at your address need to sign the letter (and sign on behalf of anyone under 18).

Oops, got a bit ahead of myself: the GPDR comes into effect on 25th May not in March.

Basically the same but it's the Data Protection Act 1998 and minus the clause "or under the terms of 'Legitimate Interest' ".

Huge I'm obliged for your interest,  but I really do not need (or expected) this.  As I said in previous posts;   I have excellent legal advice  (not that I needed it)    my problem is in the process of being solved by the insurance cmpy & as I posted this more as a heads up to the forum incase forumites get some of these mails.

Mike the info is useful to others, as when used as a first approach this can prevent issues escalating.

It worked for me when a Local Authority took 3rd party information about me - they refused to alter it (actually they claimed they couldn't alter it!) until I invoked the DPA; I then got an apology from a senior manager!