Keep getting debit letters for other people

Send them a letter (get a certificate of posting) telling them to cease and desist contacting you. Keep a log. If they contact you again it could well be a breach of the harassment law -

"1 Prohibition of harassment

(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct?

(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and

(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.

(2) For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other."

Send them a letter (get a certificate of posting) telling them to cease and desist contacting you. Keep a log. If they contact you again it could well be a breach of the harassment law -

"1 Prohibition of harassment

(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct

(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and

(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.

(2) For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment of the other."

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Personally, I fail to see how letters, obviously intended for someone else, can be seen as harassment of a third party, however frequently they are received.

It is clear from the name on the front that they are not for you and it is safe to throw them away.

BICBW

tim

...

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Quite often the letters give way to people knocking on the door instead. If the new occupiers are elderly or vulnerable they can find that quite intimidating.

We've all done that with obvious junk mail but I don't think it's allowed.

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If that had started happening it would be a different matter, but nobody has started making visits to his home yet. He can't claim harassment on the basis of something that hasn't taken place.

I think you're right. Even opening mail addressed to someone else could be illegal. I think all he's really entitled to do with it is cross through the addressee, write "Not known at this address - Return to sender" on the envelope, and drop it in a post box.

Chris

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Agreed. But this is an obvious outcome of sending a letter back marked "unknown" as they will want to check up that the person actually is unknown. So you could be making this visit more likely

I don't believe that you are obligated by law to send it back, what other option do you have?

tim

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IME (student lettings) sending back the letters, especially enmasse if you get them daily for the same person, achieves nothing. I got better results by writing a polite letter and explaining the subject had now returned to China or whereever, which was usually true.

This does require opening the letters, either by 'mistake' or sometimes with permission of the addressee, if some sort of contact, if not a forwarding address, has been maintained.

(Don't have much sympathy however for the original mobile phone/credit card/etc companies who give credit to temporary foreign students then are surprised when they return home leaving a load of unpaid accounts.)

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Problem is that it's you and me who have to pay their bill!

tim

Like I said, once the companies concerned have been informed, any repetition fails the 'reasonable man' test. From previous discussions I believe that legally, mail is delivered to a property not a person.

tim