False name, my address. Metrolink fare dodger?

[w124bob]

A couple of letters have been delivered to my adddress with a name which is not mine or belonging to anyone nearby, someone caught fare dodging on consecutive days on Metrolink. Should I just ignore them?

[rovex]

I should either telephone metrolink and tell them or write "not known at this address" and put them back in the post. Othrwise you risk more letters and court action which whilst you won't be liable for could show up on a credit search and impact your credit score

Edited August 15, 2018 by rovex

[polybear]

I'd phone them.  I suspect they get an awful lot of "not known at this address" in order to try to avoid fines.  Nip it in the bud at the outset, otherwise it could snowball

[57xx]

I should either telephone metrolink and tell them or write "not known at this address" and put them back in the post. Othrwise you risk more letters and court action which whilst you won't be liable for could show up on a credit search and impact your credit score

 

Credit ratings are on people not properties. The old days of a property giving you a bad score are long gone.

[rovex]

Credit ratings are on people not properties. The old days of a property giving you a bad score are long gone.

Thanks, useful to know

[chrisd]

Credit ratings are on people not properties. The old days of a property giving you a bad score are long gone.

That’s good to know as I remember having trouble quite a few years ago, when a previous tenant of the house I was renting had obviously been a bad boy. I always had problems when using the address for credit etc. and it all culminated in a police raid at 2 in the morning! Luckily I had a work ID handy to prove that I wasn’t who they were after. Never did find out what he had (allegedly) done.

[Gibbo675]

A couple of letters have been delivered to my adddress with a name which is not mine or belonging to anyone nearby, someone caught fare dodging on consecutive days on Metrolink. Should I just ignore them?

Any fare dodger would have been on video should they haven been on the tram at the time, request the video of the fare dodger which ought to prove that it was not you. It is for Metrolink to prove it actually was you and not the other way around, whatever you do, do NOT sign any of their paperwork as this may enliven any adhesion contract they push your way.

 

Another good trick is to write to your MP about the harassment from Metrolink because there is no way you would do that if you were guilty.

 

Best of luck,

 

Gibbo.

[phil-b259]

Any fare dodger would have been on video should they haven been on the tram at the time, request the video of the fare dodger which ought to prove that it was not you. It is for Metrolink to prove it actually was you and not the other way around, whatever you do, do NOT sign any of their paperwork as this may enliven any adhesion contract they push your way.

 

Gibbo.

That seems a bit overkill - what exactly are Metrolink supposed to do? Send out one letter and forget about it!

 

I’m afraid your attitude is symptomatic of the legalistic mindset that only thinks of themselves / exposure to litigation above all else.

 

If a mistake has been made the courteous response by any right thinking person should be to inform the relevant organisation / person of that mistake first and give them a chance to remedy the situation.

 

Letters to MPs and the press should only be employed if this inital request is not acted on or if there is an overriding public safety / data protection type issue - and a fare doger giving out a false address is certainly not one of those.

 

Until anyone tells them otherwise Metrolink have every right to assume that the address given to the ticket inspector by the guilty party is legitimate and as such are perfectly entitled to keep sending letters to the address that has been given threatening further action.

 

Thus it makes no difference whether the W124bob has recieved 1, 6, or 60 letters from Metrolink - the question simply is have they informed Metrolink of the true situation? If they have done so, but still recieve letters then obviously further measures may be needed but if they have simply done nothing then Metrolink have every right to continue to assume that the address they have for the fare doger is correct.

 

I would therefore advise the W124bob to write to / e-mail Metrolink (thus having proof that this has been done) stating that the person the letter is meant for does not reside at the address the letter has been sent and request all relevant references to W124bob’s address are removed from Metrolink file on the fare dodger.

[LBRJ]

If, when you have written to them to tell them if isn't you they seek, and they take any more steps along the road of harassing you I would send them a cease and desist letter.

Edited August 15, 2018 by LBRJ

[Gibbo675]

That seems a bit overkill - what exactly are Metrolink supposed to do? Send out one letter and forget about it!

 

I’m afraid your attitude is symptomatic of the legalistic mindset that only thinks of themselves / exposure to litigation above all else.

 

If a mistake has been made the courteous response by any right thinking person should be to inform the relevant organisation / person of that mistake first and give them a chance to remedy the situation.

 

Letters to MPs and the press should only be employed if this inital request is not acted on or if there is an overriding public safety / data protection type issue - and a fare doger giving out a false address is certainly not one of those.

 

Until anyone tells them otherwise Metrolink have every right to assume that the address given to the ticket inspector by the guilty party is legitimate and as such are perfectly entitled to keep sending letters to the address that has been given threatening further action.

 

Thus it makes no difference whether the W124bob has recieved 1, 6, or 60 letters from Metrolink - the question simply is have they informed Metrolink of the true situation? If they have done so, but still recieve letters then obviously further measures may be needed but if they have simply done nothing then Metrolink have every right to continue to assume that the address they have for the fare doger is correct.

 

I would therefore advise the W124bob to write to / e-mail Metrolink (thus having proof that this has been done) stating that the person the letter is meant for does not reside at the address the letter has been sent and request all relevant references to W124bob’s address are removed from Metrolink file on the fare dodger.

Hi Phil,

 

I was only giving possible ideas should a sensible letter not work and I was not clear in this, however;

 

My charming local council once sent me a letter demanding to know why I had parked a car outside my house.

1. The car was not my car to start with.
2. If you read their so called evidence, which was a copy of the notice left upon the car in question the council would have seen that the traffic warden had written no.4 crossed it out and then written no.2 which was confused with my house no.42.
3. I sent my polite letter of explanation citing the above and would they please correct their records which may be checked through the DVLA.
4. I I telephoned the council after they resent the letter to further explain their mistake and to make more thorough enquiries to establish the actual problem.
5. I ended up with a court summons for not only having a car that was not mine parked outside someone else's house but for ignoring their correspondance.
6. I took the both the council letters and summons to the court in an attempt to explain what had been sent and what I had done about it, only to be told that I should have spoken to the council about the matter and that should I have done so the summons would not have been issued.
7. A letter to my MP finally sorted it out, not that his response gave me any confidence, I feel more that the agencies involved didn't want any paperwork coming their way.

Bitter experience tells me why I wrote the above for when such corporate entities decide not to listen they just don't listen. I was shocked at the appalling attitude of the above mentioned agencies that are hell bent on riving money from you despite it being their mistake. I dread to think how much defending myself in court would have cost me because of their mistake no doubt I would have been quite out of pocket for their clerical error.

 

Regards,

 

Gibbo.

[BoD]

What is the position about opening letters that are addressed to your house but to a different named person?

On the very odd occasion that this has happened to me I have simply wrote on the envelope not known at this address and popped it back in the post unopened. I suppose that if anything untoward had been going on I would not have known about it but I felt it wrong to open post addressed to someone else. It's a catch 22 situation.

[grandadbob]

I believe it is illegal to open someone else's mail and would do as BoD suggests and add  "return to sender."

 

 

Found this online:

 

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/part/V/crossheading/offences-of-interfering-with-the-mail

 

It would seem that you need a "reasonable excuse" to open mail not addressed to you. Not sure what qualifies as reasonable though.

Edited August 16, 2018 by grandadbob

[w124bob]

Yes I was aware that it's illegal to open another persons mail, but the two identical letters were in plain white envelopes with no return address. Also I had several items of mail that morning so just went through the lot, I was expecting a hospital letter in a white envelope.

As for contact with Metrolink, there is no return address other than Keolis Amey London head office. The phone number given is for the payment system, I have used the email address given (for appeals) to point that the named person does not live at this address and is not known to me. There are many scams around, ID theft, vehicle cloning etc, so any letter delivered to this address with the correct house/street will be opened, neighbours name my house number then obviously I'll pass it on. Ignoring stuff like this is not an option , sadly I suspect Metrolink won't just roll over either as contact with a human voice isn't made easy. I'm actually using the trams today so I would like to speak to a ticket snapper, but sods law says they won't be on my route!

Edited August 16, 2018 by w124bob

[Reorte]

... Metrolink have every right to continue to assume that the address they have for the fare doger is correct.

There's nothing much else they can do than work on that assumption but I'd hope they'd not get too insistent about them being 100% correct (and unfortunately sometimes some organisations do that, as with Gibbo675's example) seeing as it's highly likely a fare dodger will give them false details.

[57xx]

I believe it is illegal to open someone else's mail and would do as BoD suggests and add  "return to sender."

 

 

Found this online:

 

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/26/part/V/crossheading/offences-of-interfering-with-the-mail

 

It would seem that you need a "reasonable excuse" to open mail not addressed to you. Not sure what qualifies as reasonable though.

 

I would have thought that "reasonable" would be a letter sent to your address with a name of someone who doesn't live there and there is no RTS address on the outside. You'd need to work out what was going on, fraud, mistake by a company etc so you can notify the sender. If, as often happens to me, you get a letter for a neighbour, then it is clearly not addressed to you or your property and should not be opened.

Edited August 16, 2018 by 57xx

[Reorte]

I would have thought that "reasonable" would be a letter sent to your address with a name of someone who doesn't live there and there is no RTS address on the outside. You'd need to work out what was going on, fraud, mistake by a company etc so you can notify the sender. If, as often happens to me, you get a letter for a neighbour, then it is clearly not addressed to you or your property and should not be opened.

If it's for a neighbour I'd stick it through their letterbox, if it's got a return address I return them, and if it didn't it would probably get binned, so I can't say I'd be all that likely to even notice this if it happened to me (maybe if I started getting the same-looking letter every day despite returning them I'd end up taking a look).

[PaulCheffus]

I would have thought that "reasonable" would be a letter sent to your address with a name of someone who doesn't live there and there is no RTS address on the outside. You'd need to work out what was going on, fraud, mistake by a company etc so you can notify the sender. If, as often happens to me, you get a letter for a neighbour, then it is clearly not addressed to you or your property and should not be opened.

Hi

 

We had a letter addressed to someone at our address that had never lived there to our knowledge. We opened the letter to find out someone was using our address to try and get credit from Yes Car Credit. We phoned the credit company but they didn't really want to know. 

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[luckymucklebackit]

I think in  some of the posts above the statement in the link has been incorrectly interpreted

 

The statement applying to the general public (i.e. not postal workers) is as follows...

 

Interfering with the mail: general.

 

(3) A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him.

 

So simply opening a letter to find out what it is about is not an offence, it would have to be proved that you acted on the information in the letter "to a persons detriment".

 

Jim

[PatB]

It does seem that agencies tasked with extracting money from you tend to be quite cagey about providing useful information about querying the charge in with the notice. Different country and situation admittedly, but 18 months or so ago I received, somewhat unexpectedly, notice of a very large traffic camera speeding fine and accompanying points. This was particularly surprising to me, given that the vehicle in the thoughtfully provided images bore no resemblance to mine, and that I was 1000 km away at the time of the offence. The notice only allowed three options for response, not one of which was "This is a spurious charge". No possibility of error seemed to be contemplated and no contact details were given to allow the accused (me) to speak to a human being to try and get things sorted out sensibly. It took the best part of an afternoon digging around on various government websites before I found a possible phone number buried in some small print. Fortunately it actually did work, and the bod on the other end was reasonably sympathetic and helpful. I did still need to compile evidence that the motorcycle in the photo wasn't mine, and that I was a long way away from the scene of the incident and submit it all with a formal letter to an address I was given over the phone. Ironically, part of the evidence that it couldn't have been me was the infringement notice (for a far more minor speeding offence) that I was issued on the other side of the state at about the same time. Sometimes the Road Gods offer a gift in disguise . Anyhow, after a few weeks I received a letter informing me that the camera infringement notice was being cancelled. Not a hint of an apology though.

 

Anyhow, long story short, it seemed to have been deliberately made to be an excessively difficult and time consuming faff to simply say "excuse me but I think there's been a mistake", when there's clearly been one. Someone less familiar with government bureaucracy might well have ended up rather less unscathed.

[runs as required]

This seems a place to warn about a 'meet & greet' parking service offered at Gatwick airport.

My daughter and family left their car (a new rental BMW) in their care to be parked away from the airport for 3 weeks while away on holiday - and were duly met on their return.

 

However they reached home to find a £60 pound parking fine awaiting them in the post from Horsham for a date during the period they were away!

The parking company have ignored their emasils so far

dh

[Legend]

Interesting thread. By not having a return address on the letter or a contact number where you can dispute a claim its almost like bully boy tactics . Threatening letter, pay us the money or take the consequences .Where an MP might be useful is to petition for a change in the law that all such letters should have a clear right of redress.

[ngtrains.com]

Many years ago I got a ticket for a waiting offence in the cornmarket in Derby with a hire car that I had when I was nowhere near there.

I had hired a car in Derby but it was to go to North Wales on holiday to fire on the Festiniog Railway.

I didnt get the letter until I got home of course and actually the first i heard of it was when collected another hire car later and they told me the police had been asking for who had the car on a given date.

 

Anyway, it wasn't me guv so:-

I wrote to the police suggesting an error had been made. Nothing.

Then the fine escalation letter arrived. I wrote again. Nothing

The pay or its court letter arrived. I wrote again. Nothing

Letter from the court arrives with a date and time and, at last, a name and specific contact.

 

By this time I had got some evidence togther. A copy of the roster that said i was firing Linda somewhere around Dduallt at the time of the offence, a letter from the works manager confirming thats where i was and a photo of me on the engine that day  [the photo was a minor miracle given this was when you still had to put film in a camera). All this was sent to the court police officer and resulted in a very quick "sorry, must be a cock up, cancelled letter"   

 

Only when in contact with the court dibble was I able to find out a bit more about the evidence, like what car it was and whilst the number used was the car i had I had a Fiesta and the guilty motor was an Escort. Closest i ever got to an explanation was that the TC Harrison hire fleet had consecutive numbers and most likely one digit was written down wrongly.

 

Sorted in the end but not without a fair bit of worry and effort

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

Credit ratings are on people not properties. The old days of a property giving you a bad score are long gone.

 

The only reason that properties are no longer as relevant as they were is that the credit scoring industry has become vastly more sophisticated and that lending to properties with a chequered credit history has not subsequently gone bad.

 

Nevertheless, there are 'poor' credit areas where folk who have somewhat indifferent credit scores might be seen to congregate.

 

Although I agree that credit history is more people focussed, it is also effectively unregulated and can very often be product driven. It is for instance much easier to obtain credit on a brand new car than it is to obtain a bank loan for home improvements.

 

The first three years after a change of address can make obtaining credit rather more difficult even though you have borrowed before perhaps from the same source but your credit score has dropped slightly due to difficulties over utility transfers and the fact that the previous occupier(s) had poor history.

 

I was involved in the birth of the credit score industry and can vividly remember the revelation that credit scores were initially meaningless as, under the previous manual system, anyone in a slum address could borrow with impunity as, because nobody in their right mind would lend to an unemployed slum tenant, their credit score said they must be wonderful payers!!

[Nick C]

This seems a place to warn about a 'meet & greet' parking service offered at Gatwick airport.

My daughter and family left their car (a new rental BMW) in their care to be parked away from the airport for 3 weeks while away on holiday - and were duly met on their return.

 

However they reached home to find a £60 pound parking fine awaiting them in the post from Horsham for a date during the period they were away!

The parking company have ignored their emasils so far

dh

 

This kind of thing seems to be common with those companies - One of them was recently prosecuted for dumping people's cars in fields and public car parks (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-44981231).

 

Unfortunately Gatwick doesn't have any proper parking other than the official airport long-stay which costs a fortune - all the rest there are hand-over-your-keys type places. 

[hayfield]

That seems a bit overkill - what exactly are Metrolink supposed to do? Send out one letter and forget about it!

 

I’m afraid your attitude is symptomatic of the legalistic mindset that only thinks of themselves / exposure to litigation above all else.

 

If a mistake has been made the courteous response by any right thinking person should be to inform the relevant organisation / person of that mistake first and give them a chance to remedy the situation.

 

Letters to MPs and the press should only be employed if this inital request is not acted on or if there is an overriding public safety / data protection type issue - and a fare doger giving out a false address is certainly not one of those.

 

Until anyone tells them otherwise Metrolink have every right to assume that the address given to the ticket inspector by the guilty party is legitimate and as such are perfectly entitled to keep sending letters to the address that has been given threatening further action.

 

Thus it makes no difference whether the W124bob has recieved 1, 6, or 60 letters from Metrolink - the question simply is have they informed Metrolink of the true situation? If they have done so, but still recieve letters then obviously further measures may be needed but if they have simply done nothing then Metrolink have every right to continue to assume that the address they have for the fare doger is correct.

 

I would therefore advise the W124bob to write to / e-mail Metrolink (thus having proof that this has been done) stating that the person the letter is meant for does not reside at the address the letter has been sent and request all relevant references to W124bob’s address are removed from Metrolink file on the fare dodger.

 

 

Phil

 

You are completely correct in your advice, but the other method is much more fun. The one element which may be a weak point in your advice is that those receiving your  advised response completely ignores it.

 

It now seems there is an industry which has built up collecting monies owed, but these firms seem hell bent on obtaining money even if a completely innocent party has become involved, rather than the collectors being responsible from collecting from the guilty party, completely innocent people seem to have to prove they are innocent, therefore at the start of proceedings a statement that any further actions to obtain monies from you will be treated as harassment and financial recourse will be pursued, would seem reasonable if you are an innocent party.