Mail related: would you be concerned?

[Susie]

We recently started getting mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. N----- B-----, at our house address, from unrelated charities.  Yesterday it was Habitat for Humanity, and a charity related to the Church of Latter Day Saints, addressed the same way.

There have only been 3 couples that have owned our house since it was built (we're the 3rd), and none of them have names anything like NB.

I googled NB, because it's a pretty unusual name.  A doctor by that name died in an accident in 2018 in the southwest.  His obituary mentions that the funeral was at held at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, address, blah blah.  Other than his father, who had the same name (they are Jr./Sr.), and also lived in the southwest, I haven't found any other people whose name matches NB.

I have no idea how his name came to be tied to our address (which is in the northeast), but is there anything we should watch for in terms of fraud?  This just kind of weirded me out, being more than a one-time occurrence.

[purplepenguin7]

I don't have any advice but following because we had a similar thing happen. We are also the 3rd owners of our house and we get mail for many other names other than the previous owner who lived her for 35 years (and her family/kids, etc). It weirds me out because even if these people lived her before the sellers, it would have been 40-50 years ago...how are they still receiving mail here?? I didn't google because its been a number of different names and inconsisent but it definitely weirded me out.

[tacokick]

We’ve gotten charity mail addressed to someone who never lived here for the past 16 years. I think it was a mistake at one charity and they sold the name/address to others. Never been an issue.

[k3am]

Charity mail is the worst because they sell the name/address to other charities.. There is a registry that you can pay $2 for to take a name off the list, but it doesn't really seem to stop it.

[mommin]

I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and they don’t send anything financial out except your annual donation statement at the end of the year and reimbursement checks if you’ve turned in receipts from activities or supplies. The reimbursement check would be from something recent as they’re supposed to complete that within 1-2 weeks and the tax statement would have been from last year so that would rule out anyone that lived there a long time ago.
If this guy went online to request info about the church they would mail out pamphlets and such but they wouldn’t be tied to finances (credit cards, social security, etc.) so they wouldn’t be helpful in an identity-stealing way. The Church doesn’t have members social security numbers or ties to any credit bureaus so it seems odd that this would be a phishing scam. I totally don’t get what benefit it would have. Maybe he was a renter or lived there temporarily in the past but wasn’t an owner?

ETA: they also don’t buy or sell your information to other not-for-profits or other companies so he would have had to personally provide his info.

[sakoro]

Maybe Mr N— B— went on a mission to your area and stayed with one of the former homeowners? I mention this because most young men from this church do a mission outside of their home area when they are young adults. Once children are grown and the member is retired, they sometimes do additional missions.

[ECB]

Other than being annoyed at the extra mail, I wouldn't think past that to be concerned about it.

[wildrice]

I get mail with all kinds of names on it and just toss it in the garbage straightaway. I wouldn't worry about it.

Oddly, I recently got a piece of mail with my maiden lastname and some random first name on it. My maiden lastname isn't common, and I haven't ever had that last name while living in this state. I thought that was really strange.

[dancingirl21]

We have recently started getting an employment survey from a legit state employment agency to our address with the "company" being ABC Marketing. I have no idea why this is happening. I keep tossing it. I have looked into trying to get it to stop since it's either a false company or the wrong address, but I can't figure out how to do it without calling and being on hold forever.

[Susie]

Today we got another piece of mail for NB, one of those stupid "final notice" type things about a car.

I've seen random names before on mass mailings, but this has been so strange to see the same name on three different items from three different senders in the same week.

The house has never been rented out.  It was built in the 1990s, and we've actually met both of the couples who owned it before us.  I doubt NB ever lived here with either of them.  If that were the genesis of these mailings, I would think we would have seen mail for him show up sooner than this week (we've owned the house for 10 months, and suddenly 3 in a week?).  

Hopefully it's just a weird database error that got propagated from one organization to another.

I think I'm perhaps just feeling salty about the mail in general though.  Today we got, for the umpteenth time in the last 10 months, something in the mail for our sellers from their kids' pediatrician.  Our kids go to the same pedi, so I called the pedi this morning to say hey, you might want to reach out to this patient's family, because we bought their house almost a year ago and it seems like they haven't updated their address with you.  The woman got really snarky with me about "all you have to do is put it back in the mail..." She repeated it like 4 times.  Like yes I am familiar with basic adulting, I am 40 years old and have been a practicing attorney for like 15 years, but thanks for the tutorial on mailboxes.  I was just trying to be nice and let you know what the issue was, in case it was kind of important, either to the office (like a bill) or the family (like a school note or result or something).  The post office is not exactly aces at handling mail forwarding.

[minzy]

You might want to check out DMAchoice.org. It’s where the FTC sends you for unwanted mail. $2 and you’re opted out of a lot of junk for 10 years. I’m not positive if it’s just by address, or name and address (it’s been a couple of years since I signed up to reduce the amount of junk mail we receive). It does seem to be fairly effective; we don’t get a ton of junk mail anymore.

[ESF]

It's always smart to keep an eye on your credit report, but there are tons of non-fraudulent reasons why random addressees mail winds up up in your box.  Two stories for you ---

When my MIL died in 2015, we had her mail forwarded to our address. her last name is not the same as my H's last name. We've since moved twice. We still get random odds and ends for her, and I'm sure her old charity mail is still being received by both addresses.

So the mail could be for a deceased person - or even a living person for whom one of the homeowners was handling affairs for.  

Also even though they were divorced, my FIL lived with my MIL at the time of her death (long story). He moved back to his home after she died, but some random pieces of his mail wound up getting forwarded to us after she died, and we still get random mailings for him.  

So the mail could be for a roommate of the homeowners or the roommate of someone whose affairs the homeowners handled.