Read this before agreeing to have your parcels signed for on your behalf.
A little issue that recently happened to us when the postman signed on “our” behalf !!
3 weeks ago we were out of the house, the postman delivered a small parcel that needed signing for, being as no-one was in he signed his little electronic machine and posted the parcel through the letter box.
At NO time have we agreed to have parcels signed for on our behalf.
Now, heres where things took a naughty turn…
When we arrived home we found the parcel in our hallway, I picked it up and opened it, inside was a silver necklace and matching bracelet both in a small gift box, this was clearly a gift meant for someone else.
The first thing we noticed was the Royal Mail label said in big bold letters “SIGNED FOR”, so that was “naughty” number 1 as no one was home to sign for it, yet it had been posted through the letter box.
We then noticed that even though the address was correct the name on the address label was NOT ours !
So our concern was that a parcel had clearly come to our address, it appeared to show that had been “signed for” by someone at our home, but it was NOT intended for us !!
It gets worse…
I decided to look at the tracking info on the Royal Mail website by using the tracking number from the label.
Naughty number 2…
On the tracking you can view the signature, the postman had actually signed his little machine with the same surname as the intended recipient, so therefor as far as Royal Mail and the sender of the package were concerned the package had been delivered to the correct address and even signed for by the correct person.
This was clearly totally untrue, and more worrying is that it now looks like someone at our address had intentionally signed a false signature to obtain the package.
So it was time to do a bit of investigating…
On the label was a return address that gave a name of a company, but only letters, something like ABC Ltd for example, but it also had the postcode, I typed in the postcode on the Royal Mail “find an address” link and found the company, luckily there were just a hand full of address at this postcode location, all company names, I then Googled the name of each company and came across one that sold jewellery.
Luckily they had a website, even more luck was they they had a “live chat” so I contacted them told the lady what had happened.
It turned out that the package was intended for number 17 we are number 7, the person waiting for the parcel had also tracked it online and had seen that it had been signed for that morning, and more worrying was that the signature used was theirs, but obviously they had NOT signed for it or received it !!
This was a major concern as they could not prove that they had NOT received the package, after all, the Royal Mail postman must of obtained the signature from somewhere eh !!
The person I spoke with on the “live chat” explained that they were a small family business selling hand made jewellery, so any “lost” items would have a big impact on the business, but with this case they would of rightly argued that the package had been signed for by the correct person, so therefor it would of been buyer trying to prove they had not received the package, which would of probably ended up coming right back to my address and me having to prove I didn’t sign for the package, it was signed by the postman and put through our letterbox.
I contacted Royal Mail who told me that under no circumstances are postmen/women allowed to sign for packages themselves, especially using the correct surname as they class that as fraud (naughty number 3).
Anyway, the live chat women rang the customer, they popped up and had their jewellery.
This does beg the question though, how many packages are being signed for by postmen/women that do NOT end up with the correct recipient, and these people are then trying to prove that they did NOT sign for the package.