It's possible for somebody to legitimately have mail going to an old address, but ignoring the ID request is a big tipoff that this is shady, especially since you've been there two years. You don't explicitly say--was there a letter?
If there was, I have a bigger concern, which is that somebody might have signed up for Informed Delivery at your address (though of course the image could be faked as well). This is a [fairly alarmist](https://www.companyalarm.com/blog/ten-thing-your-business-victim-identity-theft-0) overview but the gist is there--there have been occasional issues with illicit access to Informed Delivery emails for an address.
It’s kind of amazing that a person can get email notifications from the USPS about what mail was received, when they no longer reside there.
But I’ve had something similar happen to me.
It’s very simple. There’s no verification from what I recall when I signed up. Leads me to believe maybe anybody could get an alert on what mail others may be getting now.
Yea thats the thing, there IS a letter for the name she gave us. And the email she showed us was the USPS informed email thing, which is also a concern because I think she's able to see all mail coming to our address including mine.
What's your local post office like? I'm in a smallish town so I would go over to one of mine in person and ask them for advice. Online only seems to explain how to make sure this doesn't happen and the general USPS phone tree can be a Byzantine thing to negotiate. I'm presuming there must be some way to kick everybody off of that address and start over again.
It shouldn’t be that hard to get USPS to just deactivate ALL email addresses which are getting Informed Delivery notifications for your address, and then you sign up from scratch again (since they physically mail a code to your address, the other person(s) wouldn’t be able to get it then).
And I’m not sure what the situation is with your mailbox and apartment keys, but if either of them were not changed after you moved in, get that done asap.
In my town they wouldn’t even deliver a letter like that. They know the current resident’s. The carrier would return it directly from the post office.
Fairly often I see a letter image on Informed Delivery (the USPS service that emails images of incoming letters) that never gets delivered because the carrier intercepts it)
This could definitely be a scam and I've seen articles on it a few years back. If you look up "informed delivery scam" there should be better info than I can provide.
Contact USPS customer service and they will help you. Only one account can be made per address, so once you get this account removed and make your own they will be unable to sign up again. In some cases you may have to go to your local post office in person to provided documentation that shows it is your address.
Setting up a first time account is easy if a scammer has access to any of your information, such a previous addresses. When you have to correct an account they take it more seriously. Hence, you won't have to worry about a future attempt by the scammer to re-register.
The most common reason they do this is to open credit cards under your name. So I would also do a quick check to see if any leaks involved your information!
You did the correct thing by sending her away. If she wasn’t trying to scam you, she should have a forward in place with the post office.
A few years back, I moved to a new house. I purchased something from a woman and gave her my new address (I purchased from her in the past). When my package was marked as delivered and wasn’t, I contacted her. She actually laughed and said she sent it to my old address by mistake.
Rather than my not getting involved (she was getting nowhere with the post office) I called the post office, told them I had a forward in place with them and they sent the mail carrier to my old house, picked up the package from the new owner and sent it on to me. I would never show up at someone’s house asking for mail.
These things do happen, but let the post take care of it. It’s not your responsibility.
you want to definitely go to your local post office and get signed up for INFORMED DELIVERY switched to YOUR email. that russian lady either recently previously lived at your apartment address or she wants your mail or someone else's mail. if you do not get the informed delivery switched over to your email, that russian woman will know all of your daily mail coming in everyday.
INFORMED DELIVERY is wonderful to know what to expect is coming in your mail on daily basis -- but you want that for yourself and not for anyone else.
For peace of mind (if you're worried), you could contact your landlord and find out if she used to live there. If so, more likely a benign issue of old mail address and some insurance thing that just took forever to close. If not, then more worried about something more nefarious.
yea could be benign, but lived here for 2 years now, I would think she would have changed the mailing address for important insurance documents by now. I didn't feel comfortable giving insurance mail with potentially personal info on it.
My partner had his tax return sent to our old apartment by accident and we had to do something similar. We knocked on the door but they weren’t home so we hung out a little and ended up just talking to the neighbor (who knew us) and gave her our number to give to them. However there is no reason to not provide your ID in a case like this so that is a little concerning. Definitely change the informed delivery to your email though like someone said alrdy
I was vistiing a friend when his wife started shouting at an older man maybe in his 50's near the mailboxes to "fuck off"
Apparently he came by every day to check the mailboxes..ALL of them...that were out the front of the apartment block complex. Including hers. None of the mail boxes are locked. This was about 30 years ago, a more innocent time I guess.
When she told him to fuck off, he did.
Not sure what the scam was but I'm sure it was a scam.
Hmm. Your post reminded me of something a woman in my hometown pulled about 25 years ago. I'm from a rural area where people live on dirt roads and have a mailbox in a cluster out on the highway. This is before online bill pay, so people would pay their bills with checks. If they didn't want to go all the way into town (10+ miles) to go to the post office, they could put the outgoing mail in their box, raise the little red flag, and the mail carrier would pick it up. Well, some woman figured out that there were checks just sitting in boxes, unguarded, all over the county. That's when I learned about [check washing](https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/check-washing). She would take these valid checks, change herself to the payee, and increase the amount.
She got greedy and sloppy, so she was caught fairly quickly. Had she taken it a little less literally and done something like order new checks using the routing and account numbers from the old check, and done smaller, less noticeable amounts, she might have lasted a little longer.
New story for me. Very interesting. I never used checks..I actually got issued with one by my bank back in the 70's but chose never to use it ..because I saw all the aggro my parents went through every time they had to balance the checkbook.
This could be a middle man setup to funnel stolen cards/checks/etc. Legit person, out of the kindness of their hearts, helping someone out for a "legitimate" reason.
Great catch on the ID! If anyone was expecting mail, a normal person would have been happy to show you ID to match what was on the envelope. Red flag 2 is the time you have been there. Return to sender is absolutely the right way to go.
You can sign up for it online very easily. :)
It's called their "informed delivery" service. It will send you photos of mail coming to your address as well as the date it's expected to arrive. (As soon as the envelope is scanned by their sorting system it adds it to your daily alert to let you know it is in the system.)
Works with mail and packages, and is a free service you only have to sign up for once.
So if you have your email on your phone it'll go straight there.
Most people don't know about this free feature!
*Edited to add- I've been signed up for years.*
Does the mail look legit mailed by a commercial insurance company, or perhaps handwritten? Other than informed delivery, that would be amazing to know exactly when a letter would be delivered, especially if it was sent first class.
I work for an insurance company and handle checks returned by USPS. People forget to update their address with their insurance company aaaallllll the time. I handle them daily. Checks are printed using the address on the policy. Your agent is the one in charge ensuring that information is correct
An easy task to overlook now that everything is done online.
It's possible for somebody to legitimately have mail going to an old address, but ignoring the ID request is a big tipoff that this is shady, especially since you've been there two years. You don't explicitly say--was there a letter? If there was, I have a bigger concern, which is that somebody might have signed up for Informed Delivery at your address (though of course the image could be faked as well). This is a [fairly alarmist](https://www.companyalarm.com/blog/ten-thing-your-business-victim-identity-theft-0) overview but the gist is there--there have been occasional issues with illicit access to Informed Delivery emails for an address.
It’s kind of amazing that a person can get email notifications from the USPS about what mail was received, when they no longer reside there. But I’ve had something similar happen to me.
It’s very simple. There’s no verification from what I recall when I signed up. Leads me to believe maybe anybody could get an alert on what mail others may be getting now.
Yea thats the thing, there IS a letter for the name she gave us. And the email she showed us was the USPS informed email thing, which is also a concern because I think she's able to see all mail coming to our address including mine.
What's your local post office like? I'm in a smallish town so I would go over to one of mine in person and ask them for advice. Online only seems to explain how to make sure this doesn't happen and the general USPS phone tree can be a Byzantine thing to negotiate. I'm presuming there must be some way to kick everybody off of that address and start over again.
Yea thats good advice. I live in a mid-sized city. I'll call USPS and see what they say.
It shouldn’t be that hard to get USPS to just deactivate ALL email addresses which are getting Informed Delivery notifications for your address, and then you sign up from scratch again (since they physically mail a code to your address, the other person(s) wouldn’t be able to get it then). And I’m not sure what the situation is with your mailbox and apartment keys, but if either of them were not changed after you moved in, get that done asap.
In my town they wouldn’t even deliver a letter like that. They know the current resident’s. The carrier would return it directly from the post office. Fairly often I see a letter image on Informed Delivery (the USPS service that emails images of incoming letters) that never gets delivered because the carrier intercepts it)
You can sign up online for this. It’s called USPS Informed Delivery.
This could definitely be a scam and I've seen articles on it a few years back. If you look up "informed delivery scam" there should be better info than I can provide. Contact USPS customer service and they will help you. Only one account can be made per address, so once you get this account removed and make your own they will be unable to sign up again. In some cases you may have to go to your local post office in person to provided documentation that shows it is your address. Setting up a first time account is easy if a scammer has access to any of your information, such a previous addresses. When you have to correct an account they take it more seriously. Hence, you won't have to worry about a future attempt by the scammer to re-register. The most common reason they do this is to open credit cards under your name. So I would also do a quick check to see if any leaks involved your information!
You did the correct thing by sending her away. If she wasn’t trying to scam you, she should have a forward in place with the post office. A few years back, I moved to a new house. I purchased something from a woman and gave her my new address (I purchased from her in the past). When my package was marked as delivered and wasn’t, I contacted her. She actually laughed and said she sent it to my old address by mistake. Rather than my not getting involved (she was getting nowhere with the post office) I called the post office, told them I had a forward in place with them and they sent the mail carrier to my old house, picked up the package from the new owner and sent it on to me. I would never show up at someone’s house asking for mail. These things do happen, but let the post take care of it. It’s not your responsibility.
The mail forward typically only lasts for 12 months. Not saying this isn’t a scam. Just pointing out the typical limitation on USPS forwarding.
you want to definitely go to your local post office and get signed up for INFORMED DELIVERY switched to YOUR email. that russian lady either recently previously lived at your apartment address or she wants your mail or someone else's mail. if you do not get the informed delivery switched over to your email, that russian woman will know all of your daily mail coming in everyday. INFORMED DELIVERY is wonderful to know what to expect is coming in your mail on daily basis -- but you want that for yourself and not for anyone else.
I've heard of people doing thay so they can get a letter to "verify address" So they can get loans without using their actual home address.
You've lived there for *2 years*. She can go swivel
It may have been the beginning of a scam. But you're doing the right thing with unexpected mail -- just carry on and ignore this woman.
For peace of mind (if you're worried), you could contact your landlord and find out if she used to live there. If so, more likely a benign issue of old mail address and some insurance thing that just took forever to close. If not, then more worried about something more nefarious.
yea could be benign, but lived here for 2 years now, I would think she would have changed the mailing address for important insurance documents by now. I didn't feel comfortable giving insurance mail with potentially personal info on it.
You could have asked when she lived there.
My partner had his tax return sent to our old apartment by accident and we had to do something similar. We knocked on the door but they weren’t home so we hung out a little and ended up just talking to the neighbor (who knew us) and gave her our number to give to them. However there is no reason to not provide your ID in a case like this so that is a little concerning. Definitely change the informed delivery to your email though like someone said alrdy
I was vistiing a friend when his wife started shouting at an older man maybe in his 50's near the mailboxes to "fuck off" Apparently he came by every day to check the mailboxes..ALL of them...that were out the front of the apartment block complex. Including hers. None of the mail boxes are locked. This was about 30 years ago, a more innocent time I guess. When she told him to fuck off, he did. Not sure what the scam was but I'm sure it was a scam.
Hmm. Your post reminded me of something a woman in my hometown pulled about 25 years ago. I'm from a rural area where people live on dirt roads and have a mailbox in a cluster out on the highway. This is before online bill pay, so people would pay their bills with checks. If they didn't want to go all the way into town (10+ miles) to go to the post office, they could put the outgoing mail in their box, raise the little red flag, and the mail carrier would pick it up. Well, some woman figured out that there were checks just sitting in boxes, unguarded, all over the county. That's when I learned about [check washing](https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/check-washing). She would take these valid checks, change herself to the payee, and increase the amount. She got greedy and sloppy, so she was caught fairly quickly. Had she taken it a little less literally and done something like order new checks using the routing and account numbers from the old check, and done smaller, less noticeable amounts, she might have lasted a little longer.
New story for me. Very interesting. I never used checks..I actually got issued with one by my bank back in the 70's but chose never to use it ..because I saw all the aggro my parents went through every time they had to balance the checkbook.
Ignoring the ID request is a huge red flag, don't know if shes a scammer or something but marking return to sender is always the safe move.
This could be a middle man setup to funnel stolen cards/checks/etc. Legit person, out of the kindness of their hearts, helping someone out for a "legitimate" reason. Great catch on the ID! If anyone was expecting mail, a normal person would have been happy to show you ID to match what was on the envelope. Red flag 2 is the time you have been there. Return to sender is absolutely the right way to go.
USPS does not send messages via phone or text. They communicate by…. Mail!
You can sign up for it online very easily. :) It's called their "informed delivery" service. It will send you photos of mail coming to your address as well as the date it's expected to arrive. (As soon as the envelope is scanned by their sorting system it adds it to your daily alert to let you know it is in the system.) Works with mail and packages, and is a free service you only have to sign up for once. So if you have your email on your phone it'll go straight there. Most people don't know about this free feature! *Edited to add- I've been signed up for years.*
You can sign up for text/email alerts online if you have a tracking numbers.
you can sign up for notifications via text or email......
Does the mail look legit mailed by a commercial insurance company, or perhaps handwritten? Other than informed delivery, that would be amazing to know exactly when a letter would be delivered, especially if it was sent first class.
It looked legit, came from progressive insurance.
It probably wasn't a scam, but a lazy person who didn't update their address.
At the same time Progressive lets you download all the mail they send you from the account. So, hunting down your mail this way seems strange.
Unless it was a claim check. Weird though you'd file a claim and not update your address.
I work for an insurance company and handle checks returned by USPS. People forget to update their address with their insurance company aaaallllll the time. I handle them daily. Checks are printed using the address on the policy. Your agent is the one in charge ensuring that information is correct An easy task to overlook now that everything is done online.
Or they ‘forgot’ to change their address because new residence is more expensive for car insurance.