Letters Opened

She Devil

Hey, I don't know if this is the wrong thread if so please feel free to move ...

My fiance and I moved out of our apartrment in September, we changed our address for most things, but because obviously other straggle letters had been sent to the previous address the letting agent sent them on to the forwarding address we provided. However my finace got a letter from his hospital with forms and receipts in it, plus with his health insurance forms also, his hospital issue is very delicate. When we got the letter it was opened but resealed and had a compliment slip in it from the letting agents signed by one of them.
I know it is a criminal offence to open someone elses post, but wondering why they were so obvious about it ?!
We are not one bit happy about this and do intend when normal business hours resume to go to our solicitor about it, however was just wondering if anyone has any advice on this!

eth0_

She Devil wrote: »

We are not one bit happy about this and do intend when normal business hours resume to go to our solicitor about it, however was just wondering if anyone has any advice on this!

Why would you go to your solicitor about this? It's just ONE incident. Yes, it's illegal to tamper with someone else's post, but this has just happened on one occasion. By all means, demand answers and an apology from the letting agent, but why waste money on a solicitor when it seems like a one-off?

She Devil

Others were opened and resealed, sorry if i didnt make that clear, this was the only one that had a compliment slip in it!!

The content of the letter was very private and very informative, by opening and reading that letter the person knows more about our private affairs than our family do.

And for that reason, I will get advise from my solicitor! Why would someone be THAT nosey.. to open a letter that clearly has name and address on and says what dept of the hosp it was sent from! Its not only nosey its bloody rude and illegal!!!!!!!!!!

southofnowhere

She Devil wrote: »

Others were opened and resealed, sorry if i didnt make that clear, this was the only one that had a compliment slip in it!!

The content of the letter was very private and very informative, by opening and reading that letter the person knows more about our private affairs than our family do.

And for that reason, I will get advise from my solicitor! Why would someone be THAT nosey.. to open a letter that clearly has name and address on and says what dept of the hosp it was sent from! Its not only nosey its bloody rude and illegal!!!!!!!!!!

Understandable reaction.

But if you pursue it legally then you do know where it will end up don't you?

Court.

I'd say your other half would love that? Cue everyone wanting to know what it's all about. And possibly finding out via a newspaper.

What they did was very wrong, hard to fathom really. Tell them in no uncertain terms and ask them to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Then get on with your life.

astrofool

Why didn't your bf update his address with the hospital? If it was that sensitive an issue, it's the first thing I would have done.

They could always have read it, and thrown it in the bin, and you'd be none the wiser.

eth0_

Oh I see. I'd be furious too...I mean it says your name on the front of the envelope so they knew who it was for.

I'd ask to speak to the manager of the letting agency first, though. Maybe the letters were opened by a temp or a member of staff who should really be getting the sack.

She Devil

astrofool wrote: »

Why didn't your bf update his address with the hospital? If it was that sensitive an issue, it's the first thing I would have done.

They could always have read it, and thrown it in the bin, and you'd be none the wiser.

We did update the address, the hospital said they have two files they go on and didnt update the address on their system, so nothing we could have done about that.

We are very angry now, that is why I sound so adamant to go further about it, I just can't let that go, there is a girl in the letting agents who knows my sister in law and while we didnt want to worry our family about it, we are going to have to now.
That is what I'm more angry about than anything else!

jimmycrackcorm

what will going to a solicitor achieve? You want to take a private prosecution?

GerardKeating

She Devil wrote: »

Hey, I don't know if this is the wrong thread if so please feel free to move ...

My fiance and I moved out of our apartrment in September, we changed our address for most things, but because obviously other straggle letters had been sent to the previous address the letting agent sent them on to the forwarding address we provided. However my finace got a letter from his hospital with forms and receipts in it, plus with his health insurance forms also, his hospital issue is very delicate. When we got the letter it was opened but resealed and had a compliment slip in it from the letting agents signed by one of them.
I know it is a criminal offence to open someone elses post, but wondering why they were so obvious about it ?!
We are not one bit happy about this and do intend when normal business hours resume to go to our solicitor about it, however was just wondering if anyone has any advice on this!

Maybe they opened it in error, the post to be forwarded got mixed with their post, mistake happen.

Firetrap

Perhaps there's nothing malicious meant by it at all. I've opened a couple of wrong envelopes by mistake in my time. It's an easy thing to do, especially if you're working in an office and you've got a stack of mail to open. I'm guessing that this is what happened and that they decided to be up front about what happened, rather than try to cover their tracks.

cbreeze

Firetrap wrote: »

Perhaps there's nothing malicious meant by it at all. I've opened a couple of wrong envelopes by mistake in my time. It's an easy thing to do, especially if you're working in an office and you've got a stack of mail to open. I'm guessing that this is what happened and that they decided to be up front about what happened, rather than try to cover their tracks.

Probably right - they might have gone 'oops!' and put the slip in - though they should not have opened it really

eth0_

Firetrap wrote: »

Perhaps there's nothing malicious meant by it at all. I've opened a couple of wrong envelopes by mistake in my time. It's an easy thing to do, especially if you're working in an office and you've got a stack of mail to open. I'm guessing that this is what happened and that they decided to be up front about what happened, rather than try to cover their tracks.

It wasn't one letter, it was several. There is NO excuse for opening letters addressed to tenants - it's illegal. The letting agency would have had a forwarding address and they should have sent them on without opening them.

ztoical

She Devil wrote: »

The content of the letter was very private and very informative, by opening and reading that letter the person knows more about our private affairs than our family do.

You only have proof they opened the letter, not proof they read it. They committed an offence opening the letter [Postal and Telecommunications Services Act, 1983, section 84 [1] [a] in case anyone was wondering] but any half assed lawyer will get them at most a slap on the wrist for not paying attention when opening their mail but most likely it wouldn't even get that far. Unless you can prove that they [a] read the contents of the letter and plan to discloses contents or somehow use the information then your wasting your time and money contacting a solicitor. They may have dozens if not more letters come through every day depending on the size of their business and alot of business have staff who open all the mail in the morning with out even looking at any of it and leave it on the bosses desk to go through.

Frankly I'd be more annoyed at the hospital for not updating their system correctly....two files or not they are the ones sending sensitive information so they really should be more on top of things.

mikemac

OP, say the letting agency manages 50 houses at a guess then it's pretty likely they could be getting several letters a week for old tenants.

I think this was a mistake by the letting agency staff. When I was in a houseshares I've opened envelopes meant for the other tenants by mistake. Like one guy and I ordered packages from Amazon so I've opened their package assuming it was mine. The staff could have many, many letters to open every morning, they aren't going to examine the envelope on each one

The staff forwarded it to you. If they believed it was a serious issue and they could face prosecution they could have binned the letter and you would never have known.

No need for a solicitor here, don't overreact.
Contact the administration manager in the hospital and demand their records are updated. And send a followup letter to them discussing what was said on the phonecall.
Then try to think of other companies that may contact you at your old address
And then leave it be, you don't want a day in court over this

As it happens, I get appointment cards from a tenant who moved out in 2007 in my current apartment. I return to sender or often I bin them. Either way, I blame the tenant for not updating their details in three years!! You did update your details but mistakes happen

athtrasna

All of this stress could have been avoided if you'd paid for the An Post forwarding service.

Surely the letting agent is doing you a favour by forwarding mail, they are not obliged to. I would mark the envelope return to sender, addressee unknown if I was in their position.

Sorry for my lack of sympathy but if your post was that important to you you should have paid for the proper service.

She Devil

Wasn't looking for an argument here so not even going to respond to the petty replies.

Thanks to everyone else for taking the time to respond, I have someone looking into it for me and am getting proper kind of advice.

AARRRGH

She Devil wrote: »

Wasn't looking for an argument here so not even going to respond to the petty replies.

Thanks to everyone else for taking the time to respond, I have someone looking into it for me and am getting proper kind of advice.

I don't think anyone is trying to argue with you. It seems you came here for validation, but have not received it, so are assuming people are being difficult.

The reality is you are wasting your time.

You should just move on with your life, and try to have some perspective on things. This isn't a real problem.

tenchi-fan

She Devil wrote: »

I know it is a criminal offence to open someone elses post, but wondering why they were so obvious about it ?!
We are not one bit happy about this and do intend when normal business hours resume to go to our solicitor about it, however was just wondering if anyone has any advice on this!

My advice would be to get over it. A pile of letters were probably pushed through the door of the estate agents and the person whose desk they ended up on (probably a junior office clerk) opened the letters in error. They probably just opened all the envelopes from that morning then started going through them, realised they weren't business-related, popped in a compliment slip and forwarded them on to you.

By all means enquire about it with the estate agent but just remember they probably thought they were doing you a favour by forwarding you the correspondence, especially seeing as you didn't update your address (or the hospital didn't, same thing as far as the estate agent is concerned) or use a mail forwarding service. Next time they might choose to bin your letters instead.

You'll just have to give the people a break. It is Christmas after all.

tenchi-fan

ps your username is so appropriate

She Devil

Hey excuse me techni fan, slate me all you like about my choice of how i want to persue somebody invading my privacy, it is my right to do as I please, waste of time or not, however do not pick on my choice of username, that post is not helpful, unhelpful or appropriate.

tenchi-fan

She Devil wrote: »

Hey excuse me techni fan, slate me all you like about my choice of how i want to persue somebody invading my privacy, it is my right to do as I please, waste of time or not, however do not pick on my choice of username, that post is not helpful, unhelpful or appropriate.

Maybe other boards.ie users found my post helpful.
You chose your username so I can only assume it does have some significance.

Besides, I wasn't slating you personally. You asked for opinions, you got mine. I'm sure you will have no problems finding someone who is willing to take your money to tell you exactly what you want to hear.

mikemac

She Devil wrote: »

Wasn't looking for an argument here so not even going to respond to the petty replies.

Thanks to everyone else for taking the time to respond, I have someone looking into it for me and am getting proper kind of advice.

Does this mean the replies that didn't tell you what you wanted to hear were petty? You've got many posts on this thread but instead you're going to look for "proper advice"

Go pay for a solicitor so and hand over your money. If they don't give you the answer you want, hire another

Victor

tenchi-fan wrote: »

Maybe other boards.ie users found my post helpful.

Hardly. On topic please.

seamus

It's quite likely that the letting agents open the mail to ascertain whether or not it's just junk mail. If it is, they don't send it on.

I'm still receiving mail for the old owners of my house, 2 years after I bought it. I used to return it to sender, but now if there's no return address, I open the mail to see if it's worth my time or if it can be chucked.

ztoical

seamus wrote: »

It's quite likely that the letting agents open the mail to ascertain whether or not it's just junk mail. If it is, they don't send it on.

I'm still receiving mail for the old owners of my house, 2 years after I sold it. I used to return it to sender, but now if there's no return address, I open the mail to see if it's worth my time or if it can be chucked.

+1 Most people update their address with the important things like bank and so on but you can get some amount of rubbish mailed. I get mail for the old owner of my house but every one I've got has been junk mail. For the first month or so I forwarded or did return to sender but now 2 years on I just chuck them. My brother moved into my old flat which I haven't lived in for over 7 years and he still gets junk mail addressed to me and an old flatmate who hasn't lived there for 10 years. Exactly how long do you expect the estate agent to forward your mail? I would think if you moved in september, 2 months would be an acceptable amount of time for them to do it.

As I said in my other post you might feel it was an invasion of privacy but unless you have solid proof they read the letter and not just opened it there's not much anyone is going to do about it. No court is going to waste time with a case like this. The hospital should have updated the address if you asked them to, they messed up.

whippet

She Devil wrote: »

Hey excuse me techni fan, slate me all you like about my choice of how i want to persue somebody invading my privacy, it is my right to do as I please, waste of time or not, however do not pick on my choice of username, that post is not helpful, unhelpful or appropriate.

Have you even looked for a response from the letting agent?

What are you looking to 'persue' (sic) them for? An apologiy? if so you would more than likely get that over the phone if you called them.

Are you looking for financial compensation?

She Devil

I dont want financial compensation, I want nothing of the sort, Nor do I want to go to court, but I am at the end of my tether with the letting agents. Between taking until now to get our deposit back, letting viewers into our apartment when we lived there without our permission, leaving themselves in on their 3 monthly check without notifying us right throughout our tenancy, not allowing us to know who our landlord was to advise him of our refusal of a rent reduction from the letting agents, and trying to make us pay for the washing machine which broke down 3 weeks after the new tenant moved in and now this .......... I don't know if I even want an apology, I need to know that this snooty girl won't blab our private affairs to people she knows who knows us. Surely there is some clause to say she can't!!! That is what my issue is.
As if I would look for money ...... that didn't even enter my head!!!!
And if it takes a solicitor to ask her kindly not to then so be it. But its THAT important to us.
And yes, we have sent a letter to the hospital and will phone them also when their clinic reopens in January!

ztoical

She Devil wrote: »

And if it takes a solicitor to ask her kindly not to then so be it. But its THAT important to us.

All the solicitor is going to do is ask if you have proof that she read the letter and that she means to disclose it's contents...you can prove she opened it but can you show that she read it....actually do you have proof it was this girl that even opened it and not someone else in the office?

She Devil

ztoical wrote: »

All the solicitor is going to do is ask if you have proof that she read the letter and that she means to disclose it's contents...you can prove she opened it but can you show that she read it....actually do you have proof it was this girl that even opened it and not someone else in the office?

Not proof that would stand up anywhere I suppose, just the fact that she signed the compliment slip and put it into one of their envelopes, the letter was all over the place by the time it got to us, but NO I can't prove that it was her that did it!
I 100% acknowledge that mistakes do happen, if it was a once off I wouldn't mind at all, I also appreciate them forwarding the mail to me, but it IS still illegal to open someones post! Regardless of you knowing or not!!
If you steal something but don't get caught out it doesn't mean you didn't break the law.
I know its not that big, but at the same time its still just not the point!

tenchi-fan

She Devil wrote: »

If you steal something but don't get caught out it doesn't mean you didn't break the law.

Nope, but if inadvertently walked out of a store with something in your hand and subsequently returned it you wouldn't expect to be accused of a criminal offence (versus deciding to keep it and the shopkeeper being none the wiser).
It seems you put up with a lot from the estate agent but from this day forward you will probably never hear from them again, not unless you pursue this course of action.
Best of luck either way.

ztoical

She Devil wrote: »

If you steal something but don't get caught out it doesn't mean you didn't break the law.

Yes you would have broken the law but if your not caught and there's no proof you stole something, you can't be accused of stealing....well you can be accused but without proof the accuser can be done for libel.