Package received in error
Originally posted on Discuit
Last night a package was left on our doorstep addressed to the previous owner of our house (we've lived here 6 years, for context).
Amazon branded box, no return address, deliverer knocked and left so we couldn't refuse delivery. No contact details or forwarding address for the previous owners (all the sale paperwork obviously had our house as their address) and at the time they'd said they were selling because they were moving back to Poland.
Husband wants to open it. I want it to go away but am unsure of the best route for that (open & donate, find an Amazon warehouse to return it to, write "not known at this address" and force it into a postbox so it goes to the lost letter office etc).
The relevant UK law is:
(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.
I'm honestly not sure whether it would be a crime to open it. It's been delivered to the correct address, so that hinges on whether someone providing the wrong shipping address counts as incorrectly delivered, legally speaking. I'm certainly not intending to act to anyone's detriment, if I had their contact information or a return address it'd already be on its way.
No clue what'll happen for the purchaser, but I called Amazon. The woman on the phone said it would be investigated by the relevant department and that I can do what I like with the package.
Opened it - it's an indoor TV antenna and a screen protector for a Samsung S24 phone. We could coincidentally use both of these things! Though the antenna does kind of undermine my recent declaration that we don't need a TV licence.