Silent and Invisible "Relative"
 

This is such a big forum, that it seems worthwhile to mention this to see if anyone else has had a similar
experience. I'm not sure when it started, but I think it was about the time we moved almost 4 years ago. We started getting junk mail and later even occasional telemarketing calls for a person with our very rare last name and a bogus first name, "Amy".

As far as we know there is no Amy anywhere with our last name. In fact, it's safe to say we know of all the families in the US and some in Finland who have this last name. They are related to my husband by only a few degrees of separation. The ones who are not ourselves and our kids and grandkids are distant cousins, descended from DH's grandfather's brother. There are not too many families that would have such an unusual situation. Clearly, if your name is Smith, and you started getting mail for a John Smith when there is no John in your family, you might think it odd, but it wouldn't set off alarm bells.

In any case, Amy gets lots of offers for various kinds of insurance and such. It just dawned on me that maybe in addition to creating bogus accounts in actual customers' names, Wells Fargo or some other entity may have created bogus family members, or there could be a post office box for Amy that is actually being used for some kind of nefarious purpose. The most likely scenario, it seems to me, is that someone was paid by the name for contact information for advertisers, and they just made one up. The name obviously started appearing on some shared lists because the amount of junk mail for Amy seems to be increasing. Amy even appears, living at our address, if we google ourselves. So far she isn't having a lot of impact on us, doesn't take up any closet space, or eat much (other than ice cream, which quickly disappears). Maybe she's the one who's always hiding my favorite ruler and best scissors.

Should we report this to the Texas Attorney General's office? We have no evidence of actual illegal activity, just a puzzling situation. Has anyone else experienced the sudden arrival of an invisible family member?

Have you checked your credit report to see if it's been compromised?

Maybe the name Amy is made up using your last name, as in phishing. Just to see if maybe it is a real person, but, just made up.

Contact your post office and they will stop delivery. It will take a while and if a new person is running the route they will mess up. It took 2-3 months to get it straightened out at my address.

it wouldn't hurt to try to report it. especially if "it" ever becomes a problem. lots of weird people out there.
when my husband passed away, i saw comments online on his obituary from people he never knew. Trolls? most likely.

That is strange, but as long as you don't start getting collection agencies calling you because Amy isn't paying her bills, I'd ignore it.

(We got collection calls for "Susan Constant" for several years. She was putting our phone number down on loan applications, etc. We'd had that number for 15 years at that point, so it wasn't a case of her using an old number.)

My daughter had a problem of someone using her name. Apparently the person ran up bills all over the place and DD got calls and letters from collectors. DD explained that she wasn't the person they were looking for, but many of them refused to believe her and kept calling for months... until they either found the real person or just gave up.

No, but for years we got tons of mail for a "Darcy" with our last name. The funny thing is I purposely made up the name, to see if the "we don't sell our mailing lists" was true or not. It started with one then two, and grew to the point she was listed at our address in one phone book! We still get a piece or two, but now I always mark it "return to sender, deceased". Your case is different though. I think I'd report it, and check my credit report just to be sure.

About 7 or 8 years ago, a relative ordered a gift basket for us and used both of our first names, which the business ran together and showed as a first name. It took about two years before we began to get catalogs from other businesses using that scrambled first name. As you stated, the businesses say they do not sell lists, Ha, Ha. Years before that we were getting mail addressed to an unknown person where my husbands scrawl had been misread. We would get mail to Mr. and Mrs. Hernadet, then laugh about it. We always knew where that name began. It never occured to either of us that these ghost relatives would follow us around.

My parents never lived with us - but for some reason we get mail for both of them My dad passed in 2000 and my mom in 2009. I used to try and send it back but finally stopped wasting my time. What is bizarre - we never got any mail for my DH's parents and they have the same last name as us.
We have no idea who lived here before us, my DH & I have been in this house for 29 years and we still get a boating magazine for someone with a name we don't recognize. At first I contacted the magazine to tell them they had the wrong address - they obviously don't care because they keep coming.

We got mail for my husband's ex wife for years. Two moves later, her mail was still following us. I finally started writing "Deceased" on it and putting it back in the mail box. It stopped after that :D

I’ve heard this is a good way to track who’s selling your name. Use a different middle initial or made up name for subscriptions and the like. I still occasionally get mail from a subscription many years and two addresses ago with my misspelled first name. I found out how this happens when I attended a seminar for work about keeping your mailing lists current. There’s a way to run the list and update from PO change of address requests. My SIL whose name is Luis F. gets all kinds of mail addressed to Lois F. because somewhere along the way someone misspelled his name. Funny thing is they’re mostly stuff directed to older ladies. When they come DD hands it to him and says, “Here’s another catalog for you, Lois.”

There is one telephone company that has a dreadful employee. My first bill and all subsequent ones were my first name misspelled and my last name had a burgs added to the end. I finally got rid of the mail, and cancelled the phone company.

Well, so far Panera does not seem to have sold the name I gave them for their loyalty card. I gave them the cat's name, and Willow has never received any mail here.

In 1992, my husband and I started on a mission to get rid of junk mail. If there was a business reply envelope in it, it went back with: "Please take this name off your mailing list. Thanks!" Some days we had five envelopes to send back. That stoped most of them, but some were persistent, so I filled a 9 X 12 manila envelope with lots of stuff and glued their envelope to the front of it. That stopped some more. One company that I did that to did not stop, so I told them that next time I was going to send them a box of rocks. They stopped then.

I had social services come here looking for a woman with my last name to check on the welfare of my children. I tried and tried to tell them that my children were in their 30's and hadn't lived with me in years. They thought I was "hiding the children"...police were called, I had to show my drivers license...I had lived here for 20 + years at that time..what a mess. They never even apologized for being so rude to me...just said something like " stuff happens"...guess it's the world we live in now.

That is really scarry! What if you did have young children!? Would they have arrested you? Would they have taken your kids? How much trauma would they have caused? After finding their mistake, I guess the answer would be the same one you received. :(

I wonder if you were "swatted." Someone mad at you reported that you were abusing your children. Maybe you were lucky that it was just CPS and not a SWAT team!

I do have a daughter Susan, but she hasn't lived with me for 35 years and never at this address. She gets all that sales type mail here with her maiden name, which she also hasn't had for 35 years. I also got my ex husband's deceased wife's mail for several years after they both passed. That was aggravating and took several trips to the PO to get stopped.

I was getting way too many telemarketing calls so when we decided on a new landline phone we bought the one that lets us block them during the first call. Now it rings once & hangs up on them. Saves me so much time!
We still get mail for the folks who lived here for only 3 months, I hand it back to the carrier who says it was a sub driver. He dislikes returning to work after his days off because he has to straighten out the mistakes of others.
One time when we lived in NW Houston we got mail to me from former Pres. George Bush(papa) regarding a Sunday school activity in town. Turns out the new wife of a distant cousin of DH was in town from New Jersey finishing medical school. I called & they apologized. The cousins wife returned to Jersey before we could invite her to dinner!

If you look on one of the information aggregators like Spokeo, you'll see all sorts of errors. They make all kinds of connections that you wouldn't think of. My parents bought some property from some people who happened to have the same last name. Spokeo says they're all living in that same house together, and that the husband, who was 42, was the father of my father. Who at that time was 84. It also says that my older daughter is my sister, and my younger daughter is my mother.

I got a call here for DD1, and they wouldn't tell me who it was or what they wanted. They asked for her by her previous married name, which had been changed twice in the last 15 years, once after divorcing her ex, and again when she remarried. I'm pretty sure it was a collection agency, and she thinks they may have been after her deceased ex-father-in-law or somebody who would be responsible for his bills.

It certainly would have traumatized any child to be confronted by them..they were not in a "child friendly" mood. I know they save a lot of children from bad circumstances, but in my case, they went way too far. I was happy, (after it was over), that they called the police, because he was the one with the sense to ask me for my drivers license. I never even thought of that, just kept denying I was the woman, and that I had any small kids here...can't think straight when you're being yelled at by 2 people, and accused of hiding children!

My daughter lives in a different state, and when she's getting ready to visit at Christmas she usually has any online gift orders sent to our house to avoid the possibility of missing them. They come addressed to her name, and since she started doing this, we have been getting junk mail addressed to her here, also. Amazon or their affiliated sellers are sharing addresses, it appears. The same daughter lived with her brother and his wife for a few months after college, and they still get junk mail addressed to her, even though they have moved twice since that time, which was 18 years ago. She moved a number of times before finally buying a house several years ago, and you have to wonder if companies like Geico aren't sending out the same mailer to the same person at a half dozen different addresses every week. It boggles the mind how much waste is involved, but supposedly the postage on junk mail helps to keep the postal service afloat.

I still prefer the junk mail instead of the constant telephone calls from all the nutty people who call and call again trying to sell me burial plots. I keep telling them that I'm still alive and don't need one! Sometimes I get up to 12 goofy calls a day! I feel like setting fire to the phone!! :(

What ever happened to business integrity? I once had a quilting magazine subscription that had a mis-spelling of my unusual name. You could not believe the amount of junk mail that came with the same mis-spelled name. I never give my cell phone number or e-mail unless it is official business. I just write N/A. Mostly, it works. In spite of care taken, we receive lots of unwanted calls on our phone. We just don't answer.

Not to hijack the thread, but yes, I was "swatted" once in the late 1980's. We lived in Navy housing and not to go into too much detail, the CPS investigator sat my children down in the LR and asked probing questions. I was scared witless, as it could have affected my husband's career, and the investigator said she would have taken the children with her had their answers been different. When asked who reported us, she said she couldn't tell me, it was an anonymous person. It was a harrowing experience. I had done nothing wrong...and taught at the local elementary school!

We are careful about giving out our information and have blocked our SSNs. It cost $10 each, but no one can use the number for a loan or anything financial. If we need a loan, we'll have to pay to unblock it during that process. What is really stupid is that some IDs and even Medicare use the SSN which makes it available to others!

Medicare cards are coming out now to everyone and the SS number will no longer be on them. about time.

My husband and I sometimes get mail from organizations requesting money. In return they send address labels. I have mailed some back because they have us as "Jerry and Jerry". My husband is Jerry but I'm not. I can't use them. I told my husband if they would just save their money, they wouldn't have to beg for mine. We do give to some charitable organizations but not every one that comes in our mail.

We get mail for a young woman named Katy. She lived in our house with her Grandmother before it was our house. We can’t get rid of it no matter what we do (return to sender, give personally to mailman, hand deliver to her Granny, etc). We’ve even done the illegal thing of opening it and calling the phone number inside to get it stopped. The letters are from a finance company to let her know her car is going to be repossessed. It’s slowed down but after 5 years we still get them and they go straight to the shredder now. Geeesh !

Years ago I had a dear friend as room mate. His first name was Clarence, but he was called Chuck. My last name and his, are not even close to each other. His was Native American, and mine is Norwegian. Ever since that time, I have received mail with his first name Clarence and my last name. It started with a mailing list from a politician, and now every so often I get mail for the non-existent fake person. I usually just send them back, except for the one that said “You have already won! “ and you know the rest of that ad...lo. I only keep it to prove that some winners (me, get $8.86 as my winnings) and some fake people win that sweepstakes.

must be the same outfit that sends address labels to us. My given name is quite clearly feminine and can in no way be considered a unisex name. What we get:
Mr. DH LastName
Mr. Iceleopard LastName
Street
City, State Zipcode

Those we toss, since we get plenty of labels from other charities.

(Do etiquette books still insist that the only "correct" method of address is "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" as if Jane Smith has no existence outside of being John's wife?)

I hope not. i've never been Mrs Don anything. After my husband died i told my son i thought seriously about going back to my maiden name. He asked why? Because that is who I am!! that's why.

DH still addresses Xmas cards that way, or to "Mrs. John Smith" even if Mr. Smith is long dead, because 60 years ago Sister Mary Godzilla taught him that was "the proper form of address." I go with "John & Jane Smith," or "Jane Smith" -- because is the Post Office going to know who Mrs. John is?

For the last 6 years or more, my we have been getting mail for my DH cousin. While the cousin was alive, we would give him the mail, which turned out to be checks. After he died, we continued to get these checks for his cousin. My husband called the company several times during all of these years. They refused to stop sending the checks so he now gives the checks to his deceased cousin's daughter. No matter what, can't get them to stop sending checks.

I also got a letter from Maine that was addressed to my father who had been dead for 20+ years and never been to Maine saying that he owed child support. If it wasn't paid, he wasn't going to be able to renew his driver's license or get a fishing license. I had to laugh because somehow I don't think he'd care if he couldn't renew his driver's license or get a fishing license. Crazy.

A cautionary tale - one day this spring my husband got a notice from social security,congratulations, his SS would be starting at the beginning of the next month. Also on the same day, he got a debit card that he needed to activate. Trouble is, he hadn't applied for SS nor had he applied for the debit card. There was a 'tell', as he uses his middle initial, not his full middle name; all of this came with his full middle name. It was too late in the day to go to the SS office, but we did call the debit card company and actually managed to talk to a live person. Oh yes, the card was obtained at a Walmart about 20 miles away from us and was applied for by mail, to do that the person who did this had to put $20 on the card. We got that cancelled and I called Walmart security to see how hard it was to obtain and apply for one of these cards. It turns out, not that hard. Then the next morning hubs was in the SS office when it opened. He was the second one who had called for an appointment to get the same thing straightened out. Someone applied for hubs SS (back to his 66th birthday) and set up to direct the money into the debit account. He got it stopped and notified the police. SO - if you get ANYTHING strange in your mail, check it out, don't just toss it out. We still don't know how or where the information came from, credit reports continue to be clean and he check with SS every so often. Had the thief also come to our house and stolen our mail - we wouldn't have know anything.

DH keeps getting notifications in the mail that Medicare and Tricare have paid Dr. So-and-so in Somewhere, NY for DH's pulmonology care. He has never been to that city, nor seen that doctor, nor does he have lung problems. We live 400 miles from there and have our own doctors here for routine care. Every time, he calls and once he gets a live person on the line (which may be 30 - 60 minutes) he tells them this is a fraudulent charge. "OK, we'll take care of it, thanks for calling!" And in 6 - 8 weeks another one shows up. No wonder Medicare fraud is a multi-billion dollar industry!

That's horrible! It makes you wonder about Medicare . . .