Mail Delivered to Wrong Address in Whitesboro, Resident Refuses to Return It

We've all received someone else's mail by mistake. Most of us either deliver it to the proper address or return it to the mail box.  One Whitesboro resident decided to keep it and now refuses to return it.

A listener won a personalized romance book from YourNovel.com but it was delivered to the wrong address. The post office apologized for the mistake but the mailman can't get the book to the rightful owner because the person who received it won't give it back.

A new book is being sent after the owners of Your Novel talked with the Post Master to find out what happened, but why would the person keep it? Isn't it illegal to open or keep someone's mail? Not according to The Law Dictionary.

Although you may have opened someone else's mail unintentionally, what you do with it afterward is what counts. Toss the mail in the garbage, and you have intentionally obstructed the delivery of that correspondence. That is a crime, and there may be consequences. The best practice is to write Return to Sender or note Wrong Address on the envelope and pop it into a mailbox. This way the letter can still eventually reach the intended recipient.

The U.S. Postal Service is mainly concerned with mail stolen from their custody. In other words, once they have delivered mail to your box it is no longer in their possession and they are relying on you to react appropriately if correspondence has been mishandled.

What do you do when you receive mail that wasn't meant for you?

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