[madaxe_again]

Try telling this to a cop who’s itching to arrest you - back-chat and “being clever” is never appreciated.

My 93 year old neighbour had had people using her address for insurance fraud - I’d spotted the huge pile of unopened envelopes in her kitchen, all sent to her address but with random fictional names. Asked her if I can open one. “By all means,” she says, “I just use them as kindling anyway.” Car insurance policies. Hundreds of them.

So, I did what I thought was the right thing, contacted the fraud line.

A few days later this cop appears, not to investigate the fraud, not to console my neighbour - but to threaten both of us with prosecution for opening letters addressed to someone else - and that was the end of that. Never mind that they were going to her home - if it’s addressed to Miss Xfrjjtgvyes Bstgbfwss then only she can open it. I don’t care that she sounds made up. You don’t know that. How do I know you aren’t made up? Watch that tongue, son.

I ignored him and phoned dozens of insurers on her behalf, didn’t bother the police again. They take opening someone else’s mail, even a fictional person, far more seriously than, say, £30,000 of fraud.