Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Another Engineering firm opening my mail
(OP)
OK, I ran into an issue and I didn't pursue it any further. Maybe that was a bad decision but I don't like confrontation.
I started consulting about a year ago.
Here is what happened.
At the very beginning I started cultivating a relationship with a local manufacturing company. I did a lot of work over a period of time just to get me into the system. About six months after I started working with them I final got to the stage were I started getting paid for projects. During this time I created a pretty good relationship with the group.
My first two checks were sent out, and I waited. A couple days after the checks were sent the company I am consulting for got a mysterious call. Someone called and said they had my checks and had accidentally opened up the envelopes and then proceeded to let them know they are an engineering firm and asked them what kind of work I was doing for them (never gave them their name. Well the person they talked to was in accounting and she didn't know anything. She tried to forward them on to my contact and the gentleman said he would send my checks back and no he didn't want to talk to him and hung up. At this time I had no idea who had the checks. the company I was working with called me and told me what they new and that if they don't receive the checks back they would cancel them and reissue new ones.
They didn't show, I waited a week and then went and talked to the post office. Come to find they were delivered to the wrong engineering firm. The shopping complex I am located in there is actually two engineering firms. So the company reissued new checks and were pretty freaked out with the whole situation. About 3 months later the old checks finally showed up. They showed up with the other consulting companies name and advertising brochures all included in the return mail.
I was pretty shocked with me being a new start up and this happened.
What should I have done? I did nothing!
Obviously the other engineering company really screwed up opening my mail. But then they didn't return the mail for three months and also called my customer.
I started consulting about a year ago.
Here is what happened.
At the very beginning I started cultivating a relationship with a local manufacturing company. I did a lot of work over a period of time just to get me into the system. About six months after I started working with them I final got to the stage were I started getting paid for projects. During this time I created a pretty good relationship with the group.
My first two checks were sent out, and I waited. A couple days after the checks were sent the company I am consulting for got a mysterious call. Someone called and said they had my checks and had accidentally opened up the envelopes and then proceeded to let them know they are an engineering firm and asked them what kind of work I was doing for them (never gave them their name. Well the person they talked to was in accounting and she didn't know anything. She tried to forward them on to my contact and the gentleman said he would send my checks back and no he didn't want to talk to him and hung up. At this time I had no idea who had the checks. the company I was working with called me and told me what they new and that if they don't receive the checks back they would cancel them and reissue new ones.
They didn't show, I waited a week and then went and talked to the post office. Come to find they were delivered to the wrong engineering firm. The shopping complex I am located in there is actually two engineering firms. So the company reissued new checks and were pretty freaked out with the whole situation. About 3 months later the old checks finally showed up. They showed up with the other consulting companies name and advertising brochures all included in the return mail.
I was pretty shocked with me being a new start up and this happened.
What should I have done? I did nothing!
Obviously the other engineering company really screwed up opening my mail. But then they didn't return the mail for three months and also called my customer.





RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
I don't know your laws in your jurisdiction, but I suspect it is illegal to open other peoples mail. It is certainly unethical and I would have reported it to the local licensing board or whatever.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
www.bowerseng.com
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Technically, the glass is always full.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
One time is an accident - two times is probably plain theft or stupidity - and three times you are out!!
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Certainly don't go looking for confrontation, but don't be seen to avoid it if challenged or treated badly.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Ask yourself, "if this had been a liquor store that received your mail and held it for three months and then spent a stamp returning it would you be as upset?". My guess is probably not. Once the engineering firm had realized their mistake, they called your client (maybe unethical, but pretty stupid since they called accounting instead of someone who could give them useful information), it is easy to say that they were just trying to find the right XYZ Engineering to return it to since the address on the envelope obviously was wrong or they wouldn't have been involved in the first place.
Were I you, I would call them and say thank you for returning the check. Just that. No threats. No questions. Just "thank you".
David
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
In your liquor store analogy, your right I wouldn't be upset. On the other hand I don't think the liquor store would send my customer their advertising info. Who does that?
In reference to the mailing address, it was correct. The postman misplaced mail and told me he did so. I sat with the postmaster and he told me I should report it to the postmaster general as well.
Also this is not a big company. He has a gaming store in the front of his building and does engineering out of that.
www.bowerseng.com
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
fasboater, I'd consider getting a PO box. Definitely make a formal complaint with the post office. It's really not that big of a deal, a couple of forms. If nothing else, it might make the mail carrier a bit more careful.
"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
The company sending the check should have cancelled them immediately upon hearing they were lost, and issued you new checks. If I'd been them, I'd have asked you to come in personally and pick them up, rather than risk having them misdirected again. The payor should even have given you new checks had the originals been fraudulently or mistakenly deposited by the recipient.
Fraud? You have to prove intent. You have no basis - the guy didn't try to spend your money, just didn't make much effort to return the checks (but he's not obligated to by anything but courtesy, and who's to say he didn't get a snippy reception from the other company's accountant-type?). He's trying to make a buck, just like you are. HE didn't misdirect the mail, and why should he waste his time to search you down? Had he cashed the check, he would be under some obligation to correct the error, but he didn't - he'd be within his rights to paper his wall, or wipe his heiny with your check, it's not yours anymore, and it should have been worthless paper once you and your payor realized that the checks never arrived. He's also got a right to send his brochure to anybody he wants, and the post office has a federal mandate to deliver them.
In the last days of my Dad's business, probably as a result of early Alzheimer's, but even before that: we had so many customers, and so many outstanding bills, that it would sometimes take him several days to recall which jobs certain checks were supposed to be paying for. Made worse sometimes when business owners would pay by personal check, or vice versa, or have the wife write a check on her account. Drove my Mom (Dad's accountant) nuts, and sometimes she'd just throw up her hands and deposit the check, and figure they'd work it out if there were problems down the road.
Before you get too bent out of shape, go talk to the guy. At the very least, you'll know whose face to avoid at the bar on Friday nights.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Mail goes to the wrong place, or goes missing entirely all the time. Most times you'll never even know unless it's something that you are expecting.
Enclose a pre-paid FedEx shipping label with your invoices, and insist that checks be sent by FedEx in the future. Or better yet arrange for direct bank transfer.
Other than that, it seems a case of no harm, no foul.
The other company did the right thing in forwarding the incorrectly delivered mail - albeit rather slowly.
They don't seem to be an actual engineering company, rather they appear to be matchmakers - matching projects to contract engineers. Take a walk down and talk to them. You might even get some future work for your trouble.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Looking into it further, it was the mail-room guy's job to log the contents of my mail. So, not only was he opening it, he had to read it too.
Sounds illegal?
It's not. Not even for small businesses. In my particular case, it was a mandate put in place by a government contract - the government wanted to make sure that people in the company were not receiving kickbacks from vendors. This was one way to deal with it, and it was some bean-counter's job to go through the mail logs and verify anything questionable.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
This reminds me of a sales guy that took me to lunch one day. He drove, and the restaurant's parking lot was brimming, and the only obviously open spots were handicap. He then said, Oh, that's not a problem," and pulled out a handicap parking tag to hang on his mirror. I never did business with him again.
TTFN

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RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
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RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
http://www.nceng.com.au/
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
David
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
That is probably a stupid question -- I once put Mickey Mouse on the Pay To line and they cashed it!! And no - it wasn't meant for Mickey Mouse.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
David
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
David
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
How would you know the mail was mis-addressed, having not checked the envelope, unless you read it?
So the real problem is that the guy put his brochure in the envelope, and paid 39 cents to mail it and some worthless paper back to the original sender. Look at it from his point of view: he's being a nice guy by cleaning up somebody else's mess. He could have done nothing and tossed the checks. He could have cashed them (knowingly or unknowingly) and made a bigger mess, and you could have waited a lot longer than 3 months before the mess got sorted and you got your money. Instead he stuck the equivalent of his "business card" in the envelope, as a way to say "this is who is sending your crap back to you"
But, if his intentions were as bad as you SUSPECT them to be - since when is soliciting customers an evil thing to do for a business?
Let's say the guy really did poach the job you wanted away from you - can you prove it, if the company didn't actually offer the job to you in the first place? And why would you want to work for a company that would play that kind of game, wouldn't you say good riddance to the both of them?
The only way to find out if the guy is a sleazeball is to meet him and talk to him, or wait for him to steal your job, then your truck, wife, and dog...at which point you are primed to write a country-western song.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Regards
Pat
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RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
I spoke with the mailperson and told her to please not deliver any mail to my office that wasn't addressed to my firm, myself or my partner and gave her all the names.
The short of it...I still get their mail routinely.
As for your issue...the engineering firm acted unethically, but zdas04's solution is the proper way to handle it. If you really want to dig a little, take their brochures with you when you go in person to thank them for returning your checks, give the brochures back and tell them that you don't need them and you know they cost money to produce so you brought them back. They will get the message that their ploy did not work.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
How? By doing what exactly, returning some mail?
"They called the company too" > from the OP...
Right - but were they just trying to confirm an address, or were they actively soliciting work? And were they soliciting for YOUR work? How can your know what their intent was in calling, unless somebody at the original (paying) company told you so, and isn't that a bigger breach of ethics?
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
"I was pretty shocked with me being a new start up and this happened."
So the rules of business (and life in general) are different because you're a newbie? Yes, the money was important to the OP, and cash is tight when you're starting out. It's the same way for everybody starting a new business, and enough books have been written about the problem that you should've known what to expect, and planned to eat beans and rice for awhile. If cash was that tight, you probably could have arranged for a second check after the first 30 days had passed, by visiting the shop owner and pleading your case with the owner - he was there once too, and you could have played that card.
This is the real world. Mistakes happen. People here are awfully quick to assume evil intent over what amounts to (in any business I've ever worked in) a pretty ho-hum matter.
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
Also give them a wad of your flyers/business cards etc. for them to mail out with their out going mail.
Then see what happens.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
RE: Another Engineering firm opening my mail
For clarification, it is illegal to steal mail from another person's (entity's) mail box (18 USC 1702). It is not illegal, however, to open mail addressed to someone else delivered to you. It even is not illegal to open mail addressed to someone else, with that someone else's address on the envelope, accidentally delivered to you. The law concerns only the opening mail taken prior to legal delivery.
For example, it is not illegal to open mail addressed to John Smith at 22 Main St if it is delivered to Jim Jones at 22 Main St. It is not illegal to open mail addressed to John Smith at 22 Main St accidentally delivered to Jenny Smith at 322 Main St. It is illegal, however, for John Smith to open the mailbox and 122 Main St and take any mail, even if that mail is addressed to John Smith.
Ethics are different than law. It is not unethical to open someone else's mail legally delivered to you. It is not unethical to keep an envelope accidentally delivered to 25 Main St addressed to 22 Main St, but that is common courtesy. Folks do not have any ethical obligation to make an effort to mark an envelope "Return to Sender, Addressee does not live here", but it is common courtesy. It most certainly would be unethical to open the mail and try to cash those checks or steal private information, such as date of birth and social security number. Not only would that be unethical, it most definitely would be illegal under fraud and identity theft laws.