Is it *ever* illegal to intentionally put a wrong return address on demand letters?
<p>While I was going through some old mail, I discovered that I received two <em>returned</em> letters which were addressed to the same individual.  I don't know the individual.  The two letters were 
dated about 1 month apart.  The return address had my street address on it, but <em>claimed</em> that it was sent from "an agent of" some financial services company X.  </p>

<p>I did not open the letters.  Based on what I did see, my assumptions are as following:</p>

<ul>
<li>This is a debt collector who does not wish to reveal their true location.</li>
<li>The debt collector does not understand the law, or understands it all-too-well, and wants to mask their physical location to protect themselves against a retaliation.</li>
<li>The wrong return address was not printed on the letters by mistake.  Since the entity sending the letters purports to be a services company, it sends a lot of them.  If there was a mistake, it would have been fixed over the period of a full month.</li>
</ul>

<p>My concern is that whoever is receiving the letters (unlike the ones which were returned to me as "undeliverable"), may be unstable and potentially dangerous.</p>

<p>I called the non-emergency police line and the dispatcher said they could not look up if there was any current investigation into the company mentioned on the return address.  I still haven't opened the letters in case there is another law-enforcement entity which may wish to examine them.</p>

<p>Both "send" and "return" addresses are in the state of WA.  Should I call the FBI's general line?  It is, after all, Federal mail.  Or is this perfectly legal and I should just return the letters to the post office?</p>

<p>It is not illegal to lie per se. But the liar needs to mind the possible consequences: depending on them, lying (e.g. putting wrong return address) may prove illegal.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>My concern is that whoever is receiving the letters (unlike the ones which were returned to me as "undeliverable"), may be unstable and potentially dangerous.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Say the potentially dangerous recipient goes to the stated return address and <em>proves</em> that they really are dangerous. In this case the sender would have committed <strong>tort of negligence</strong> as they owed duty of care to whoever actually was at the return address: the duty was to foresee that the recipient may go there and cause trouble.</p>

united-states mail collections