I was working from home recently when I got a visitor. The doorbell had been ringing a lot that day – post office delivery, amazon delivery, furnace company, and the basement contractors – but this guy introduced himself as a former owner of the house.
I recognized the name – we used to get mail for him – and he explained that he’d had an insurance check sent to his old address by mistake and that someone else had cashed it. He asked if I had seen anything like this.
I replied that we used to get me for the many people that had lived here before we moved in, but that our regular postal carrier said that she now intercepts those and puts them back in the system. It’s rare that we see anything anymore and the ones we do get – other than catalogs – we just write “moved” on and put back in the box.
He was upset at himself, upset at the post office, and upset at the bank. And upset at the insurance company who insisted on addressing all of this by mail – but also refused to update his address. I didn’t really have an answer for him other than to check with the post office since the carrier seems to know a lot about what goes on in the neighborhood.
He left to contact the insurance company again and I realized that I hadn’t given him my phone number or email address. I found him on facebook – and confirmed it was the same guy since he had an old background picture of our current yard – and sent him a message.
He stopped by later in the day – having not seen my facebook message – and had realized the same thing I did. He gave me his number and I gave him my email and number back. I also told him to reach out to me if he needs me to write up a “we never saw the check” statement.
The check in question was for over $8,000 so I’m hoping he got it sorted out – but I haven’t heard back from him.
It was interesting to meet an “almost familiar” stranger. We had a history of sorts, but had never met.