02-23-2004, 03:38 PM
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Executive Editor, Android Thoughts
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3,233
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Moral Question: When Companies Ship Unordered / Extra Items.
Ok, I've been having a rash of odd shipping stories in the past month, and I'm curious what everyone else thinks.
Recently I ordered a GPS receiver, waited 3 weeks for the company to ship it (called a few times, was generally annoyed at the long wait) and it finally arrived on a tuesday. The following Friday, UPS dropped off another package with the exact same receiver & invoice. The invoice clearly shows I only ordered one, but now have 2.
Last week I ordered a null-modem adapter (yes, I actually needed one for the first time in 5 years) and instead of shipping me 1`adapter, they accidentally shipped me the box that THEY purchased the adapters in (which had the same barcode as the individual bags with the adapters) - so now I have 15 of them.
Now obviously, I have parts I don't need, and it raises a moral question: Should I ship them back to their owners?
The Case Against:
* I'm busy, and why should I have to spend my time correcting mistakes of others?
* It would be at my expense, probably would never even receive a thank you from the companies.
* According to the FTC (as stated in a report on Snopes.com , companies are not required to pay for unordered merchandise, and any unordered merchandise (which I'm assuming covers extra items) can be treated as a gift.
The Case For:
* It would make me feel warm and fuzzy, while slightly annoyed that I had to send back some free, expensive stuff.
To further muck things up, about 3 years ago, a company that I ordered some bare-bones computer parts from sent me, on accident, a brand new IBM thinkpad. I was firm in my desire to send it back until they kept me on hold for 50 minutes, and when I finally got through, they had no idea what I was talking about. Finally I told them that they had shipped me the wrong parts, but were parts I could use and if they didn't mind, we could just cancel the order and the subject was closed. They quickly agreed and took a loss of $1500.
Anyone have similar experiences? Advice?
Jon.
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Dr. Jon Westfall, MCSE, MS-MVP
Executive Editor - Android Thoughts
News Editor - Windows Phone Thoughts
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