Think Delivery Errors Are Freebies? Think Again

Posted on 16 Aug 2016 by Anna Scott
Thanks to online shopping we now live in a world of frequent deliveries, and with more and more comes the increased likelihood of delivery errors taking place. If this means you miss out on your chosen items coming on time or perhaps at all, then this is obviously a bad thing. But other errors might occur, such as you receive something that wasn’t meant for you, or double the amount that you ordered. Great news, right? Because who turns down a freebie? Well, you might want to revise that opinion because these sorts of free deliveries don’t actually belong to you, and if you choose to keep schtum about them, there’s a good chance that you could end up in court. The BBC recently looked into the rules and regulations that deal with such errors, so here’s run down on what you need to know…

 

Unsolicited Items


ParcelIf you receive an unsolicited item in the post, this is one of the few instances where you are well within your rights to hold onto it. But what exactly is classed as an unsolicited item? Well here comes the not so welcome news – not very much at all. Basically, it must labelled with your name and address (so not intended for anyone else), you must have had no previous contact with the company, and it must arrive unexpectedly. As you can imagine, this applies to very few things of high value and is much more likely to be a small item that is part of a promotion or marketing strategy.

 

Always Contact the Company


Even if you do end up receiving an unsolicited item that seems just too good to be true, the chances are it probably is. Always contact the company if you’re not sure why you’ve received it as you don’t want to be liable for any charges. However, there is one example might give us some hope – after receiving 46 items worth over £3600 that was addressed to him by accident, Robert Quinn from Bromley contacted the sender, Amazon, who let him keep everything. And perhaps because he was a believer in karma, he sold most of the items (apart from a leaf blower which he gave to his mum – bless) and gave the proceeds to charity. But we can agree that the chances of this happening with a retailer that isn’t a multinational online giant are fairly slim, let’s be honest.

 

You Could Be Liable for Theft


Online shoppingThe law is very much on side of the supplier in most cases, and if you choose to keep something that’s not addressed to you, or something that you didn’t order, then the company could seek this debt under civil law. However, the silver lining in this point is that the cost of recovering said debt could be more than the items are worth, meaning that, depending on the size of the retailer in question, they might not want to pursue it. But would you really want to take this risk? In ALL cases it’s best to be honest, because as was shown in the case above, honesty can sometimes be rewarded. And it’s the right thing to do too, of course.

 

So there really is no such thing as a freebie, especially when it comes to online deliveries. Yes, mistakes do happen and even though you might think it’s your lucky day, we all have not just a moral, but also a legal obligation to ‘fess up. When it comes to ‘free’ deliveries, it’s probably best to stick to the legal sort, the ones that mean a free delivery charge on the goods that you’ve paid for. You can claim free delivery on your fashion using New Look promo codes, French Connection UK discount vouchers and All Sole discount codes with a minimum spend, and they can also save you money on your purchases too. And on the whole, we can all agree that paying less for your fashion is better than risking a court order, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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