@EdgarCepheus: My opinion was simply that as your morals are your own, it's awfully dickish to start brow-beating someone because they didn't do what you would have under similar circumstances. You guys were coming from a place of self-perceived moral superiority. That's it. You weren't lamenting some perceived loss of morality, not that it would have made your bullshit any easier to swallow. No, you just saw an opportunity to jump on your high-horses and pass judgment down on other folks from on high. And fuck me if I think that you do your arguments a disservice when they come from such a clearly disingenuous place.

So no, I wasn't protesting the discussion of morality and the decline of such in today's society. I was protesting that smug sense of moral superiority that you assholes were sporting there.

As for you, you can take your petty, bullshit summation of my post, and you can cram it right up your fat ass along with your ego-enlarged head, you simpering, self-important cunt-rag.

Now that's trollish and snide! Now that you've learned the difference between that and one's simple distaste of the self-absorbed rantings of a bunch of half-wit egomaniacs, by all means feel free to carry on!

@ccbweb: It's still a moral matter at best, and I'm just as sickened by that presumptuous moral posturing than I would be if someone kept something they didn't order because the company screwed up. Neither thing is particularly attractive to me, but eh, I'll take the latter over the former any day.

@KeatonDarnoldo: So it's a moral issue, and well...your morals aint mine Keaton. Which isn't to say that I'd have kept it, but if I had, I wouldn't put up with any brow-beating just because I didn't do what someone I don't know from Adam would have done in my place.

So yeah, save the guilt-trip. It's bullshit.

More on this here: [clarkhoward.com]

So apparently some merchants do follow the FTC rule. I don't know if the statement regarding it being "law" is totally accurate. But Amazon is obviously familiar with the FTC rule and abides by it.

I offered to return the second one if they paid return shipping. They told me it was more trouble than it was worth, and that it would be easier for everyone if I just kept the duplicate.

The fact that the item was shipped is irrelvant. The customer has identified a billing error on their credit card statement. That's all the information the customer should provide to the credit card company. Proof of delivery is not a defnese for a charge back for a billing error.

If yes, then how can the company be responsible for misinterpreting your vague words?

They called me and asked that I return the other order. But after reading this, it seems that they broke the law. How do I go about proceeding this my complaint?

@silver-bolt:

Uncalled for... you read the law above. They shipped it unordered, nobody has to return it. No need to start wishing bad karma on people.

Back in the pre-iPod days, an Amazon order came with a surprise Diamond Rio mp3 player. Had a whopping 32 megs of flash memory! That's like almost an entire album! At a really low bitrate!

More recently, I ordered a pair of shoes through Amazon about a year ago and was delighted to find a free identical bonus pair in the box! I keep one pair at work for those snowy days when I wear boots and don't want to carry an extra pair of shoes with me on the train.

@downwithmonstercable: The NRA pulled a stunt where they sent me a VHS tape. It came with a return label, but no means to affix it, and I couldn't find any glue/clear tape to put it on, so I said screw it.

They bothered me a couple times about it, but I held firm - even pointed out that I'd requested they put me on the reduced mailings list for a *reason*.

What Would Sam Waterston Do?

Yes, I suspect a company reminded in writing about those FTC guidlines would probably reserve course.

I remember many years back when Eddie Buuer (when owned by the evil Spiegel) offered coupon discounts off online orders and then foolishly decided it would just charge customer's credit cards for the amount of the coupon later if they decided they didn't want to honor it.

That caused quite an uproar and a whole heck of a lot of valid chargebacks as it was totally illegal. I would hope someone at Eddie Bauer lost their job over that one. I so love when retailers decide to just create new laws!

Unresolved anger-management issues?

One of the items I ordered was a book and they don't normally take returns on those, but the lady was really nice and she let me return it anyway. They credited it back to my debit card (yeah, I know!). I decided to keep the extra furniture because I could use it for another house/room.

Now I'm much more careful when I order from them. They are a family owned company and very nice, but the last time I checked, that glitch had not been fixed.

@kc2idf: I agree with kc2idf. This is an unauthorized charge and if he processes the chargeback before he receives the shoes, it is up to DSW to stop shipment. If the shoes arrive regardless, then it should be considered a gift. I mean, it's not as if DSW accidentally sent him the shoes, is it?

We didn't learn that in school; we learned it watching Judge Judy.

@downwithmonstercable: I would have resold them on eBay!

Brook is a HE not a SHE.

If you want the full citation to the code, it's 2008 CFR title 16 Chapter 1 part 435.
[www.access.gpo.gov]

I'm a librarian. We cite this frequently when we recieve unordered directories or other merchandise from both legitimate and scam companies. Most times we return items (if it's a big publisher and we have a good relationship), but we're under no obligation to. If it's a scam artist who continues to send bills/collections after us, we send them a letter by certified mail citing the above passage and ask them not to send us anything else ever again. It works pretty well.

Sometimes even the big publishers will just say "just keep it" because returning something unordered often messes up their systems.

My wife recieved two Dell servers from her vendor. They were supposed to get 1 server and 1 SAN. They got a pallet with two servers on it and then the SAN came in the next day.

She spent hours on the phone arguing with them that they shipped the server accidently. They refused to believe her. They wouldn't send her a call tag for it.

Once the new budget comes in the "shadow" server will be getting outfitted with more RAM and some drives.

@concordia: fuck up or intentional, you decide. In the meantime, forever more for that matter, the shoes are free gifts.

That's how I got my russian mail order bride.

when did ignorance of the law become an excuse for not following the law?

Brook is entirely within his right to charge it back; the CC company should have nothing to say about the presence or absence of the merchandise.

Corporate types: Notice the difference in [most people's] reactions to "oops, our mistake. We'll make it easy to return the stuff" versus "we never make mistakes!!! give us the money you don't owe us!!!"

Moral: While there will always be a few people whose reaction is "cool! free stuff!", if you act decently most people will reciprocate and you'll get more of your mis-shipments back.

She was able to get it from the neighbor but they had planned on keeping the computer.

I got a HDTV the same way from electronicsnation.com a few years back.

I ordered a refurbished 32" Phillips HDTV, 2 weeks later, I still hadn't otten tracking info or shipping notice. So, I called and the saleman siad that the model I ordered was OOS, and he would ship a better model out if I agreed. Of course, I did. 2 days later Yellow Truck called and said that they had been trying to setup delivery for the last 4 days. I thought nothing of it and they delivered my original order. Fast forward a week later....you guessed it, Yellow Truck calls again, wants to arrange for delievery. Upgraded model to my original order arrives. I called, talked to the same saleguy, he said the original order showed it never shipped, he said enjoy the free TV. Can't beat 2 refurbished 32" HDTV's, (crt type) for $420 shipped! Still running perfect!

@kidjesus: You may not work for them, but "douche-y thefts" (copious28's term, not mine, but I like it) ultimately results in higher prices for everyone.

Strawman argument. I guarantee they have 100 times more theft from their own employees than they do from losing misshipped merchandise to people who won't return it.

And besides, they'd jack up prices with or without customer theft.

My guess is that he did get tracking info for the 2nd day shipment and that it is DSW's norm, hence its absence alerting him to the problem with his order initially.

And the US code dealing with the issue: [www.law.cornell.edu]

This isn't an FTC rule, even though they mention it on the same page as the rule; it's a law. As such it applies to more than just civil litigation. Your post also states that the return shipping would be at the expense of the customer, but under the concept of unjust enrichment, the company would be required to pay for return shipping, as they are the ones who made the mistake, not the recipient.

The answer here is simple, however: Brook refuses shipment of the product and it gets sent back to the company, then Brook reverses the charges and provides the tracking number if the card company requires proof to show that the shipment was refused. Everyone remains happy and Brook finds a new place to buy shoes from. If the company doesn't like this, Brook can fall back on the fact that he acted in good faith by returning the mistaken order.

I was at my bank depositing a check and taking $20 out. The teller handed me $40. I handed back the extra $20. It wasn't a conscious decision, I just knew it wasn't my money.

Not long after, I miscounted change at work and gave a customer $90 back instead of the $70 she was supposed to get. The only reason I know this is because she reentered the store two minutes later to return the extra $20, preventing me from being short later and having to deal with a very displeased boss who probably would have assumed I pocketed it.

Karma happens. It was good to me, hope it's not a bitch to you.

As someone who has processed Visa and Mastercard disputes, if the purchase was on one of these cards, they OP would be required to return one of the orders at their cost in order for the bank to have chargeback rights. The receipt of two orders but after the chargeback only having to pay for one was called "unjust enrichment". The requirements for a chargeback are established by the card company. On occasion I would have a customer that would attempt to assert the FTC rules, but they did not apply to the chargeback. The FTC rule would apply to civil litigation. I believe the only governmental guidelines that applied to chargebacks were Reg E (debit card) and FCRA/FCBA (credit card). It's been a while, so there may be others now.

1/30/09-2/6/09 is a week. OP received them the same day he called about the missing package?

If you didn't even get notification that the first one had shipped, you probably won't receive tracking numbers for the second order, either (at least, that's what I'd think).

I'm not knowledgeable about legal stuff to offer advice about whether or not to chargeback and/or keep the extra shoes, however. I just wanted clarification about the OP's story. It does make sense to me that if you called one week later, you'd receive an order confirmation on the 7th. It's not right, however, that they want to charge you more for it. That's definitely BS.

If the Credit Card company tells him they will only issue a chargeback if he returns one pair of shoes, his choices are either accept (return the shoes, get a chargeback for $100 and consider the matter closed) or not accept and explore alternate means of recovering his $100. That will likely mean either just threatening legal action, or actually going to small claims court. It's probably not worth it (either financially or in terms of time investment) for him to go to court over a $100 pair of shoes he never wanted in the first place.

If you did not order an item and they send it to you then its considered a gift. If they demand payment its considered illegal and no matter what they say you get to keep the item and not pay them.

Put it this way. I have a TV I wanna sell and im a merchant. So I send it to some random person and they receive it and say to themselves.

"Wow a TV just showed up and I have no idea why but its addressed to my name at my address...it must be for me and not some mistake"

Then a couple days later I send them a bill demanding payment for the tv. They call me up and say wtf dude we arent paying for this we never ordered it. I then send the bill to collections and wait for my $$$.

Thats illegal. You cant just send out stuff that people didnt order and then demand money.

How was she to know what was in the box when it was signed for? They dont allow you to open it.

If you receive a box from UPS and your mother, father, sister, wife, husband, child, whatever signs for it. Then you open it and see its a...blu-ray player from Amazon that you never ordered THEN you notice they charged you for it should you be responsible to pay the bill?

Hell no.

The issue here is this person was charged for the second set of Shoes and despite the fact that he TRIED to return them, he was told if he did he would be charged an extra $20 on the first order simply because they werent happy that they CSR gave him a discount.

According to the lawhe should get her money back and keep her gifted shoes.

@silver-bolt: I fail to see how some company's mistake obligates the mistaken recipient to do anything. I wouldn't take their easel to the UPS store or box it back up or do anything else. I don't work for them.

if the company was not dishonest in any way, why not inform them of their missteps? i wasn't referring to the op in particular. look at the two comments, one about getting an extra laptop and the other about getting four extra thumb drives. the idea that those peoples' orders could have been processed as placed and they received the extra goods and did not mention it? i think it's dishonest.

We called them, even verified that there was no account anymore, and that's when we told them that if they want it back, send us a label.

Even researching your last bullet point (thanks, btw. that's 2 new things today!), we actually did the right thing and can treat it as a gift!

If she were to do a chargeback, who pays for the shipping on the return? Would the CC company charge the seller, or is the customer on the hook for that?

The following sales are exempt from the Rule:

* magazine subscriptions (and similar serial deliveries), except for the first shipment;
* sales of seeds and growing plants;
* orders made on a collect-on-delivery basis (C.O.D.); and,
* transactions covered by the FTC's Negative Option Rule (such as book and music clubs).

At this point, the amount of trouble they have been with keeping their own records straight, I'd figure they would just write it off and let it go.

If it was a small mom-n-pop shop I would almost certainly send it back.

@katieoh:

Uh Holier that Thou now Katie? What a nerve calling people you don't even know dishonest. I love to have compassion; but when you screw up big time and behave arrogantly on top of that, "where is my compassion"? "Nowhere you can find it". By the way Bernard Madoff called, he want you to be honest and have compassion for his minor screw-up and send him back the deed to the Statue of Liberty!

However, if a company sends you duplicates of something and then wants to charge you for those items (or, hold your credit card hostage), you have every right to tell them to get bent and keep your new "extras".

to me, it just seems kind of like ripping off a company. we complain when they have bad customer service, but then we aren't willing to notify them of their screw ups when it "benefits" us? it's dishonest and, i think, makes the consumer no better than the company. someone's getting screwed either way.

@custommadescare:

You may be in the lost on this one if Gevalia has a recording of you agreeing to return the coffee.

@microcars:

That happened to me, except it was a 20" LCD monitor. They sent me 2, one arriving two days after the other. A nice $200 gift from NewEgg. They're all about customer satisfaction over there!

Amazon f-ed up my well thought out Christmas gifts and left me sweating and scrambling to find something to send to the recipients. They subsequently got the very late items as well, and I kept the second order. If that makes me dishonest, then I can live with it.

"...
Yes! Excitement!
...
No! Sadness"

That pretty much just made my day.

@Chris Walters: Yup, they only lose the 2nd pair of shoes, they aren't on the hook for the $11k.

apparently i'm in the minority here: an honest person?

it's sad how many people are willing to rip off companies. sure, it's a law, but whatever happened to compassion and helping people with their minor screw-ups?

She reordered and got the shoes.

DSW initiated a second re-order, without her consent.

She can keep the shoes AND charge it back. No need to send the shoes back, they are now a gift by FTC rules. See part 2, they cannot try to get payment for something they sent out without her ordering it.

BMG did a similar thing to me. Sent me CDs I never ordered due to a mixup on the order form. They billed me and said I couldn't return them. I talked to the post office and they cited that same thing.

So I ended up with some free CDs!

Yes! Excitement!

Unfortunately the CDs were Jewel and a tribute to The Carpenters.

No! Sadness.

In the end, I was entertained for a few minutes while microwaving them.

Look a gift horse in the mouth? no way!

As the rule is written, that only applies to the civil penalty.

We've been having troubles canceling our Gevalia account. In fact, more than 6 months ago we stopped the account completely. They recently pulled this with us (sent us the coffee then told us we had to pay for it). We told them to send us a return label and we'd gladly send it back to them. It's been a few weeks and no label.

So if they call back to demand payment, I will gladly use this FTC link to thank them for the gift. All the while, sipping on a nice hot cup of Roast Espresso!