They belong to the OP now. I say sell them.

Do make sure to get an itemized receipt for the items from the mounties or whoever, before handing over the box though. Even if the mounties can't sort it out, there will at least be a fairly official paper trail to ensure that your covered on this.

@calchip: HA,,I remember the reg from my Contracts I course. It is something like the "Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 R3009", or something like that.

@dougkern: Gym teachers were always kind of fun like that...

FINDERS KEEPERS is the model to live by. They fucked up, why waste YOUR time trying to "do the right thing." The company that makes millions upon millions of dollars isn't going to send you a thank you note for saving them a grand. Sell it and thank Dell for funding your new 60" TV.

@Skankingmike: todays teenagers think of a Skank King as something a little different.

skank: •filth: any substance considered disgustingly foul or unpleasant

i thought you were the leader of your trailerpark personally. i use the gamer tag BloodySkank alot so nothing malicious intended.

2 42" LCD TV's
1 30" Monitor
8 Nvidia Motherboards (diff models priced $200-350)
4 Dell cases
15 Dell keyboards (the crummy stock ones)
3 Top of the line (at the time) graphics cards.

On my last day I set down with my boss, told him I was ready to inventory my return stock and he replied:
"who cares, I certainly don't"

2 years later and they still don't want the $12000 in electronics I have that belongs to them.

I would encourage you to actually research your assumptions next time instead of adopting righteous indignation as your key piece of 'evidence.'

Not that they can't afford it. We have a contract with them and they send us units for twice the price and half the capability than we could purchase directly from their online store.

@madanthony: I thought so too. More like the CSR put one case instead of one piece into the system, no one past him would've seen the mistake, especially since there wasn't any money involved.

@zacox: You kiddin me? If I find $1000 dollars on the street that shit is mine. So long as it isn't covered in blood or bank dye....

@twophrasebark: Unclaimed freight!

@ap0: Kijiji, dude... Why spend more time and money cleaning up Dell's mess for them?

Write a registered letter explaining the problem. In this case also explain that you will consider these your property and will dispose of them appropriately if Dell does not act to rid of you them within 3 months, at Dell's expense. Explain you will be selling the items to recoup your costs of storage during this period.

After 3 months, eBay them if Dell has chosen to ignore you.

In 2004 sent me a very expensive computer, monitor, camera, printer, and box of software in addition to the el cheapo computer I ordered. I tried for several weeks to send it back, but nothing worked. I finally sent a certified letter to their customer service department stating that I was going to consider it mine after 30 more days. I never heard back from them.

I sold the cheap computer and kept the expensive one. I'm still using it, in fact. It is getting a bit long in the tooth, though.

I heard it's making a come back again at least trying.

Nothing will beat seeing the Specials live though.

It did not take long for the check to come back to me...this back and forth with accounting went on for about 6 weeks before I signed the check over to my boss and he used the proceeds for a team dinner, taking responsibility for any potential consequences. Nothing ever came of this, but it was a somewhat humorous example of what happens when even the exception process does not fit.

+1000.

Small wonder companies are cutting their accounts with Dell and moving on.

It probably worked out better for them that way. They likely ended up making more in toner sales from the people you donated it to than they lost by accidentally shipping you a second printer.

Anyways what I am trying to say is I concur that the OP has waited long enough to consider the cards his to do with what he pleases.

In general, feeding trolls is rarely a wise idea. However, sometimes I find it entertaining, especially since, as Acasto has pointed out, you've already proven my point.

I think if you poll almost any group involved in academia over the past 20 or 30 years, you'll find near universal agreement about a degradation of the quality of education. More people may be earning college degrees today, but the quality of those degrees (on the whole, and of course with exceptions) is not what it was 30 years ago.

Likewise, if you look at the quality of retail workers, customer service phone employees (there really weren't "call centers" as there are today 30 years ago) and the like, you'll find that the level of education, training, and overall cognitive ability required for those jobs was significantly greater (and the pay higher, commensurate with the required skill) than it is today.

Additionally, there was a very different attitude about working in any sort of support role (warehouse, customer service, etc) than there is today. This change has come about particularly since the 1970s; there was no such decline noticeable between equivalent earlier periods.

The problem is, in my opinion, a combination of inferior education and management that actively seeks out employees who will act as drones rather than individuals who seek to think and to take ownership.

One can see the evidence supporting this idea by looking at the few companies that have managed to maintain quality in spite of having an inferior labor pool upon which to draw; ask them how their hiring practices have had to change in order to continue to find and hire great people, and that will give you a good idea of how bad the situation has gotten.

Of course, I don't remember the actual length of time (I believe it's over a year) needed to turn their abandoned property into your own property. But I'd assume the time would de-value the cards by 60-70% on the open market.

My wife's company got a 2 for 1 deal when she ordered a server and peripherals. The warehouse double shipped the order, but managed to delete the order for all the peripherals. They did however ship two HP servers instead of the one that was ordered.

She went through countless reps who told her that "they don't make those kinds of mistakes with 8K servers." and that their documentation clearly showed only one shipped.

Her boss rode her case because he didn't want to get a bill their capital budget couldn't handle. After their distributer flat refused to send an RMA, they put the server into use.

Needless to say, I did not get the promotion that year.

I bought a monitor from Dell that arrived defective. After several calls and complaints, I got them to exchange it under warranty and they shipped me a new one. However, they forgot to include the shipping label for the broken one. I emailed them about it twice - to the same email address that had usually replied to my emails before. This time, never an answer.

I finally decided to just keep it as a reserve. The brightness and colors are somewhat off, but it's better than nothing, if my other monitors suddenly die.

It's more than a year ago now, I seriously doubt I'll ever hear from them - and they didn't charge my CC either.

I would probably be a little more weary about keeping something like 120 wireless cards each with an original retail value of $80. As others have said - a certified letter with a reasonable time limit for them to respond (and then wait a little extra time), and if you hear nothing, they are yours. Watch out about donating them, though. If you or Dell have to come back and ask for them, you could get the charity or school into legal trouble if Dell doesn't play nice.

This happened to me many years ago with an online retailer that is long gone. I order 1 CompactFlash card (back when they ran $$ each) and got "1 case" of the same item via UPS. Not very bright!

I decided that 3+ hours on the phone was my due diligence, and so I just donated the second printer to the lab that I was working in. Dell never did figure out their mistake.

"The interesting thing here is there's a Federal postal regulation that says if something is sent to you that you didn't order or agree to receive, you're entitled to treat it as a free gift."

This is not entirely true. This does not cover bona fide error.

If, for example, a diamond company accidentally mailed you a $10,000 ring, they have the right to ask for it back as long as they pay for the shipping.

If you decide "I heard on the internet I can keep this" you may be the recipient of a lawsuit or a visit from the police. Either way, I promise you won't get to keep the ring.

"Any ideas for Andy (other than "eBay, dude?") Or is it just painfully obvious that Dell doesn't actually want these cards?"

Since no one has said it yet- Give them to me :)

Now that this has gone public get ready for a bill and a ding on your credit when you don't pay. Big companies can't help but screw it up worse.

This would fade out in the mid 80's and Ska would once again be revived this time in America (we always lag) by a very underground cause mostly in NY and Boston. This is call the Ska Revival or 90's ska.
They would have bands as big as No Doubt as well as influence SKA PUNK bands like Rancid, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Real Big Fish, and many many others.

Just a little history lesson on the name i use it was a nickname in high-school during this third revival in which I would indeed skank at shows.

Ah to be a teenager again...

I had an incorrect keyboard shipped for my laptop a few years ago from IBM... when I called to get it corrected they sent another (correct one) and said to keep the wrong item... costs more to ship back and restock in their warehouse than it was worth. Their shipping deals are one sided (they fill a freighter and it rolls off the lot).

Exactly how your comment comes off. Congratulations for explaining this to him which such a finely hewed example provided by none other than yourself.

As for his comment on the eduction these days, I agree with him. Just because kids are learning more facts and figures does not make them smarter. We are creating well educated robots that lack any common sense or critical thinking skills.

.... must just be you, then!! :)

While I do think, ethically, that one should make an attempt to return it, I think the OP has made more than enough effort and should be able to do what he wants with the cards guiltlessly.

OK I know what you are saying, but the first time I read it it sounded like Andy got left out of Canada's wireless card upgrade.

Calls to Dell resulted in no action, and I finally called the guy who was supposed to get the PC (his name and phone number were on the paperwork in the box), and somehow he managed to get Dell to take it back (they had sent him a second one when he complained to them that he never got his, and he was pretty steamed because he paid a lot extra to get the first order expedited). But had I not been honest about it and tracked down the true recipient, I probably could have kept both PCs because of the screwup with the shipping labeles and duplicate tracking numbers.

@MyTQuinn: You are most certainly a lucky man. Have you found any $1000 bills laying around recently?

Are you sure we're not the same person?

@floraposte: Exactly. So long as that "organizing" doesn't involve a judge, a court order, and a deactivated google account! Heh.

@MostlyHarmless: Despite all the jokes, aluminum foil still works the best to prevent that problem.

Donate the cards on Dell's behalf?

It would be a bit of a tragedy if they sold them and then it turns out that the regs actually say dell can come after them for the money.

Anyhow, which CS gauntlet did they try anyhow? I see 4 different contact divisions each with a bunch of different contact numbers on their site. I would have imagined that "Order Support" would be the most appropriate, but they may have tried to go after "Technical Support" instead.

This sort of thing, sadly, is only going to get more common as the quality of education continues to decline and companies have more and more downright stupid and uncaring people working for them.

It's like getting an auto-email from a company, that says "do not reply to this address as no one checks it."

Maybe you should do it on Ebay and sell it for 60 a piece and donate half of it to charity? That would be a nice thing.

Maybe you should do it on Ebay and sell it for 60 a piece and donate half of it to charity? That would be a nice thing.

"This sort of thing, sadly, is only going to get more common as the quality of education continues to decline and companies have more and more downright stupid and uncaring people working for them."

Most companies don't give a shit about their employees, why shouldn't they be uncaring?

I'd say that isn't a matter of education, but the reception John Thain got at Wharton seems to suggest that it is.

"Our records do not indicated that you have 120 wifi cards. Our records indicated that you have 1 wireless card"

My suggestion? Since you are an IT tech, maybe you know a nice non-profit organization or school that could use some upgraded wireless cards. If not, well, go ahead and ebay them and donate the money (to not lose karma points).

The monitor now sits on my 10-year-old's desk, older than he is, and works just fine, connected to his refurbished HP computer (advertised as bare, with no OS) that came complete with the previous owner's data and bootable OS still in tact.

Thank you HP, you're always a delight to work with. :)

@calchip: Is it a federal postal regulation in Canada, too?

The recipient of the products is in Canada - if they were shipped by Dell Canada, then the US Postal regulations won't apply.

Bear in mind that different states have different laws regarding this sort of thing, but I'm guessing that you can be charged with theft of mislaid property only if you can't prove that you attempted to return them to Dell. So, if you have records of people you've contacted at Dell and they failed to retrieve their property, I say go for it.

You wasted enough of your time to get them to take these back. Either just throw them away or sell them. You could make about $5 per card on ebay.

The interesting thing here is there's a Federal postal regulation that says if something is sent to you that you didn't order or agree to receive, you're entitled to treat it as a free gift. (This was done to prevent companies from shipping you shit and then billing you for it, which they used to do.)

Had this not have been posted on Consumerist, my advice would have been to send an email to Dell customer service saying that you'd repeatedly tried for almost a year to return these cards, and that if you did not receive, within 5 days, instructions on how to return these items (at Dell's expense), you would, in accordance with applicable postal regulations, consider them free gifts and place them for sale on Ebay.

This sort of thing, sadly, is only going to get more common as the quality of education continues to decline and companies have more and more downright stupid and uncaring people working for them.