My dad.

[Miss_Stress]

My mum ordered a microwave from Amazon on the 12th December, and they estimated delivery on the 23rd. The microwave was dispatched to the depot on the 16th, ready for delivery. It hadn't arrived by the 23rd. The tracker system said it had got to the depot on the 16th, therefore Amazon had done their bit. Me and my mum thought it was just delayed due to Chrismas.

My dad then said to us "We'll write Amazon an email and tell them thanks for ruining Christmas." My mum and I were horrified and told him not to do any such thing, and anyway we had a perfectly good microwave. My dad's response? "Well they don't know that." That is situation one.

By the 26th, this microwave hadn't arrived. Me and my mum are now wondering if, by some mix up by the delivery service (not Amazon), it had gone to the wrong address and someone had just decided to accept a microwave that wasn't theirs. Sucky, but not Amazon's fault. They dispatched the microwave as promised. My mum didn't know what to do, so she phoned up and told them about the situation. The Amazon rep apologisd, and said that because it was likely a theft (it's quite common for people to sign for things that they didn't buy, sadly) they would send a new one for free via first class post. This microwave reached us promptly on the 30th of December. Wonderful, my mum has the microwave she wanted.

However, dad is still looking to cheat the system. His bright idea is: "if the other one turns up, we'll not tell Amazon and we'll sell it." Again, me and my mum were disgusted, and told him that if it turned up we would send it back to Amazon, as it would technically be their property as we had only paid for one microwave, not two.

My dad is always doing this - looking for something for nothing or trying to cheat people. His behaviour on the phone with phone companies, delivery services, cable companies, etc disgusts me. He never does it in person though, he only does it via email or the phone. It is quite frankly embarrassing. He was going to try and lay the blame at Amazon's door and tell them lies, and then take their property and sell it instead of doing the right thing and sending it back!

[Beki710]

at least you and your mum have your heads on straight. I'm glad she got the microwave in the end! Perhaps you 2 need to exert your good influence over your Dad more?!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Wow, to your dad, Christmas must be a pretty fragile thing if something that trivial would ruin it.

I spent part of my Christmas sitting in a freaking hospital room with a drugged and delirious family member, and even so, I think I can honestly say my Christmas was NOT ruined. Most of us were together. The kids had fun. The food was good. The weather was nice. Everyone got along well. Life and love goes on.

Maybe you need to sit Dad down and give him a refresher on what Christmas ought to be about.

Also, it's kind of sad he's selling his integrity so cheaply. The cost of a microwave? This sounds like a man who needs to re-evaluate his self-worth. He is short changing himself, and that is sad.

[Miss_Stress]

RK, this is the same man who RUINED Christmas by getting that drunk he started a row with my mum, vomited black stuff (I'm guessing he'd simply poisoned himself...a bottle of whisky, several beers and a few glasses of wine tends to do that), left me and my mum with the washing up at 1am after promising to do it and being too drunk to do it, and attempted to slit his wrists. He obviously has no self-worth if he's doing that.

Also, I'm sorry your Christmas was spent in a hospital, but at the same time I'm glad you all had fun. I'm sorely tempted to show him your post, because it might make him sit up a bit.

[Rhion]

The right thing to do in that scenario would be to email Amazon and ask them what they would like done with the duplicate. They'll either organise shipping, or tell you to keep the item with their compliments (commonly done if the shipping would cost them too much money).

It's not theft if they tell you to keep it Either way you're not out of pocket. I've got duplicate parcels before, and vendors have just said "keep it" since international shipping is so damn expensive to Australia.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Also, I'm sorry your Christmas was spent in a hospital, but at the same time I'm glad you all had fun. I'm sorely tempted to show him your post, because it might make him sit up a bit.

Thanks. All things considered, it turned out okay.

Feel free to share what I wrote with him. Couldn't hurt.

[raudf]

Sounds like your dad is.. quite the SC. And shame on whoever might have taken the other microwave!

If you did get a dup, it never hurts to call and let them know. In my case, I had bought a foot bath for my sister a couple of Christmases ago. Well, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the UPS guy with two boxes addressed to me! *blinking* I open both, find it's the same thing and go looking for the label on the second box. Nope. Only label is the one that it shipped to my house with. So, I call the company I ordered from.

Long story short, I got told, "Well, we have no record of it, no idea who it might have been for. Thank you for calling, but keep it." So, instead of my Christmas being ruined, I got a bonus!

[ReverendBSB]

I ordered a Jack Daniels Mirror with Coat Hooks and Shelf a couple of years ago. Got it no problem, then got another a day later. The company realized their mistake and called asking me to put it outside for UPS to pick up. A friend told me I should lie and say I never got a second one, but thats not my style. I got what I paid for, why rip someone off.

[Hyndis]

If you get sent something you didn't order, legally its a gift and there is no legal obligation to return it.

Legal != moral however.

I've received things I haven't ordered before. If it was just sent to the wrong address and its near me, I'll hand deliver it to the correct address. If its too far away I'll contact the shipper about it. If a company sends me something I never ordered I'll contact them and let them know.

Oddly enough I tend to get no reply when I try to contact a company about something they delivered to me by mistake. They just tend to ignore my attempts at contacting them.

Small companies are good about it, but the larger the company is the more obscure the bureaucracy is.

Oh well. I did my part.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

But nobody got sent something they didn't order. And you can't open someone else's mail, even if it's misdelivered to you. That's not receiving something you did not order. That's accidentally receiving someone else's mail, and it's not Amazon's fault if a mail carrier screwed up.

[Miss_Stress]

Exactly. This was my whole problem with my dad. Amazon did their bit and shipped it to the depot for it to be delivered. It's no longer their concern or responsibility. My dad just thought "big company, something for nothing!"

If the second one HAD turned up, mum and I would have contacted Amazon and asked them what they wanted us to do with it. We certainly wouldn't have kept it and sold it.

[wolfie]

I ordered a Jack Daniels Mirror with Coat Hooks and Shelf a couple of years ago. Got it no problem, then got another a day later. The company realized their mistake and called asking me to put it outside for UPS to pick up.

This is one case where you shouldn't do what the company asked you to do. Counter-offer "The nearest UPS store is at {address} - could you send them the paperwork for the return shipping, and I'll drop it off there? A lot of people in my neighbourhood have had parcels that were delivered and left outside disappear, and I'd hate to have this disappear before the UPS guy came for it".

[blas]

My dad is somewhat similar, though he doesn't worry that much about Christmas being "ruined" (he's always just happy to be alive), but, this is the bad part and where he's similar.

Despite years of Woolworth and pizza service......he still seems to think the customer is "always right". And he's always pushing for calling corporate or getting freebies or if there's a mistake in MY favor, not to say anything.

It's always like dammit Dad, be quiet.

[ReverendBSB]

This is one case where you shouldn't do what the company asked you to do. Counter-offer "The nearest UPS store is at {address} - could you send them the paperwork for the return shipping, and I'll drop it off there? A lot of people in my neighbourhood have had parcels that were delivered and left outside disappear, and I'd hate to have this disappear before the UPS guy came for it".

They couldn't charge me for their mistake, if someone had stolen it before UPS had picked it up (even with our lazy possibly thieving UPS driver) my obligation was done by putting it out and not keeping it.

[Naaman]

Exactly. This was my whole problem with my dad. Amazon did their bit and shipped it to the depot for it to be delivered. It's no longer their concern or responsibility. My dad just thought "big company, something for nothing!"

Having run into a patch of bad deliveries from Amazon, through a particular courier, phoning them up is exactly what you should do. They can (and do) chase it with the courier and get it looked into, if it's a recurring problem they'll have a note of it in their system and whenever I've called\e-mailed them I've never had a hint of "Not our problem, talk to courier".

Amazon have the attitude that it's their problem until it's in your hands (No, I don't work for them - just order a helluva lot of stuff through them)