our records indicate that two orders were sent to you by mistake...

[Saphire]

I ordered something online, and received (1) package. I get an e-mail telling me that another order will be delivered today, and would I please send it back. Do I have to??? What if I dont get the second order, can they charge my account two times??? I have never had this happen before, and I'm not sure what to do. My first attempts at online shopping are not going real smooth :(

[MrCoffee]

1. tell 'em they're full of it, then sell the other one on ebay.

[MorningGlow]

2. That happened to me a couple of years ago

Got two of something. I called to make sure I was only charged for one (I was), and the customer rep said to just forget it--keep the other one. Which, of course, made me boggle at the markup that let them be so cavalier about an item sent but not paid for... :)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. Having managed in retail...

it's one of those things where the smart buisiness would rather just take the loss on their fuck-up rather than annoy the customer.

In the long run, it financially makes more sense to have let you keep it.

[Reverend_Smitty]

6. I had a friend who bought a laptop bag and something else from Dell

All told it was like a $70 order, well she decided that she didn't like either item so she called up Dell and told them that she would like to return the items. They reimbursed her account and told her not to bother sending back the items because it would end up costing the company more for the return than it would if they just ate the $70. Needless to say she was pleasantly surprised.

[begin_within]

4. Anything mailed or shipped to your house is yours to keep. This is in the federal laws somewhere.

If they shipped you 2 by mistake, it's their problem, not yours. I remember reading this a few years ago.

[conscious evolution]

11. This is true

There is a law.
It was passed because unscrupulous business people would send something to people then demand payment even though the recipient did not order it.

[blogslut]

5. Is there a phone contact?

n/t

[NewWaveChick1981]

7. I had the same thing happen to me about four years ago.

I got a duplicate order about two weeks after the original order arrived. What I ordered totalled over $100, and I got two orders. I called the company, and they said not to worry about returning it. They only charged me once. :) They did that to create good will and not to cause customer service problems, and it worked in my case. I've ordered from them a lot, and I have never had any problems except for that.

If I'm not mistaken, there are laws in place to protect consumers from being charged for merchandise they never received. If merchants send duplicate orders or send people orders they never placed and then demand payment, it's too bad for the merchant.

[hippywife]

8. What would be the honest & nice thing to do? n/t

[youthere]

9. I'd send it back...

you may not HAVE to but...

(I'd just wait until the second one arrives to be sure there really was an error)

[skygazer]

10. Legally you don't have to send it back

If something is sent to you and you did not order it (and this falls into that because you only ordered one), you can keep it without paying for it.

They cannot charge you twice when you only ordered one.

However, what I would do would be to email customer service and request a postage paid return label so I could ship back the second one.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

12. do what your good conscience dictates

[astral]

13. Boy, that's not how it went for me!

I ordered some online clothing, about 7 or 8 items, and three weeks later called to see what's up? They said they'd re-send the order. Another week or two later my order came in -- with TWO of EVERY SINGLE ITEM. It all just happened to be there the same day at the post office.

I go home, and being an honest customer, called them up and told them what happened. They said to send the duplicate stuff back, but that they would CHARGE MY CREDIT CARD for ALL the extra stuff and then take it OFF my credit card when it was received by them!

I was pissed. I said then I am paying interest on my credit card for all this stuff you sent me by mistake! (I suppose if I never called to report the duplicate shipment I wouldn't have heard a thing?)

After trying to raise some hell with the upper-managers by phone / email telling them I would never order from them again unless they fixed this policy; I had to never order from them again because they didn't give a damn about what I thought about it.

Aaaah, nice rant! I'd just about forgot about that by now! (I'm sure I could have just told my credit card company to call B. S. on that, but I was still kinda new at charging.)

______________________
PS --- Yes, I **DID** send the duplicate items back!