When a company sends you an extra item, do you contact them?

[Anonymous]

I just donated a mens pair of pants that came in my order. I called Gap and they didn’t want me to return it.

[Anonymous]

This happened to me - I ordered a rug from Wayfair and they sent me TWO of them, but only charged for the one. I contacted them, explained and asked if they would send someone to pick up the extra rug. They said sure, we'll get back to you about that. Months later, they still hadn't, so I gave the rug to my son. I figured if they weren't concerned, then neither was I.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Legally, if a company sends you an unrequested item it's yours to keep.

[Anonymous]

A couple months ago I ordered a pair of mens shoes from Zappos. They were for a specific job event my teenage son had, and were supposed to arrive in 2 days. They didn't come in time (my son ended up wearing something different.)
About 2 weeks after the event, they showed up. The shoe box was not in another box, but just in one of those white shipping envelopes they use sometimes.
I called customer service and they told me to put it in a box to return it.
I told them it did not come in a box and I didn't have one around. They told me I should buy a box.
Honestly, that pissed me off--they didn't get the item to on time like they said, and now they want me to spend my time and money on a box to send it back to them? NO!
Finally after some back and forth they told me to just keep the shoes and they would refund my money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I try but it often turns into a hassle. That old saying applies... " no good deed goes unpunished ".

I've tried and even had customer service deny that I received the extra item. They seem to not want the hassle of fixing the errors too. It really depends on the company. If they can't track it with the order number, they seem to not know what to do with it in their systems.

As for those saying do "the right thing," legally the consumer is allowed to keep misdelivered items addressed to the them. It happens so frequently that the law is on the side of making companies bear the burden of the errors, not the consumers, and businesses have these errors baked into their prices and business models. This is also to avoid scams where the item delivered gets a vulnerable person to call in and scammy companies get them to give their credit card to pay for the item. Keeping it is not wrong, it is lawful.

[Anonymous]

Nordstrom has done this, and when I ask at the return desk at mall they tell me I can jeep it if I want

[Anonymous]

I once got two of an item I ordered and refused delivery at the door of the second one. It was large and I had no place for two. A week later it was back on my porch, redelivered after the return.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a gift. You'll waste too much time trying to find the customer service bot who understands the issue.

No, it was a mistake. OP should just send an email to company and let them know - chances are they will let her keep it but you don't just assume.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have the time to deal with returning a mistake a company made. It will go to the bottom of my to dos, which means it will never happen. My time is valuable and expensive

[Anonymous]

I try to return. Sometimes the store clerk is totally stumped with how to handle

[Anonymous]

I won't order from Garnet Hill again because they made me go through a few hoops of packaging and driving for their mistake. Gap and Garnet Hill packers will just send anything they can grab or nothing at all in place of an item that goes out of stock. They won't notify or credit you either, just mark it shipped and on the invoice.

[Anonymous]

Most people who ever worked in retail will tell you it’s far more trouble than it’s worth for the company to have to deal with a returned item.