The Mouse is in the book.
Salt.
I think that perhaps the sender should mail the recipient a shipping envelope, prepaid. or even a prepaid shipping label.
Teach her a jaunty new song to sing:
*Who’s the leader of cell blocks from A right down to Z?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!
Hey there, Hi there, Hoe there! (and you KNOW its not a “She”)
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!
Mickey Mouse! (left side"lawyer sucks…?")
Mickey Mouse! (right side “lawyer sucks…!”)
For years here you’ll be mopping floors
while High…! High…! High…! High…!
Go along and sing the song til guards here bend your knees!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!*
The Rock
Shawshank Redemption
The Great Escape
and the first two seasons of Prison Break
My first thought is that it seems pointless for us to discuss our own opinions about what the law should require you to do if you receive someone else’s property. Our opinions won’t change what the law actually says, which is bound to be different in various jurisdictions. However, one principle which often works as a defense, especially in civil cases rather than criminal, is to say that you did exactly what a reasonable person would be expected to do in your situation.
IMHO, making a few phone calls to straighten out the situation, plus being willing to pay a dollar or two for postage, would be enough to satisfy this requirement. If you knew that the object was valuable, that would raise the bar of what would be expected of you. The tricky part is, as with the case of the OP, what if people have widely different opinions about the value of the item.
I don’t know what the law requires you to do.
What would I do? Start by looking for contact info on the package. There’s probably a phone number for the sender. Also, could contact the shipping company and tell them they gave me a package that belongs to someone else and arrange for them to come pick it up.
Actually, I did have a package arrive for someone else delivered to my house. I recognized the street as being nearby, I called the owner, and arranged for her to swing by and pick up the package herself. It was a case of same house number different street. The phone number was on the shipping label, so it’s not like I had to do any digging to find it.
But I agree that the sender is a bit wacko for jumping straight to the police and not attempting to contact the actual recipient to straighten out the confusion.
Along the same lines as sbunny8, I would think a minimum effort to contact the sender and/or shipping company and inform them of the error would be sufficient defense. I do not think you should be required to spend your money or take your time to accomplish returning the object. If the cops showed up, I would inform them they can take the package and return it themselves.
Sheet music of “The Prisoner’s Song”. Listen to the last verse.
A copy of Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol”.
How close can the aunt be to her nephew if she sent the package to an address he hasn’t been at for eight years? Corollary: How did she find out about the package not arriving?
In a similar vein, though more valuable, years ago we were expecting a litter of saluki puppies. Now, the market for the breed is very illiquid – they are hard to find when you want one and hard to sell when you have some – so we put out some notices in the community. We got back the usual inquiries and then there was this one lady in Montana.
She had this weird list of demands I’m a bit fuzzy on now (this was some 20 years ago) including a guarantee that the dog be a champion. Well, there’s no way to guarantee a new-born puppy will be a champion. Even if the quality is there, it all depends on how he is campaigned and we would have no control over that. If you want a guaranteed champion, you buy a champion and pay considerably more than puppy prices.
Against my better judgement, DesertRoomie had her send a $300 money order as down payment. The emails from her got weirder and weirder and when we told other breeders what was going on, the overwhelming consensus was, Poison. Run away now or every time the dog gets sick she’s going to be demanding you pay the vet bill. The final straw was when she said that the dog would spend the entire day in a crate. That is no way to keep a saluki so we bought a $300 money order and sent it to her as a refund with a note that we would not be selling her any puppy, no explanation.
That started a whole chain of truly bizarre emails about how she was looking at the collar she’d bought, weeping, and she knew we’d killed the puppy rather than send him to her. Then about two weeks later a pair of sheriff’s deputies showed up at the door saying she’d lodged a fraud complaint. I told them what had happened and showed the receipt for the refund m.o. They thanked me and left.
Two weeks after that I got a phone call from an FBI agent in Billings with the same complaint. I told him the story and he said, “Wait a minute. What’s her address?” I told him and he exclaimed, “I know that lady – well, know of her, anyway. She’s … a piece of work” then said she ran a greyhound rescue service. His brother had gotten one from her and he thought the dog was pretty neat. The brother advised him to get the dog through another service out of Denver and, after corresponding with her a bit, he concurred.
I’d like an informed opinion on this. When a package comes to my house, I don’t look at the addressee, nor do I think there is any obligation to do so.
Here we go folks - thanks to you, my friend received “the best birthday present ever!” (her words).
I included:
[ul]
[li]a copy of the book, still in shipping package, with a fake address label made out to “Amanda Hugginkiss” at her address[/li][li]An orange prisoner’s shirt[/li][li]Snake tattoos (temporary)[/li][li]A carton of candy cigarettes[/li][li]A birthday cupcake with a file stuck in it[/li][/ul]
And I packaged it all in a snarky bag I found in the dollar bin at Target.
She LOVED it! She said since all her friends know the story, she’s going to dress up on Halloween in the shirt, with the book taped to her, and a snake tattoo on her face.
Oh, and UPDATE: the complainant in PA still hasn’t signed for her delivery. If she doesn’t sign for it soon, the package will be returned to my friend!
They still make candy cigarettes? I thought they had stopped years ago.