Good to know – without giving too much away, my current apartment had a prior tenant who received a good many review copies of books. After consulting my landlord, who had told her previous tenant to make sure everything was forwarded, I just opened the packages and sold them (when I could). Not much different to TAs gaining perks by publishers.
Glad to hear I’m not de jure a criminal. Ethically, I think it was wrong, but at the time, I was hard up for cash, and I didn’t see much problem, it having been an error in delivery and not malum in se. Didn’t feel good about it, but my landlord didn’t want to deal with forwarding the review copies to her former tenant, so I felt somewhat absolved.
TAs, or “teaching assistants” – also associate or assistant or full-bird professors – can frequently request copies of books they are considering for use in a class. Depends on the publisher, but most houses with titles commonly used by academics are happy to send copies for review, as well as desk copies (usually two of them) if ordered, to the offices of academics who are considering using these texts. “Review” doesn’t mean that one is going to provide feedback to the publisher, in this case – you’re reviewing the text to see if it’s suitable for your own purpose.
I gave a second desk copy of Clear And Simple As The Truth to a Frosh comp student who was kind of hard up at the time. Probably, that kind of thing is expected. Usually we had a number of these copies stockpiled over the years lined up in our offices, and it was de rigueur that anyone who wanted to check something out would just see us during office hours and check it out, if they wanted to use a text for their own courses.
“Review copies” are copies of books sent to book reviewers to review for a publication, or to teachers to review for use in teaching. “TAs” are teaching assistants.
Tampering with the mail is a federal offence because the USPS is a government agency. (United States Postal Service … get it?) However, UPS and FedEx are not government agencies but rather private corporations, so I doubt very strongly that the OP could possible be charged with a felony.
You will note it refers to merchandise via via USPS and not a private carrier such as UPS. It would be wise to notify the seller of the error and let them decide what to do with it.
I don’t think so. It came to his address, but had someone else’s name on it, so in my opinion, it was not addressed to him. It sounds like it was sent to the OP’s address in error. It’s not his to open.
If it had been addressed to the OP (with his name on it, obviously), then sure, go ahead and open it and keep it. Otherwise, no.
OK, but what’s one exactly supposed to do if this is not the case? Leave it outside for umpteen days before the carrier comes to pick it up? Throw it away? Contact the landlord for a change of address for a tenant who might have lived there before?
I say, toss it, but don’t open it up, if you don’t want to get in trouble. Trash gets thrown away at my place, especially on my porch.
Sometimes when a large Amazon package heads overseas, it’s placed in a sack, apparently by the local Post Office. Not sure why, maybe to prevent books falling out of damaged boxes.
Anyway, once they incorrectly addressed the sack that I received, and the package inside was for somebody else entirely, even a different city. I had already opened it, and saw that the books inside were certainly not what I ordered.
But I managed to track her down online. Her name was uncommon enough for me to find that the address was her place of work, which matched up to a nearby home address in the phone book, my assumption being she possibly lived nearby.
I left her a message. She got back to me; she had also opened mine, and was equally dumbfounded. But we asked the Post Office to send them to each other’s correct addresses, and they did it for free.
If USPS, label it as “not at this address” and mail it back. If it’s small enough, just drop it in a mailbox. If not, put it by wherever your incoming mail gets dropped. They’ll take it back to the sender.
USPS etc. will do pickups, especially if you notify them that there’s a refused package. We once inadvertently had a new iPod sent to Typo Knig’s old office (the work address was on file and I didn’t realize it until the order had been shipped). We asked them to refuse the shipment. Fedex simply returned it to Apple.
Anyway - it’s a mild annoyance, but the right thing to do is to see that it’s at least returned to the sender.
I once received a package through USPS (addressed to me) that had a postcard for someone else jammed into a crevice. I took the postcard to a post office and explained what happened, and they took it.
Oh, I know about the USPS – they’re always (IME) very conscientious about this sort of thing. But private companies, sure, you could call them, leave the box on your porch inviting vagrancy and thievery, and maybe they’ll come by in a few weeks or when they feel like it, or not. That’s just been my experience. I know the drivers work hard, but I suspect they’re not the ones making the decisions, ultimately.
If it’s addressed to my address, delivered by a private company, and I don’t have a super who wants to deal with it, then I think the only reasonable choice is to throw it away, give it away, or open it and do what you want with the goods. A special case where one might have a forwarding address for an old tenant is different, I think, for a good samaritan – but once that option’s been removed, there doesn’t seem to be a lot anyone can do who doesn’t have access or time to drive to the local distribution center.
