Came home from work yesterday to find a robocall message on my voice mail. I ddin’t catch the company name entirely, it was “Michigan (something).” The pleasant female voice said that there was a problem with my credit card from my recent order. Since they new how very important my order was, they had gone ahead and shipped the product but needed me to call them back to arrange for payment.
So … not having ordered anything in several months, and never ever from a company with a name starting with Michigan, I immediately concluded that it was a scam to get CC or bank info out of me. It is also possible that it’s a legit call, albeit to the wrong number, but I can’t imagine a company in its right mind sending merchandise without verified payment.
I reverse-looked-up the phone number on White Pages, naturally it’s unlisted. I googled the number and got two hits that said it’s Time-Warner, one hit that had it on a list of “suspicious numbers.”
I DO subscribe to a couple of Time, Inc. mags, so that’s another possibility, but none of them have anything to do with Michigan, and the phone msg clearly talked about “product” not “magazine” or “publication.”
Should I call them back to see what it’s about or just ignore? If I don’t call and some package shows up, is “Return to Sender” enough? Should I drag it down to the P.O. (a HUGE pain for me for various reasons) to get a record of refusing it? I know that the P.O. says that if you receive something you didn’t order, it’s yours to keep or toss with no obligation. Still, I wonder if there’s some angle I’m missing where I’m going to be on the hook for something and get dinged on credit for not paying or whatever. Or am I just paranoid?
Don’t call them back, there is a 99.999% chance this is a scam, especially considering you do not recall ordering anything.
If you do receive something you’ll know if it is something you may have ordered but forgotten about - if you are 100% sure you did not order it I wouldn’t bother trying to return it.
I’m not convinced it is a good idea to contact them, letting them know there is a live body on the other end of their scam. Just report them to the authorities if you are sure of all the facts …
Could actually be a full-blown scam. Most likely, though, IF you were to call you back, they’d “figure out” that there was “some kind of mixup” and you’re not the person they wanted – but “hey, since you’re talking to us, we have this GREAT deal you might be interested in…”
As I understand it, it’s a way around the “Do Not Call” list – they didn’t call you with a marketing message, and if YOU call THEM… then they didn’t call you with a marketing message… :rolleyes: :smack:
In other words – don’t call them back. It’s a ploy to get you on the phone with a marketer – or possibly worse.
A robocall, about an individual order? Yes, it is a scam.
If you call them back, they will try to get you to pay for the package (which hasn’t really been shipped yet). Or, as you say, get credit card or bank information out of you so they can steal from you.
Even on the off chance that you do get a package of some sort, an unsolicited package sent through the mail is legally considered a gift. It’s yours, and you can do whatever you want with it, with no obligation to send it back or pay for it.
I’d place money on this being the answer. Time-Warner is a humongous corporation with many divisions, and if you call them back you are taken off the “do not call list” for every one of their divisions.
If there is a legitimate debt created as a result of this “transaction,” you can expect to receive a demand for payment via the mail within a few days to weeks.
I’d just wait for that. If it’s real, it’ll be explained in better detail in said mail.
Anyway, in general, never call people back that you don’t know. If they really need to get in contact with you, they’ll call you again. And if not, then you can safely forget it.
Isn’t this true only for a certain States? I know that this is the law in New York, but the unsolicited packages that I have received were from companies outside of New York. I know this because I called them up to tell them that what they were doing was illegal, but they told me that it was only illegal in New York and not in all the states.
If you want to play along and have an extra credit card that isn’t used, go ahead. Give them that, hang up then immediately call the 800 number and tell them you lost the card.
Well, you’re describing unsolicited packages being illegal, not being a gift. I don’t know anything about New York, so perhaps they are illegal, but I think the “unsolicited package = gift” rule is federal.
I cannot imagine it being any other way - how could you possibly have the right to force people to do things merely by mailing items at them?
Illegal in the sense that it would be illegal to make someone pay for an unsolicited package.
I think the rules might be different when you are already receiving merchandise from the company that you have ordered and then receive something you didn’t. That’s what happened to me. I called and told them it was illegal for them to do this and they replied that it was ok since they weren’t located in New York. Did they just flat out lie to me?
This needs to be emphasized - if you didn’t order it, you are under no legal or moral obligation to pay for it. In fact, you shouldn’t - by all appearances this is an attempted rip off, and they deserve to lose whatever they can.
No doubt they will try to talk you into paying for it, but you don’t have to, no matter what they say (and I expect they will try everything up to and including a threat to refer the case to a lawyer). They’re lying - laugh at them and hang up.
And don’t get your hopes up over your bonus, either - it is likely something you wouldn’t want anyway. No doubt it will have a card in it (if it ever arrives) saying that unless you call the company they will continue to send you stuff every other month, and that you should pay for that too. This can also be ignored.
My feeling is that you will not hear back from them, nor will you receive anything in the mail. They did some automated calling to see who would respond, and they will only mail out the cheap junk to those who call them back and sound like they might pay for it, or who sound like they can be intimidated.
Thanks everyone. I had already looked up the USPS Inspector General web site and confirmed that any unsolicited merchandise is mine to keep or dispose of or return. That is true regardless of state.
What made me pause was exactly what Avumede mentioned, remembering the old copier toner scan. I got to wondering if I DIDN’T call them back and dispute the “order” if that would be considered tacit consent or something and I’d be on the hook.
I had not imagined the call being a way around the Do Not Call list, so thanks for pointing that out Noone Special.
I’ll stick with my original, immediate reaction of NOT calling back and if anything shows up, it goes back Refused.
BTW applicable only to stuff sent through USPS. If someone sends via FedEx or UPS this won’t apply, but I’m not sure what the rules would be in that case. There was another thread about a Doper who received a check by UPS that appeared to be part of an elaborate scam, and the speculation was that the scammer used UPS to avoid a federal mail fraud charge if caught. (Sometimes that the easiest thing to prove, kind of like how Al Capone was in jail for tax evasion.)
