We had the attempted delivery a package requiring a signature. We weren’t home and the Fedex guy left a form with a place for a signature. I could sign it and leave it in the door and he would leave the package the next day. There was no info on the form regarding the name of the intended recipient nor the sender. We were expecting a package of pretty low value so I signed the form and left it. The package was delivered while my other half was in the shower. Normally, she wouldn’t have been home but took the day off. She opened the box and it contained a new I Phone from Verizon. She then looked at the label and saw that, while it was our address, there was a different name on the box. There is no one in our town with the name on the box (at least according to the phone book). She called Verizon and got transferred to the Fraud Dept. They asked her to return the phone with the included return shipping label which she did. The said they would look into it but nothing more. Had she not been home it would have been easy for someone to snag the package that I had already signed for. It would then have been only my word that we never got the package. Is there some sort of common scam where people have things delivered to addresses where they know no one will be there to receive it? It doesn’t seem to make much sense unless its drugs or something. Even then its a pretty risky move since someone could be home to take delivery. We do have some shady neighbors who would have a clear idea of our normal schedules.
Hard to say, but it could possibly be credit card fraud where the criminal doesn’t want it delivered to their real address if the fraudulent charges have been reported. But that would be kind of stupid with an Iphone, since I’m pretty sure they can track down whoever is using that phone.
Are you in the habit of signing those delivery notices and leaving them on your door so that the UPS guy leaves the package at your doorstep? If so, it increases the chances that one of your shady neighbors might have noticed this and taken advantage. And if you are home and take delivery, they’ve got nothing to lose, since they didn’t pay for it.
Actually you could have kept it. You are not required to return or pay for unsolicited merchandise.
You say that your other half was in the shower when the package arrived. So it must have sat on your porch for a while before she got to it.
People do use fake addresses to have stuff delivered when they use stolen credit cards. But they then snatch up the stuff quickly. I doubt your other half would have had time to finish her shower, dry off, and get dressed before the thing was gone if it had been an actual professional thief.
That link references a law about unsolicited merchandise sent through the mail. Does the law apply to merchandise sent via Fedex or UPS?
My understanding (IANAL) is that the same principle enumerated in federal law for the USPS is covered by state laws for private shipping companies. § 3009 would be pretty meaningless if it could be circumvented just by using FedEx. It’s too easy a scam for the senders: ship some junk to people and then demand “payment” from anyone who doesn’t return it.
Just to pick some nits, the page you quote starts with “A company sends you a gift in the mail…” But it wasn’t sent to him – it was sent to the person whose name was on the package. Dewey Finn has also pointed out that it wasn’t sent by mail either.
But even if it had been sent by mail, the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 10th, and (conditionally) the 9th Circuits have held that keeping misaddressed mail is a crime. (The 3rd and 5th disagree.) See, for example, US v. Coleman, 196 F. 3d 83 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1999 I don’t know what similar law might apply to deliveries by private carriers.
It wasn’t their name on the box, which may make a difference - technically, legally you aren’t supposed to open anything with someone else’s name on it even if it has your address, so I doubt that claiming “it was sent to me, so it’s mine now” would work.
I also think you’d be pissed if your neighbor got your iPhone and refused to hand it over if the shipping address had a typo and was delivered to their house.
I’m betting good money it was ordered with a stolen or faked credit card and sent to an address they thought would be a good pickup site, but were dumb enough to not realize it’d need a signature - or thought they could intercept it before the actual drop-off.
Not necessarily. For all we know, it might have arrived while she was just finishing getting dressed, and she picked it up a minute later.
Verizon sent a similar package to my home, intended for the previous owner. They had moved 4 years prior to this and I had no new address. I called Verizon and they said I could send it back, but it turned out I would have to drive to a delivery center. I called Verizon to see if they wanted to authorize home pick up, but they declined. I threw out the merchandise.
I think the package was on the porch for only a couple of minutes. Even if we were allowed to keep it under the law, I wouldn’t. I’m just not one of those people who tries to get over on a technicality. Now, if Verizon said we’d have to pay shipping or it was really inconvenient to drop it off, that might be a different story. It seems like a lot of work (staking out our house to figure out our hours, knowing the Fedex schedule, assuming I’d sign the form - something I almost never do, hoping my cop neighbors don’t see them retrieving the package) to get an I phone when you could probably just steal one off the bar pretty easily.
Yea. Weird. I had same thing but for a music CD club. It showed up on my doorstep with my address but some other persons name. I was a good boy and called them and they said to return it. However, they refused to allow me/give me info on how to return it on their dime. I wasn’t going to pay to send it back so I kept them.
I love that law. I have 16 FedEx trucks, 42 UPS vehicles, several DHL trucks, and a fleet of pizza delivery cars in my back yard right now. While the drivers were finding out from Mrs. Devil that we weren’t the intended recipient of the truck they just left in our driveway …
I guess the “unsolicited merchandise” thing makes sense if the stuff is addressed to you but I don’t think any court is going to say that you can keep something delivered to you by accident.