Does the mode of delivery make any difference? E.g. post v. inter-state courier v. local courier v. taxi v. door-to-door-salesman?
I’ve pulled this old story out before, which comes from the book The Buffalo Creek Disaster:
A man went to his friend, an attorney, for advice. Company X, it seems, had sent him three neckties in the mail, along with a bill for $3 if he wanted to keep the ties. He had not ordered the ties, but he liked them; he just didn’t want to pay for them.
The attorney sent a letter back to Company X, along with a pill. The letter read, “Thank you for the ties. I have enclosed a pill that is highly recommended by a local doctor to cure all sorts of ailments. The pill is $8. Please send $5, the cost of the pill minus the cost of the ties.”
Company X sent the pill back, along with an angry demand for the original $3. The attorney sent another letter. “I’m sorry that you decided not to use the pill. The doctor was required to pick up the pill from the post office, for which he charges the same as a house call, which is $20. Please send $17, the cost of the house call minus the cost of the ties.”
Company X stopped sending letters.
This has its roots in a very old scam: someone would mail merchandise to people, then insist on payment (usually far more than the item was worth), and then threaten to sue to get their payment. The recipient was liable for it, too.
The Post Office (this predates the Postal Service) put an end to it by making a rule you can keep any unordered merchandise and not pay.
When I was a kid in the early '60s companies would send two or three greeting cards, unrequested, and tell you to sell them to your friends and send the money back, or order more to sell. This scam totally stopped once the rule went into effect.
But if I were the OP I’d check to be sure that she didn’t agree to something somewhere that resulted in asking for the book. In the old book club days you get books unless you refused them for that month, and that was different since you agreed to the terms by getting your starter books.
I remember the Reader’s Digest Book Club. They would offer a terrific bargain to get you to join, on condition you signed up for twelve monthly books. When you try to cancel at the end of the period, they keep sending them and demanding payment.
I had a friend who had a pile of 20 or 30 books stacked unopened in his spare room. They were there for years until he donated them to a charity shop, still unopened and not paid for. The demands for payment also kept going for years.
So he signed up, right? Not quite the same thing as books arriving out of the blue.
Fricken’ Cooks Illustrated…
Great recipes, generally (if you like a little overly fussy sometimes), but scummy scummy business practices.
And the cookbook was from Americas Test Kitchen. So I will probably fork over the damn postage and send it back.
Why on Earth will you send it back at your own expense? If they offer to pay return shipping, fine, but by sending it back to them gratis you’re just playing into the scumminess game.
At least in Canada and I suspect in the US and elsewhere (they seem to be international) Mouth and Foot Painting Artists still pulls that stunt, although they do include a letter in script (was going to say hand-written, but given the nature of the outfit it might be foot-written) that more or less says “You don’t HAVE to pay for this lovely sample of cards but we would appreciate it if you would pay or return them”. They also include an order form for ordering more with the suggested payment for the sample included as the first item. I never send any money back for the sample except for those very rare occasions when I actually want something else from their list. I suspect I probably order stuff just often enough to stay on their mailing list.
Their stuff is actually pretty good quality IMHO but I rarely need it and consider it very unethical marketing (so I am more than happy to take advantage of them because of that)
Nearly forgot - they also send at least one reminder letter asking for payment (but you don’t HAVE to!)
Because she suspects she may have ordered a book from them and, unwittingly, not unchecked a tiny little box barely visible in the bottom of the screen, that’s not referred to anywhere else, that says she agrees to join the cookbook of the month club. Which would obligate her to either pay for the book or return it.
If so, my advice is to call them up, yell and moan about getting sent this book, and stay mad until they agree to unjoin you from the club AND pay for the return postage. Or, decide that getting mad isn’t worth the return postage and just return the darn thing. But make sure you do get off the list in that case.
If you hadn’t opened the box you could just mark it return to sender. I don’t know if you can do that once you’ve opened the box.
Oh, no, Chris Kimball and crew are involved in this sort of scam? Say it ain’t so.
Someone in receipt of unsolicited goods might need to declare the goods to their place of work, as an anti-corruption / compliance measure. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for a company to send goods in the expectation that the recipient will not pay for the goods but then look favourably (in a nudge nudge wink sort of way) on that company in future dealings.
IME it was more “fine print” than scam. Scam-light maybe?