This was something that happened over a decade ago but always wondered about:
While I was an assistant manager at a big box store I oversaw the home delivery team. Our driver and helper had returned from making deliveries for the day when a customer called and wondered where their bigscreen tv was.
I checked the paperwork from the day and found that it had been delivered and signed for that day as scheduled.
To make a long story short, after talking to the delivery team and the customer it turns out that the driver seeing the address listed as eg.1110 W Lansing, took it to 1110 W Lansing Ave instead of the customer’s 1110 W Lansing Court.
The delivery team remembered the house. A lady answered the door, they said “we’re here to deliver your TV”, she said “okay”. They took it in, put it where she wanted it, she signed (scribbled) her name, and they left.
Since we had no contact info for who this person was the delivery team ran back to her home. Her husband was also home by that time.
They refused to give the tv back. When they asked her why she accepted delivery on something she never purchased she claimed “I had no idea if it was something my husband had bought.” The husband’s comments were “Too bad, your mistake, we’re keeping it.”
I ended up driving out there myself but this time they wouldn’t even answer the door. I saw them inside, they saw me outside, and they just ignored me.
So, I called the police department and had an officer meet me out there. This time they weren’t home and the house was dark. The cop went to a side window, shined his flashlight inside, and called me over to verify if that was the tv in their living room. Yep.
He told me there probably wasn’t much we could do about it legally but he’d come back tomorrow to talk with them and try to “convince” them to give it back.
I got a call the next day from the cop who said we had 30 minutes to come get the tv. I rode with the driver and when we got there the cop was gone. They let us take the tv but swore and cursed us up and down the whole time.
So was the cop right? If these people really stood their ground and refused to give it back would we have been out of luck? Would the cop’s hands have been tied?
Basically the TV was theirs if they chose to keep it. Not sure if the cop used an appeal to the couple’s better nature or intimidation, my guess would be the latter, although it would be an empty threat on charges of keeping the item. Odds are he’d be able to ding them for something else if they had dug in. Your car is parked facing the wrong way on the street, here’s a ticket for that. Your house number isn’t visible from the street, I’ll let code enforcement know… Basically if you get on the wrong side of a cop they can write you all kinds of nuisance tickets.
That applies when the item is mailed. If the women signed for the TV she was actively taking position of something that was not hers. I believe she would be liable just as if she bought it from a door to door salesman.
Unless I am mistaken, the law on unordered merchandise that the FTC site’s info is based on is 39 USC § 3009, which ony applies to things sent through the US Mail.
FWIW, the FTC rules were to protect people from companies that sent stuff to them without authorization, and then billed (outrageous prices, usually) them for the unordered merchandise.
Also FWIW, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the couple that was forced to return their “free” TV, even if it turns out that legally they didn’t have to.
The FTC article said that, if something is delivered by mistake, well…it’s not as clear as it may be. It says for the receiver to notify the sender to pick it up, which, in this case, the deliverer had done.
The signer is signing something that is for somebody else; it is a receipt for a delivery of a TV which had been paid for by somebody else, and, addressed to somebody else, I’m assuming. I think that this would be accepting something under false pretenses, or fraud, perhaps. (BTW, wouldn’t the delivery person have at least said “Mrs. X?”)
The USPS regulations also apply only to unsolicited items addressed to you. If you open and keep (instead of returning) something delivered to you but addressed to someone else (e.g. because the mail carrier put it in the wrong box) you’re committing a crime.
Several years ago I got on some godawful mailing list for romance novels. Included in each batch was a wine goblet.
I kept the goblet and donated the books to the library.
On another note, for a long time I was a member of the Stephen King Library, where they ship you his latest book for $18.18. After twenty odd years, I got a Kindle for Christmas and cancelled the membership (by mail or email, I can’t remember. But I did send a cancellation.)
They kept sending me books. I paid for Revival and sent them another cancellation notice. They sent me Finders Keepers and I refused to pay for it, reminding them I had cancelled, that I was allowed to keep anything sent to me via US mail, and by all means, if they wanted to keep sending me gifts I would keep accepting them. That ended that.
No. Those are only to protect dudes from companies that sent stuff to* them* without authorization. Not a mistake in delivery.
If you know it’s a mistake in delivery (you name is not on it is a big clue) then it’s stealing to keep it.
Is your name on it and you didnt order it? Then hold on to it (then keep or toss after a decent interval) or return it. But if your name is not on it, you can NOT keep it.
The moral thing was certainly to return it, but I"m not so sure it’s as cut & dried that it wasn’t addressed to them. It was addressed to their address, it just so happened there was someone else with the same address, due to sloppy work on the part of the shipper, leaving off the Ave/Ct from the 1110 W Lansing address.
Now that I’ve thought about it for awhile, I suspect that with the Ave/Ct thing in place, it can’t have been the first thing that was misdelivered between the two addresses. Not that I had any sympathy for them trying to hold on to it in the first place. ‘I’m doing it because I legally can’ just doesn’t fly.
Basically it says the delivery company wrongfully took the property and disposed of it improperly, therefore they have to make it right(that’s what the “bailee liable in trover” bit means). The actual recipient doesn’t factor into it.
I’m not saying people who keep misdelivered items are good people or right to do so, but barring a lower-level law which makes knowingly taking possession of misdelivered goods illegal, they haven’t committed a crime. Arizona has this clause in their definition of theft which MIGHT make it illegal, depending on if you tried to contact the intended recipient or misrepresented yourself to complete the delivery process.