20 ms·

B.C. woman buried in Amazon packages she did not ask for and does not want

304 points by hnuser0000 3y ago

grecy 3y ago
She has plenty of documented evidence of UPS dumping trash on her doorstep, and refusing to stop when she expressly directs them to. Sounds like a great court case to me.
- geoffeg 3y ago
  A court case may not even be needed, sometimes a simple letter from a lawyer is all that it takes.
- pavon 3y ago
  For the unsigned CoD sure, but otherwise UPS has no way of knowing what packages are legitimate and which are not. Amazon is more culpable because they can track the return packing slips back to a seller, and have been notified of the issue, but apparently haven't resolved it. She could use discovery to demand that Amazon provide the seller's information, but chances are they are overseas and suing would be useless. So Amazon is really the party she needs to focus on here.
  - wccrawford 3y ago
    Sure they do. She told them to stop delivering packages. Period. None of them are legit after that.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      I wonder what the mechanism is for that, it seems obvious that you do NOT have to accept any and all packages from any company (maybe you do from the postal service/royal mail?) but how exactly do you formally tell them to bugger off? And is it a UPS yes/no or do they get more fine grained?
      - deleted 3y ago
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      - iinnPP 3y ago
        In Ontario we can post a sign that enables a trespassing law which is quite empowering to the property owner(see legal language for other options). Walmart uses(or used) the same law to enable their security guards to restrain people inside of their store.
    - ska 3y ago
      You can possibly get them to stop delivering to that address, but then you wouldn't be able to get any packages you actually wanted.
      - jjulius 3y ago
        I'd imagine that she knows that and isn't making her request lightly.
  - grecy 3y ago
    > but otherwise UPS has no way of knowing what packages are legitimate and which are not She very clearly has a sign on her door that says "UPS - DO NOT DELIVER ANY PACKAGES HERE". Surely at this point anything they leave on her doorstep is just them dumping trash.
seeknotfind 3y ago
Uh? They are addressed to her? She's opening them? Sell them! Profit! What's the issue here? Sounds great.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  > "It's easier and cheaper for the sellers to have [returned products] sent to this random address than having it sent to China," said Hothi. "It could be that the warehouse has asked the seller to remove their unsold products from fulfilment centres, or their contract is ending." Not everyone is motivated by financial gain. Also to resell garbage products is a full time job that many wouldn't find worthwhile...
  - damnesian 3y ago
    > It could be that the warehouse has asked the seller to remove their unsold products from fulfilment centres And probably the seller can claim them as "lost" and add them to operational losses. I would believe this, knowing what I know about the restaurant industry and their need to demonstrate "drawdown" to calculate losses.
- wccrawford 3y ago
  I wouldn't assume that "returned goods" can be sold at all, and UPS is charging her fees for some of the deliveries.
- _yb2s 3y ago
  These are shoes returned to a likely dishonest and fraudulent seller... if they had any value they wouldn't be dumping them on her like this. It's also possibly illegal for her to sell them.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    Apparently some sellers keep their stuff on amazon shelves. Amazon will sometimes charge a stocking fee or a fee to send the stuff back if your business goes belly up. So the sellers will just pick a victim and dump their whole inventory on them because it is cheaper to ship them out than to continue to keep them stocked at amazon. But that may be wrong so someone with better insight could correct me if I have this wrong. This could be a side effect of the way Amazon works with 3rd party.
clmay 3y ago
I'm not sure how things work up there, but in the US you can refuse any unopened package by taking it back to the nearest carrier facility and telling them you refuse it. This applies whether the package was dropped off or handed directly to you, signed for, taken into possession, or not. If the original seal is intact, the carrier must accept the refusal. It's unfortunate that she opened any of them, because now the above doesn't apply and she probably technically took on some legal risk/liability by doing so. Usually just because a package has been misdelivered, but you still know it's not for you, you still haven't gained the right to open it. Still, hopefully someone will help her find a way out of her predicament.
- stuff4ben 3y ago
  > Usually just because a package has been misdelivered, but you still know it's not for you, you still haven't gained the right to open it. Not true. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-billed-things-you-never-got-or-you-get-unordered-products https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-billed-th... By law, companies can’t send unordered merchandise to you, then demand payment. That means you never have to pay for things you get but didn’t order. You also don’t need to return unordered merchandise. You’re legally entitled to keep it as a free gift.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    If it's addressed to you, then yes. But if the mail carrier mistakenly delivers you a package addressed to someone else, you don't automatically get to keep it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - chungy 3y ago
    It's worth noting that the article is about a Canadian woman. Given that both the US and Canada have legal systems originating in Britain, there's a great deal of commonality in the legal code, but what the FTC says about US law does not necessarily apply to Canada. All that said, the spirit of the law the FTC is citing is something reasonable enough I do imagine Canada has something similar. Just don't quote me on that.
hattmall 3y ago
Just put them in the trash or donate. UPS has no validity in the bill, just ignore it. They can't send it to collections or anything.
- Marsymars 3y ago
  > They can't send it to collections or anything. Yes they can. It's not a valid debt, but they can certainly sell it to a collections company.
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    You are however free to ignore the collections attempts, and explaining the situation to them should cause them to drop it (my - admittedly very few - experiences with collections agencies all ended up with them dropping the debt once it was made clear to them it is not valid and that they got effectively scammed by whoever sold them the debt).
  - adamredwoods 3y ago
    I don't know how it goes in Canada, but in the US it is very easy to send someone to collections, and very difficult to dispute it. If anyone wants to start a company, make one that disputes collections on behalf of consumers. I'm sure there will be plenty of people to pay monthly for such a service. https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/credit-counseling/bad-credit/how-to-dispute-a-debt-with-creditors-collectors-reporting-bureaus/ https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/credit-counseling/bad-c...
    - bluGill 3y ago
      That depends on the level of collections. The first level for people who are likely to pay. Some doctors send all bills to collections for example - nearly everyone knows they need to pay the bill and will pay it, and the collectors need to be polite about this so the doctor keeps sending bills their way. The levels after that though are for people who either can't pay, or won't pay and you get the jerks of the collections business here because that is your best chance of getting you to pay.
tacker2000 3y ago
My guess is some scammy third party seller just chose a random US address as a their “return” address, since Amazon forces every seller to provide one.
- iinnPP 3y ago
  B.C. is British Columbia in Canada. Article is from our state sponsored media, which occasionally does some great consumer protection work. I assume the rest of your guess is correct though.
  - katbyte 3y ago
    *state funded.
    - iinnPP 3y ago
      My view is that CBC receives more than just funding from our government. Bill C-18 being a prime example. Sorry to derail. I believe the context is important and not generally well-known.
      - katbyte 3y ago
        That’s why I pointed out it is state funded, not sponsored, or neither an arm of the government as many would say it is
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > They were sent by people across North America who intended to return them to the Amazon seller, with each box containing a return authorization slip to her address Also in the video she states what the parcel has her name, address and her old telephone number... which is out of service for forty years. So yeah.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  Did you read the article?
Joker_vD 3y ago
...I was sure they check the return address at the border/customs crossing but apparently not? Does that mean that person X can send mail to person Y simply by putting the Y's address as the return address and then sending to some closely located non-existent address (so that the post office there would rebound it)?
- wvenable 3y ago
  All these packages contain Amazon return slips -- they are product returns not return mail. They were sent her directly by customers trying to return the product to the original seller. When you want to return an Amazon purchase, Amazon gives you a return address label that you can print and attach to the package. In this case, that return label had this person's name and address.
stephencoyner 3y ago
My parents had the exact same issue. They kept getting packages meant for a random person they didn't know, but addressed to their home. Lots of cheap, random products like $20 massage guns. They contacted Amazon and they said "nothing we can do, enjoy the stuff." Pretty odd that they can't even message the person and tell them what's happening. It all ended up in the trash or given away.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  "Nothing we can do, enjoy disposing of mountains of garbage at your own expense!"
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - deleted 3y ago
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  - hedora 3y ago
    You could always just wait till you have a vanload full of amazon leavings, and then dump it at the customer service desk of your local whole foods on a Saturday afternoon...
  - ASalazarMX 3y ago
    I'm sure Amazon (or the scummy vendor) could open a waitlist for people who want to receive free random stuff for a week, and they could find plenty of volunteers. I'm also sure this also would be against some Amazon policy that supposedly prevents fraud, but just produces waste as a sideproduct of fraud.
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      Yes, they could, and they'd have people lined up around the block to sign up. But that's vastly different from just dumping a bunch of garbage on someone's porch.
    - 3y ago
RandomGerm4n 3y ago
Here in Germany, something similar happened to my neighbor. He always rejected the packages but sometimes they left them in the stairwell. At first, he took them to a drop-off station but at some point, he went to ignore them completely. After half a year, this led to the stairwell being full of unopened packages until someone threw them on the street. As a result, he then received a bill from the city cleaning service. I sadly don't know what happened after that because I moved away.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Fittingly Kafkaesque
bigmattystyles 3y ago
Is the Canadian Better Business Bureau more legit than the entity in the US named Better Business Bureau? I kinda rolled my eyes when I got to where the article mentioned BBB, but maybe the Canadian one is more legitimate. And if I'm wrong about the US BBB, let me know, but from what I've read it's closer to pay for praise than a true consumer advocate. (edit) Apparently they're now effectively the same entity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau Kind of odd to quote the BBB in the article then -
- version_five 3y ago
  I'm canadian and I've always assumed they are a scam. Anything "BBB accredited" is a red flag to me, but it's more just folk knowledge, I don't have any first hand experience.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Anything "BBB accredited" is a red flag to me There’s a signalling theory basis to this [1]. The BBB is a cheap signal, not a costly one, so it comes across as “trust me! I’m trustworthy! Look, I gave a bit of money to the trustworthy business people!” That is, it’s not a genuine signal of trustworthiness, so any effort expended on this signal may actually backfire: people might question why the business needs to send this signal in the first place. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)
    - dfxm12 3y ago
      On the topic of cheap signalling, a very long time ago, I was out to dinner with a friend. She was excited to try the place out, but as it turned out, the restaurant was pretty disappointing. "But it says 'Zagat rated' in the window!", she said. I pointed out that they didn't have the actual score in the window & just because they rated it doesn't mean they rated it well...
    - asgdnionio 3y ago
      [dead]
glonq 3y ago
"Woman receives dozens of pairs of free shoes" does not sound like a problem. It sounds like an opportunity. Finders keepers.
- ke88y 3y ago
  Unlikely. The packages are being sent to her because the fraudster sellers don't want to bother with them. The value of the shoes is likely not worth her time (else it would've been worth the seller's time -- the margins here are not huge). And to make matters worse, she's being charged for the shipping: > She says couriers have also abandoned packages on her porch, denying her the opportunity to refuse them. It has also resulted in more than $300 worth of Collect-on-Delivery (COD) customs charges from the United Parcel Service (UPS). The bills are mailed to her by the delivery company.
- warent 3y ago
  Hmm maybe you didn't read the article, she's being charged by customs for the imports. Also, she doesn't want this stuff. It's not free shoes it's forced trash.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Wonder if she can charge customs back? Like maybe a processing fee or something. These abandoned goods shouldn't be her problem, except customs is insisting on her dealing with it.
- zackmorris 3y ago
  Ya it's crazy how far the US has fallen in terms of entrepreneurial spirit. In almost any other country, a continuous supply of resources like that would provide an independent income stream on eBay. And the products are already packaged! It's like how we used to have victory gardens and plant fruit/nut trees and eat chestnuts from trees growing like weeds before they succumbed to blight in the early 1900s. Now all we have are ornamental pear trees that smell like rotten undergarments. Because free food would encourage homelessness or whatever. Edit: woman lives in Canada, but I think my point still stands.
alibarber 3y ago
The customs charges bit is interesting because I don't really understand where they (as in UPS) stand on this. I'm sure they're adding their own 'convenience' fee on top of the actual VAT or whatever they are collecting for the government too - but they don't have a contract with her to do this, so why do they expect her to pay it? The sender is the one who has contracted and paid UPS to deliver the parcel, but if this lady wants nothing to do with it - what are they trying to bill her for? I understand they have paid the government tax on her behalf, but she didn't ask for them to do so. Surely by this logic, anyone in the world could bankrupt anyone else in any country other than their own by mailing a brick that they declare to be worth millions to the unlucky recipient?
- jmspring 3y ago
  Customs charges are an interesting thing. I had some stuff sent from Amazon US to myself in Finland back in the early 2000s. The package didn't arrive, they sent me another. That one showed up. About a month later, I got a notification from customs wanting duty on the original package. It wasn't much, I ended up with 2x of the items. Called Amazon, told them what was up, and they said just keep it. (Amazon customer service was much different back then). In another instance, I bought an expensive item off EBay from Italy. It was sent, forms had to be filed with FedEx for import, etc. A few month later the Franchise Tax Board in California was all - "hey we want our cut (use tax)". It took a bit of time to track down, but I finally got a hold of a person and pointed out that the purchase was off ebay and sales tax was paid. I had to send the proof so of such. At this point they had already assessed penalties. With the proof it all went away, but the government does want their cut.=
  - 0xffff2 3y ago
    I assume in the latter case the item was coming from Italy to you in California, not from Italy to you in Finland? If it was the latter case that would make for a truly bizarre story.
    - jmspring 3y ago
      Yes, sorry it was CA.
jkubicek 3y ago
What is the legality of leaving your stuff on someone else's property? Unwanted UPS packages, phone books, door tags for the local Chinese restaurant, "newspapers" that are actually just all advertising, landscaping business cards weight down with rocks. This is all trash; how are people able to legally dump it in my driveway? Is it actually illegal but such small stakes that nobody ever gets the proper authorities involved? Is there some loophole in the law that allows you to dump your junk on someone else porch if it's filled with ads?
- deleted 3y ago
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- bluGill 3y ago
  That will depend. Littering is a separate area of laws from mail. And this is in Canada which will have different laws. There is also customs involved here which is another tricky area. In the US if it is addressed to you, then it is yours to do with as you like, but if it is addressed to someone else (and misdelivered) you have to make it available to the intended receiver.
- ke88y 3y ago
  > Is it actually illegal but such small stakes that nobody ever gets the proper authorities involved? In the USA: Basically yes, but with various incantations required depending on the state to make it illegal. The "too small stakes" part is uniform. In my state, in the USA, it's technically abandoned property the moment it's left and you don't need to post a sign or make an attempt at contacting the owner. After a certain amount of time, with reasonable attempts to give notice, you can start charging storage fees. The law is written to work best for things like abandoned cars or furniture in mind, not nuisance mail, but there's jurisprudence establishing that there was broad legislative intent. The door tag thing might even fly. But for something like a door tag, damages would never be worth the filing fees even after hundreds of years of storage. It would have to be a real "fuck you" move because damages would be like hundredths of a cent against mid 2 figure filing fees. In this case I think the subject of the article would actually have a case and real damages, in the USA, in my state. But more importantly: the business owner has to either show up in small claims or pay a lawyer to do so. It's certainly a way to get a company to cut shit out for the cost of a filing fee, even if damages awarded are trivial. And in this case I think a judge would be very sympathetic.
dbg31415 3y ago
Hire a lawyer to write a demand letter. Amazon legal will fix this.
Brian_K_White 3y ago
I remember TV ads in the 70's or maybe 80's that were PSA from the US government, where the entire message was "if you receive something unsolicited in the mail, you own it and do not owe anyone anything" They featured an Eskimo in the middle of a frozen nowhere opening a package that turns out to be an electric fan. He says "gee. Thanks!" Like what happened to that? I also don't know why they ran those ads. They must have been expensive (or maybe not, maybe the government back then could just commandeer them), so presumably there must have been some kind of popular scam they were trying to fight.
- bluGill 3y ago
  This is in Canada not the US, so I don't know how laws are different. In the US if it is addressed to you - which these seem to be - then it is yours to keep or dispose of as you will. However customs charges are not a part of law that I know anything about, that is a weird area where the law may not even be clear who owes. Amazon often delivers a neighbor's package (neighbor lives a mile away, so not an easy delivery to make for us) to our house. However since these are address to the neighbor and just misdirected we do not own them and have to help the neighbor get them. (a few times we called amazon and they said "just keep it", then they became ours, but now the neighbor just drops by) I have updated both addresses in OSM, so hopefully this will stop, along with friends trying to visit us actually getting to our house.
  - RetroTechie 3y ago
    > However customs charges are not a part of law that I know anything about, (..) I'm no lawyer, but afaik customs charges are owed by party that does the importing. This may be eg. Amazon's customer, with Amazon just doing the warehouse/shipping part. It may also be that Amazon imports on customer's behalf, or does the importing itself. Either way, woman in the article would not be liable for customs duties (or any other shipping charges / fees for that matter), because she's not Amazon's customer here. She didn't ask Amazon to import anything on her behalf. Or arranged import herself using Amazon. Yeah, her name may be on the label. Yeah, she may have a (dormant) account with Amazon. But for all those packages mentioned in the article, there's no legal agreement between her & Amazon. Or between her & original seller. Or between her & shipper that brought the goods across international border. So how on earth would she be liable for custom charges for "importing" anything? She didn't. Legally speaking, that would leave her as innocent bystander, that just happens to be where delivery person dumped a package. In her shoes (no pun intended ;-), I'd just let this go to court & see judge move the charges to Amazon. Maybe Amazon would fix the problem if it turns into a recurring-costs issue.
JJMcJ 3y ago
For the customs charges she should ask for help from a legislator's office. Canadian equivalent of most senior Senator. A call from a major public official works wonders in getting companies to see sense.
- bpye 3y ago
  In Canada it would be your local MP or MLA - depending on if it’s a federal or provincial issue.
  - JJMcJ 3y ago
    So the Canadian Federal Senate doesn't have the clout that the U.S. Senate does?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Brian_K_White 3y ago
And I thought it was outrageous that no way for me to stop this trash advertising newspaper van from dumping their paper on my driveway twice a week every week for the last 15 years. There is essentially one out there, all water logged usually, at all times. I pick them up and throw them away, and the next day it's back. Years ago a few times I waited and watched and confronted the guy when he actually showed up, I almost got beat up! Mexican couple and the guys wife had to hold him back from getting them I into trouble). I tried calling an office number found on the paper itself several times. I did get a person, who said "ok", which resulted in nothing. They even asked if I rent and tried to say that if I rent, then I don't own the property, and so can't make the demand. It's a small thing but it's ultimately somehow just ridiculous that there is no way to stop someone from dumping some trash on my property, short of moving to a gated community which is nine thousand times worse than this "trash tattoo". It just boggles my mind that even if you decided to expend the effort, it turns out there is nothing you can do. Sue the paper company? For what damages? What court would waste 8 minutes on something like that? Anyway my point was "and I though that was outrageous"
- 93po 3y ago
  I mean theoretically this is littering, and theoretically police should stop people from littering. But I agree this would basically never happen.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > I mean theoretically this is littering, and theoretically police should stop people from littering. The police (and public prosecutors) have no duty to stop anything, and are in theory free to prioritize their efforts against illegal activity anyway they want so long as they don’t violate, e.g., anti-discrimination law in how they do. And, in practice, they are free to prioritize even more freely than that. Of course, leaving unwanted material on someone else’s property is also the tort of trespass to land, so if you can identify the tortfeasor you can act directly against them rather than trying to convince public authorities to prioritize prosecution of the offense.
m463 3y ago
Too bad canada doesn't have the law that the US has - it says any package sent to you that you did not request is yours free and clear. https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revision_072019_tech_021.htm https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revi...
- steezeburger 3y ago
  That isn't the issue here. UPS is charging her for customs. And why would she want to keep hundreds of pairs of shoes? Who knows if they even fit!
  - alanwreath 3y ago
    To resell
water9 3y ago
[flagged]
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  > Most women I know would consider this the blessing of a lifetime. Most women you know want a mountain of boxes of clothes & shoes that are probably not their size nor their preferred style?
  - water9 3y ago
    Glad you don't know my mother
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      Most women you know are your mother?
      - water9 3y ago
        Don't judge me.
  - water9 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      Most women that you know live in third-world countries?
- altairprime 3y ago
  Have you confirmed that belief with then?
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    He has binders full of women he has confirmed this with.
teawrecks 3y ago
I thought the point of COD was that you didn't get the package until you paid the fee.
- water9 3y ago
  Yea the article is complete bullshit because it makes no sense
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    UPS does it anyway. Might even charge you an advance fee for the “benefit” of prepaying the taxes and import duties on your behalf. She’s in Canada and it sounds like the packages were from US.
    - water9 3y ago
      So can I charge UPS the same fee. Can I charge you that fee? Because if so get your wallet out
- xenadu02 3y ago
  UPS official policy says they won't deliver without collecting the payment (though they can't verify the payment is valid) but in reality sometimes drivers do it anyway. UPS doesn't really have a procedure in their system for handling this or if they do most employees have no clue. The best bet is to take it to a service center and talk to a manager there. Let them know you refused COD (or the package was sent unsolicited) and that you are refusing delivery. Tossing it on your doorstep does not count as accepting the delivery, they just do that because it is cheaper for them. If you want to game the system sign up for MyUPS so you get advance notice of all deliveries to you. Then when these unknown packages show up bound for you reject them immediately. That goes into the computer sorting system and can often get the package pulled before it even reaches your local service center.
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  Unless processing fees are limited by law, shipping companies gladly pay customs fees at a border so they can then collect more money from the recipient. Whether or not they demand COD or ever deliver that package, they want that money.
water9 3y ago
This article is written and posted by someone with no sense of logic what so ever. Would really love the OP to explain the full process of profiting from this because the guide is basically: 1) Collect shoes 2) ??? 3) Profit. Nothing about this story makes any sense.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  > Nitu said she has lost sleep trying to make the packages stop coming, and so far she's accrued Collect-On-Delivery customs charges from UPS that now exceed $300. > "I refused to pay, and the dispute with UPS is still ongoing," Nitu said. "They're completely unreasonable. I tried to explain the situation and they were not nice, let's put it that way." Every Canadian hates it when someone sends them a UPS ground package internationally without taxes/duties prepaid.
  - kwanbix 3y ago
    Just reject them. Can't you?
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      You're actually standing on your doorstep 24x7, to make sure no delivery people just leave packages?
      - kwanbix 3y ago
        Well, I work from home myself, so most of the time I can.
- dwroberts 3y ago
  Nowhere does it say anyone is profiting. Unscrupulous sellers are disposing of items they don’t want by sending them to a random address so they can avoid (more expensive) fees for them returning to their origin
  - 3y ago
legitster 3y ago
> The Better Business Bureau (BBB) told CBC that it sounded like a vendor-return scheme that's common in the US but rarer in Canada, where foreign sellers dodge fees associated with storing and shipping return items by sending the items anywhere but their own addresses. So someone is dropshipping products from China. Because they are not fulfilled by Amazon, they would have to pay return shipping to... probably nowhere useful in China. So the seller says "screw it!" and just tells customers to ship their crappy returns to an address they pull out of a hat. Am I understanding the scam correctly? Would it not be pretty easy to at least figure out the seller responsible?
- cyanydeez 3y ago
  Knowing Amazon, they probably queried the address and it came up to a bunch of sellers who equate to some product owners annual bonus and are probably a single entity gaming the system by having multiple accounts with fake brands.
- deleted 3y ago
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- lolinder 3y ago
  That's how I understood it, but then at the end she said this, which makes it sound like someone hacked her Amazon account and turned it into a seller account: > Nitu says the deliveries were tied to her dormant Amazon account. > "I don't know what Amazon is allowing them to do because they got a hold of my name, my address and my old phone number," she said.
- nulltype 3y ago
  A similar thing actually happened to me. I was receiving a small package (probably a phone case) about once every few weeks while living in a rental house. The seller had put my address as their address, so all undeliverable mail came to my house. I brought a bag full of these packages to the post office, explained the situation and gave them the packages. The entire pile of packages ended up back at my house a few days later. I found the seller on Amazon and messaged them: ——— Me: I haven't ordered anything from you. I have received 6 packages that you sent but ended up at my house because the return address that you used is my address, not your address. Could you use a different return address? Seller: Dear nulltype, We're sorry about this, we can't change the address at the moment because of the cumbersome policies on Amazon, but we'll change it when we have a new production facility. Please forgive us. You are free to use the packages. Sincerely, ———- The packages continued to arrive after this.
notnmeyer 3y ago
when life hands you lemons, open a shoe store?
bmitc 3y ago
This is like the computer saying no after it said yes even though no one ever asked it to say yes in the first place. Not even that long ago, you could probably place a call and speak to a human who knew how to stop this, or it possibly wouldn't have ever happened. Amazon should be held legally responsible and pay for the customs fees as well as for her stress induced by this.
can16358p 3y ago
How can they leave something unsolicited to their propery and demand a delivery fee for it? Seriously, how on Earth is that even legal?
- papercrane 3y ago
  It's not legal. Canada has a negative option billing law that says they need your express consent to charge you.
  - userbinator 3y ago
    Nor in the US either, for the same reason of preventing a once-common scam of sending unsolicited goods to someone and then asking them to pay for it.
bigcloud1299 3y ago
Sharing some experience.
bigcloud1299 3y ago
Sharing some experience. When hackers steal credit cards and want to verify if it’s working or blocked they also do something similar. Another pattern I have seen is that hackers order multiple items for a seller (retailer website) and have them delivered to multiple addresses over time where they don’t live and don’t care for the item. They however order an item that they want to a address which they can access. This throws off security and police as there is no pattern for machines to track and police don’t have resources to go to all addresses for checking.
- stOneskull 3y ago
  i guess for the next order, it has to be a completely new set of addresses?
  - bigcloud1299 3y ago
    Doesn’t matter cause still not a huge pattern to be able to figure out and limited resources.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
It... it's Canada. You can refuse deliveries and they just go back to the sender. That's how that works. Why did she accept them if she didn't order things? Because UPS sure as hell doesn't deliver anything that hasn't had the import duties and taxes paid first (source: me, several times because the phone number their automated system calls you from gets flagged as a spam number).
- mcyukon 3y ago
  Not sure who's delivering them to in this instance but here in the Yukon Territory, Amazon has contracted a private company to deliver their parcels. I have them on video just throwing a delivery over the chain link fence at our business at 8PM. Previously our Canada Post office handled them, which would have allowed someone to refuse the parcel.
  - TheRealPomax 3y ago
    Packages with taxes on duties on them must have those paid before delivery happens. If it's a "normal" delivery then sure, you might end up with a pile of boxes, but that doesn't seem to be quite the case here.
- ke88y 3y ago
  The article specifically states that UPS delivered without contacting her and when she wasn't home, and then sent her the bill.
  - TheRealPomax 3y ago
    As someone in Canada who's had UPS refuse to deliver due to outstanding import fees: something's fishy about that claim.
    - rcxdude 3y ago
      The carriers are inconsistent in this policy: I've experienced both situations.
windowshopping 3y ago
I originally parsed this as "[B.C Woman = Woman from Before Christ] [buried = laid to rest] in [Amazon = rainforest].....packages she did not ask for" and REALLY had to re-read it carefully.
- ke88y 3y ago
  Same. I sometimes wonder if in these cases it's a cultural/not-intended-audience thing (USA brain vs CAD brain top-1 expansion of B.C.), or objectively bad writing, or intentional.
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    Probably a cultural thing. As a resident of B.C I parsed that bit intuitively, but the "buried in" bit seemed like some sort of literal warehouse mishap, because we do have at least 1 fulfillment center here. I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia. I’ve lived in Australia my whole life, never been to Canada, etc - and yet I immediately assumed “B.C” meant “British Columbia”. It just seemed like the most likely expansion in the context (looks like a news headline, posted on a North American website). Although a bit like you, my initial parse of the sentence was that she was crushed to death in a warehouse accident, it took me a couple of seconds to realise it was more likely meant figuratively
      - brailsafe 3y ago
        Australia and B.C do have somewhat of a kinship though
        skissane 3y ago
skeeter2020 3y ago
I tried to return some clothing purchased on Ebay that was supposed to be equivalent of a Men's XL but was child-sized. The seller strung me along and the return address was random parts of Canadian locales strung together, like "Toronto, New Brunswick" with a postal code in BC. eBay kept saying "you have to use the return address" while the seller kept offering small but increasing refunds if I'd cancel my compaint (yeah sure). It took weeks but I eventually got all my money back. It was obvious this was an overseas seller who never intended to accept returns, but eBay obviously didn't care.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  The way to do "returns" on eBay goes like this: - Open a "not as described" case against the seller - When they say you should return it, ask them for a prepaid label to do the return, which is your right, never pay to return it yourself, especially if they claim they will refund your costs (they won't) - When they invariably don't give you the return label, or a refund, or something else to your satisfaction, raise it with eBay (after the requisite number of days), who will refund your purchase - keep, donate or destroy the product
  - PNewling 3y ago
    >When they say you should return it, ask them for a prepaid label to do the return, which is your right Which countries does this apply to? (Story is about Canada, but wonder if this is true in the US as well)
    - ornornor 3y ago
      I think this is a visa/MasterCard rule as in if any of these steps fail it’s a slam dunk chargeback.
      - maccard 3y ago
        Performing a chargeback against eBay will get your account closed pretty quickly.
dTal 3y ago
Wait, this sounds oddly familiar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19516868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19516868
atum47 3y ago
I never really liked Amazon but i thought they had their shit together. Bought a pretty expensive shower with them and it didn't arrived for a week. Went to the website to track the order and it said someone else had received. They provide the name of the person who signed the deliver but no document no nothing. So, someone out there has a beautiful new shower while i need to go buy another one in another store and wait again for it to get here.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Did you contact customer support for a refund? If you never received it, then they screwed up, and in my experience it's very painless to get Amazon to issue a refund for things like this.
  - serf 3y ago
    ...unless it was a third party seller ... or hazardous to ship ... or shipped via a third party delivery group etc etc etc. Amazon told me walk about and contact different people around my neighborhood when UPS dropped a refrigerator off at the wrong house. (let's nevermind that I use a wheelchair in an area with zero accessibility; blindly knocking on doors is dangerous.) It took weeks of coercion from both myself and the manufacturer before Amazon lifted a finger; meanwhile the manufacturer themselves sent me out a unit for the sake of providing some kind of justice. During the same period Amazon shipped me a quart of boat varnish that I had ordered. It arrived smashed in half with the entire contents spilled out of the cardboard box, obviously ran over or some such, presumably leaving its' contents all over the delivery vehicle. When confronted with pictures of the event they said "Oh , our apologies, but we offer no refund or guarantees on chemical/industrial purchases or deliveries that require hazardous shipments." Lesson learned : don't buy Amazon.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - atum47 3y ago
    Yep, they gave me the refund. I was disappointed because i kinda needed the shower.
maxbond 3y ago
This seems like a business opportunity. You can charge sellers to accept their returns, and then list them on Amazon or eBay and get paid twice.
chaostheory 3y ago
This is yet another reason I try not to buy from sketchy 3rd parties on Amazon. It’s getting harder and harder to shop at Amazon. Walmart is no better because they are copying Amazon’s worst practice. We’ve been slowly transitioning our purchases to Target and other retailers where there are either little to no 3rd party sellers
ta8645 3y ago
It really sucks that these shipping companies can act as customs brokers without the consent of the recipient. They rack up huge fees for this "service". They should be required to get an agreement or rejection before proceeding. Why should this woman be responsible for these fees she never agreed to in the first place? Why should anyone?
_8j50 3y ago
I will forever be confounded by people that get free stuff and then try to find ways for it to cost them something. If you are literally handed stuff free of charge, like... keep it or sell it? This isn't finding a lost item, this is an item being sent to your address explicitly! No law or moral violation in that. Even if I was filthy rich I would try to profit from this. Even if it was an accident, packages get lost or damaged all the time, what is your compensation for the time you spend fighting to send them back their stuff?
fatbird 3y ago
I'm not sure if the law is the same in Canada, but in the U.S., you are not legally liable for something you receive by failing to refuse delivery. This is a law put in place to protect businesses (or anyone) from being shipped something expensive that they didn't order, and then being sent an invoice, and on failing to pay the invoice, getting sued for non-payment because they have the item in their possession. In the 90s, this was commonly done with cheaply printed multi-volume business directories that would invoice for thousands of dollars. Aside from the customs charge fight with UPS, where she's absolutely in the right, I don't understand why this is causing her stress. If she's a bogus return address, then no one is coming to get the items and there's no expectation on her to do anything in particular with the items. She can keep what she likes and throw out the rest.
someidiot123 3y ago
[flagged]
mistyvales 3y ago
This is Dick calling from UPS. Hey, I’ve been trying to bring a box to your, uh, place, there, for the last three days but you guys are making so much noise you don’t hear me! I need a credit card payment on this thing: C.O.D. $242.
- TeffenEllis 3y ago
  My name's Trinidad, I'm with UPS. And I've been trying to do a delivery here, uh, since Friday and no one's picked up, or answered the door bell. It’s Tasmanian Syrup, on dry ice…
piuantiderp 3y ago
How is BC or the gender relevant?
whirlwin 3y ago
Just re-sell the products on Craigslist?
WentFullRetard 3y ago
[dead]
sfn42 3y ago
When I was around 19 I received a phone call offering me a free sample of underwear. No strings attached, I specifically asked if I would have to cancel a subscription and they said no, it's just a free sample. I could subscribe if I wanted to. So I receive my free package of boxers and socks and lo and behold next month I receive another with a bill. I actually liked them so I paid for a while and then I called in and canceled when I felt like I had enough underwear. They kept sending them. I sent an email canceling, they kept sending them. So I sent another email saying that if they send me more stuff I'll consider it a gift and keep it. They kept sending for a few months and eventually stopped. Never even heard from any collections agencies. If I had I figured I'd just show them my emails canceling the service.
lloydatkinson 3y ago
After a while it’s time to sell a few.

304 points by hnuser0000 3y ago

She has plenty of documented evidence of UPS dumping trash on her doorstep, and refusing to stop when she expressly directs them to. Sounds like a great court case to me.

geoffeg 3y ago
A court case may not even be needed, sometimes a simple letter from a lawyer is all that it takes.
pavon 3y ago
For the unsigned CoD sure, but otherwise UPS has no way of knowing what packages are legitimate and which are not. Amazon is more culpable because they can track the return packing slips back to a seller, and have been notified of the issue, but apparently haven't resolved it. She could use discovery to demand that Amazon provide the seller's information, but chances are they are overseas and suing would be useless. So Amazon is really the party she needs to focus on here.
- wccrawford 3y ago
  Sure they do. She told them to stop delivering packages. Period. None of them are legit after that.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I wonder what the mechanism is for that, it seems obvious that you do NOT have to accept any and all packages from any company (maybe you do from the postal service/royal mail?) but how exactly do you formally tell them to bugger off? And is it a UPS yes/no or do they get more fine grained?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - iinnPP 3y ago
      In Ontario we can post a sign that enables a trespassing law which is quite empowering to the property owner(see legal language for other options). Walmart uses(or used) the same law to enable their security guards to restrain people inside of their store.
  - ska 3y ago
    You can possibly get them to stop delivering to that address, but then you wouldn't be able to get any packages you actually wanted.
    - jjulius 3y ago
      I'd imagine that she knows that and isn't making her request lightly.
- grecy 3y ago
  > but otherwise UPS has no way of knowing what packages are legitimate and which are not She very clearly has a sign on her door that says "UPS - DO NOT DELIVER ANY PACKAGES HERE". Surely at this point anything they leave on her doorstep is just them dumping trash.

seeknotfind 3y ago

Uh? They are addressed to her? She's opening them? Sell them! Profit! What's the issue here? Sounds great.

thenerdhead 3y ago
> "It's easier and cheaper for the sellers to have [returned products] sent to this random address than having it sent to China," said Hothi. "It could be that the warehouse has asked the seller to remove their unsold products from fulfilment centres, or their contract is ending." Not everyone is motivated by financial gain. Also to resell garbage products is a full time job that many wouldn't find worthwhile...
- damnesian 3y ago
  > It could be that the warehouse has asked the seller to remove their unsold products from fulfilment centres And probably the seller can claim them as "lost" and add them to operational losses. I would believe this, knowing what I know about the restaurant industry and their need to demonstrate "drawdown" to calculate losses.
wccrawford 3y ago
I wouldn't assume that "returned goods" can be sold at all, and UPS is charging her fees for some of the deliveries.
_yb2s 3y ago
These are shoes returned to a likely dishonest and fraudulent seller... if they had any value they wouldn't be dumping them on her like this. It's also possibly illegal for her to sell them.
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  Apparently some sellers keep their stuff on amazon shelves. Amazon will sometimes charge a stocking fee or a fee to send the stuff back if your business goes belly up. So the sellers will just pick a victim and dump their whole inventory on them because it is cheaper to ship them out than to continue to keep them stocked at amazon. But that may be wrong so someone with better insight could correct me if I have this wrong. This could be a side effect of the way Amazon works with 3rd party.

clmay 3y ago

I'm not sure how things work up there, but in the US you can refuse any unopened package by taking it back to the nearest carrier facility and telling them you refuse it. This applies whether the package was dropped off or handed directly to you, signed for, taken into possession, or not. If the original seal is intact, the carrier must accept the refusal. It's unfortunate that she opened any of them, because now the above doesn't apply and she probably technically took on some legal risk/liability by doing so. Usually just because a package has been misdelivered, but you still know it's not for you, you still haven't gained the right to open it. Still, hopefully someone will help her find a way out of her predicament.

stuff4ben 3y ago
> Usually just because a package has been misdelivered, but you still know it's not for you, you still haven't gained the right to open it. Not true. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-billed-things-you-never-got-or-you-get-unordered-products https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-billed-th... By law, companies can’t send unordered merchandise to you, then demand payment. That means you never have to pay for things you get but didn’t order. You also don’t need to return unordered merchandise. You’re legally entitled to keep it as a free gift.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  If it's addressed to you, then yes. But if the mail carrier mistakenly delivers you a package addressed to someone else, you don't automatically get to keep it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- chungy 3y ago
  It's worth noting that the article is about a Canadian woman. Given that both the US and Canada have legal systems originating in Britain, there's a great deal of commonality in the legal code, but what the FTC says about US law does not necessarily apply to Canada. All that said, the spirit of the law the FTC is citing is something reasonable enough I do imagine Canada has something similar. Just don't quote me on that.

hattmall 3y ago

Just put them in the trash or donate. UPS has no validity in the bill, just ignore it. They can't send it to collections or anything.

Marsymars 3y ago
> They can't send it to collections or anything. Yes they can. It's not a valid debt, but they can certainly sell it to a collections company.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  You are however free to ignore the collections attempts, and explaining the situation to them should cause them to drop it (my - admittedly very few - experiences with collections agencies all ended up with them dropping the debt once it was made clear to them it is not valid and that they got effectively scammed by whoever sold them the debt).
- adamredwoods 3y ago
  I don't know how it goes in Canada, but in the US it is very easy to send someone to collections, and very difficult to dispute it. If anyone wants to start a company, make one that disputes collections on behalf of consumers. I'm sure there will be plenty of people to pay monthly for such a service. https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/credit-counseling/bad-credit/how-to-dispute-a-debt-with-creditors-collectors-reporting-bureaus/ https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/credit-counseling/bad-c...
  - bluGill 3y ago
    That depends on the level of collections. The first level for people who are likely to pay. Some doctors send all bills to collections for example - nearly everyone knows they need to pay the bill and will pay it, and the collectors need to be polite about this so the doctor keeps sending bills their way. The levels after that though are for people who either can't pay, or won't pay and you get the jerks of the collections business here because that is your best chance of getting you to pay.

tacker2000 3y ago

My guess is some scammy third party seller just chose a random US address as a their “return” address, since Amazon forces every seller to provide one.

iinnPP 3y ago
B.C. is British Columbia in Canada. Article is from our state sponsored media, which occasionally does some great consumer protection work. I assume the rest of your guess is correct though.
- katbyte 3y ago
  *state funded.
  - iinnPP 3y ago
    My view is that CBC receives more than just funding from our government. Bill C-18 being a prime example. Sorry to derail. I believe the context is important and not generally well-known.
    - katbyte 3y ago
      That’s why I pointed out it is state funded, not sponsored, or neither an arm of the government as many would say it is
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> They were sent by people across North America who intended to return them to the Amazon seller, with each box containing a return authorization slip to her address Also in the video she states what the parcel has her name, address and her old telephone number... which is out of service for forty years. So yeah.
anon84873628 3y ago
Did you read the article?

Joker_vD 3y ago

...I was sure they check the return address at the border/customs crossing but apparently not? Does that mean that person X can send mail to person Y simply by putting the Y's address as the return address and then sending to some closely located non-existent address (so that the post office there would rebound it)?

wvenable 3y ago
All these packages contain Amazon return slips -- they are product returns not return mail. They were sent her directly by customers trying to return the product to the original seller. When you want to return an Amazon purchase, Amazon gives you a return address label that you can print and attach to the package. In this case, that return label had this person's name and address.

stephencoyner 3y ago

My parents had the exact same issue. They kept getting packages meant for a random person they didn't know, but addressed to their home. Lots of cheap, random products like $20 massage guns. They contacted Amazon and they said "nothing we can do, enjoy the stuff." Pretty odd that they can't even message the person and tell them what's happening. It all ended up in the trash or given away.

pavel_lishin 3y ago
"Nothing we can do, enjoy disposing of mountains of garbage at your own expense!"
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- hedora 3y ago
  You could always just wait till you have a vanload full of amazon leavings, and then dump it at the customer service desk of your local whole foods on a Saturday afternoon...
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  I'm sure Amazon (or the scummy vendor) could open a waitlist for people who want to receive free random stuff for a week, and they could find plenty of volunteers. I'm also sure this also would be against some Amazon policy that supposedly prevents fraud, but just produces waste as a sideproduct of fraud.
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    Yes, they could, and they'd have people lined up around the block to sign up. But that's vastly different from just dumping a bunch of garbage on someone's porch.
  - 3y ago

RandomGerm4n 3y ago

Here in Germany, something similar happened to my neighbor. He always rejected the packages but sometimes they left them in the stairwell. At first, he took them to a drop-off station but at some point, he went to ignore them completely. After half a year, this led to the stairwell being full of unopened packages until someone threw them on the street. As a result, he then received a bill from the city cleaning service. I sadly don't know what happened after that because I moved away.

tetris11 3y ago
Fittingly Kafkaesque

bigmattystyles 3y ago

Is the Canadian Better Business Bureau more legit than the entity in the US named Better Business Bureau? I kinda rolled my eyes when I got to where the article mentioned BBB, but maybe the Canadian one is more legitimate. And if I'm wrong about the US BBB, let me know, but from what I've read it's closer to pay for praise than a true consumer advocate. (edit) Apparently they're now effectively the same entity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau Kind of odd to quote the BBB in the article then -

version_five 3y ago
I'm canadian and I've always assumed they are a scam. Anything "BBB accredited" is a red flag to me, but it's more just folk knowledge, I don't have any first hand experience.
- chongli 3y ago
  Anything "BBB accredited" is a red flag to me There’s a signalling theory basis to this [1]. The BBB is a cheap signal, not a costly one, so it comes across as “trust me! I’m trustworthy! Look, I gave a bit of money to the trustworthy business people!” That is, it’s not a genuine signal of trustworthiness, so any effort expended on this signal may actually backfire: people might question why the business needs to send this signal in the first place. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)
  - dfxm12 3y ago
    On the topic of cheap signalling, a very long time ago, I was out to dinner with a friend. She was excited to try the place out, but as it turned out, the restaurant was pretty disappointing. "But it says 'Zagat rated' in the window!", she said. I pointed out that they didn't have the actual score in the window & just because they rated it doesn't mean they rated it well...
  - asgdnionio 3y ago
    [dead]

glonq 3y ago

"Woman receives dozens of pairs of free shoes" does not sound like a problem. It sounds like an opportunity. Finders keepers.

ke88y 3y ago
Unlikely. The packages are being sent to her because the fraudster sellers don't want to bother with them. The value of the shoes is likely not worth her time (else it would've been worth the seller's time -- the margins here are not huge). And to make matters worse, she's being charged for the shipping: > She says couriers have also abandoned packages on her porch, denying her the opportunity to refuse them. It has also resulted in more than $300 worth of Collect-on-Delivery (COD) customs charges from the United Parcel Service (UPS). The bills are mailed to her by the delivery company.
warent 3y ago
Hmm maybe you didn't read the article, she's being charged by customs for the imports. Also, she doesn't want this stuff. It's not free shoes it's forced trash.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Wonder if she can charge customs back? Like maybe a processing fee or something. These abandoned goods shouldn't be her problem, except customs is insisting on her dealing with it.
zackmorris 3y ago
Ya it's crazy how far the US has fallen in terms of entrepreneurial spirit. In almost any other country, a continuous supply of resources like that would provide an independent income stream on eBay. And the products are already packaged! It's like how we used to have victory gardens and plant fruit/nut trees and eat chestnuts from trees growing like weeds before they succumbed to blight in the early 1900s. Now all we have are ornamental pear trees that smell like rotten undergarments. Because free food would encourage homelessness or whatever. Edit: woman lives in Canada, but I think my point still stands.

alibarber 3y ago

The customs charges bit is interesting because I don't really understand where they (as in UPS) stand on this. I'm sure they're adding their own 'convenience' fee on top of the actual VAT or whatever they are collecting for the government too - but they don't have a contract with her to do this, so why do they expect her to pay it? The sender is the one who has contracted and paid UPS to deliver the parcel, but if this lady wants nothing to do with it - what are they trying to bill her for? I understand they have paid the government tax on her behalf, but she didn't ask for them to do so. Surely by this logic, anyone in the world could bankrupt anyone else in any country other than their own by mailing a brick that they declare to be worth millions to the unlucky recipient?

jmspring 3y ago
Customs charges are an interesting thing. I had some stuff sent from Amazon US to myself in Finland back in the early 2000s. The package didn't arrive, they sent me another. That one showed up. About a month later, I got a notification from customs wanting duty on the original package. It wasn't much, I ended up with 2x of the items. Called Amazon, told them what was up, and they said just keep it. (Amazon customer service was much different back then). In another instance, I bought an expensive item off EBay from Italy. It was sent, forms had to be filed with FedEx for import, etc. A few month later the Franchise Tax Board in California was all - "hey we want our cut (use tax)". It took a bit of time to track down, but I finally got a hold of a person and pointed out that the purchase was off ebay and sales tax was paid. I had to send the proof so of such. At this point they had already assessed penalties. With the proof it all went away, but the government does want their cut.=
- 0xffff2 3y ago
  I assume in the latter case the item was coming from Italy to you in California, not from Italy to you in Finland? If it was the latter case that would make for a truly bizarre story.
  - jmspring 3y ago
    Yes, sorry it was CA.

jkubicek 3y ago

What is the legality of leaving your stuff on someone else's property? Unwanted UPS packages, phone books, door tags for the local Chinese restaurant, "newspapers" that are actually just all advertising, landscaping business cards weight down with rocks. This is all trash; how are people able to legally dump it in my driveway? Is it actually illegal but such small stakes that nobody ever gets the proper authorities involved? Is there some loophole in the law that allows you to dump your junk on someone else porch if it's filled with ads?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bluGill 3y ago
That will depend. Littering is a separate area of laws from mail. And this is in Canada which will have different laws. There is also customs involved here which is another tricky area. In the US if it is addressed to you, then it is yours to do with as you like, but if it is addressed to someone else (and misdelivered) you have to make it available to the intended receiver.
ke88y 3y ago
> Is it actually illegal but such small stakes that nobody ever gets the proper authorities involved? In the USA: Basically yes, but with various incantations required depending on the state to make it illegal. The "too small stakes" part is uniform. In my state, in the USA, it's technically abandoned property the moment it's left and you don't need to post a sign or make an attempt at contacting the owner. After a certain amount of time, with reasonable attempts to give notice, you can start charging storage fees. The law is written to work best for things like abandoned cars or furniture in mind, not nuisance mail, but there's jurisprudence establishing that there was broad legislative intent. The door tag thing might even fly. But for something like a door tag, damages would never be worth the filing fees even after hundreds of years of storage. It would have to be a real "fuck you" move because damages would be like hundredths of a cent against mid 2 figure filing fees. In this case I think the subject of the article would actually have a case and real damages, in the USA, in my state. But more importantly: the business owner has to either show up in small claims or pay a lawyer to do so. It's certainly a way to get a company to cut shit out for the cost of a filing fee, even if damages awarded are trivial. And in this case I think a judge would be very sympathetic.

dbg31415 3y ago

Hire a lawyer to write a demand letter. Amazon legal will fix this.

Brian_K_White 3y ago

I remember TV ads in the 70's or maybe 80's that were PSA from the US government, where the entire message was "if you receive something unsolicited in the mail, you own it and do not owe anyone anything" They featured an Eskimo in the middle of a frozen nowhere opening a package that turns out to be an electric fan. He says "gee. Thanks!" Like what happened to that? I also don't know why they ran those ads. They must have been expensive (or maybe not, maybe the government back then could just commandeer them), so presumably there must have been some kind of popular scam they were trying to fight.

bluGill 3y ago
This is in Canada not the US, so I don't know how laws are different. In the US if it is addressed to you - which these seem to be - then it is yours to keep or dispose of as you will. However customs charges are not a part of law that I know anything about, that is a weird area where the law may not even be clear who owes. Amazon often delivers a neighbor's package (neighbor lives a mile away, so not an easy delivery to make for us) to our house. However since these are address to the neighbor and just misdirected we do not own them and have to help the neighbor get them. (a few times we called amazon and they said "just keep it", then they became ours, but now the neighbor just drops by) I have updated both addresses in OSM, so hopefully this will stop, along with friends trying to visit us actually getting to our house.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > However customs charges are not a part of law that I know anything about, (..) I'm no lawyer, but afaik customs charges are owed by party that does the importing. This may be eg. Amazon's customer, with Amazon just doing the warehouse/shipping part. It may also be that Amazon imports on customer's behalf, or does the importing itself. Either way, woman in the article would not be liable for customs duties (or any other shipping charges / fees for that matter), because she's not Amazon's customer here. She didn't ask Amazon to import anything on her behalf. Or arranged import herself using Amazon. Yeah, her name may be on the label. Yeah, she may have a (dormant) account with Amazon. But for all those packages mentioned in the article, there's no legal agreement between her & Amazon. Or between her & original seller. Or between her & shipper that brought the goods across international border. So how on earth would she be liable for custom charges for "importing" anything? She didn't. Legally speaking, that would leave her as innocent bystander, that just happens to be where delivery person dumped a package. In her shoes (no pun intended ;-), I'd just let this go to court & see judge move the charges to Amazon. Maybe Amazon would fix the problem if it turns into a recurring-costs issue.

JJMcJ 3y ago

For the customs charges she should ask for help from a legislator's office. Canadian equivalent of most senior Senator. A call from a major public official works wonders in getting companies to see sense.

bpye 3y ago
In Canada it would be your local MP or MLA - depending on if it’s a federal or provincial issue.
- JJMcJ 3y ago
  So the Canadian Federal Senate doesn't have the clout that the U.S. Senate does?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Brian_K_White 3y ago

And I thought it was outrageous that no way for me to stop this trash advertising newspaper van from dumping their paper on my driveway twice a week every week for the last 15 years. There is essentially one out there, all water logged usually, at all times. I pick them up and throw them away, and the next day it's back. Years ago a few times I waited and watched and confronted the guy when he actually showed up, I almost got beat up! Mexican couple and the guys wife had to hold him back from getting them I into trouble). I tried calling an office number found on the paper itself several times. I did get a person, who said "ok", which resulted in nothing. They even asked if I rent and tried to say that if I rent, then I don't own the property, and so can't make the demand. It's a small thing but it's ultimately somehow just ridiculous that there is no way to stop someone from dumping some trash on my property, short of moving to a gated community which is nine thousand times worse than this "trash tattoo". It just boggles my mind that even if you decided to expend the effort, it turns out there is nothing you can do. Sue the paper company? For what damages? What court would waste 8 minutes on something like that? Anyway my point was "and I though that was outrageous"

93po 3y ago
I mean theoretically this is littering, and theoretically police should stop people from littering. But I agree this would basically never happen.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > I mean theoretically this is littering, and theoretically police should stop people from littering. The police (and public prosecutors) have no duty to stop anything, and are in theory free to prioritize their efforts against illegal activity anyway they want so long as they don’t violate, e.g., anti-discrimination law in how they do. And, in practice, they are free to prioritize even more freely than that. Of course, leaving unwanted material on someone else’s property is also the tort of trespass to land, so if you can identify the tortfeasor you can act directly against them rather than trying to convince public authorities to prioritize prosecution of the offense.

m463 3y ago

Too bad canada doesn't have the law that the US has - it says any package sent to you that you did not request is yours free and clear. https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revision_072019_tech_021.htm https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revi...

steezeburger 3y ago
That isn't the issue here. UPS is charging her for customs. And why would she want to keep hundreds of pairs of shoes? Who knows if they even fit!
- alanwreath 3y ago
  To resell

water9 3y ago

[flagged]

pavel_lishin 3y ago
> Most women I know would consider this the blessing of a lifetime. Most women you know want a mountain of boxes of clothes & shoes that are probably not their size nor their preferred style?
- water9 3y ago
  Glad you don't know my mother
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    Most women you know are your mother?
    - water9 3y ago
      Don't judge me.
- water9 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    Most women that you know live in third-world countries?
altairprime 3y ago
Have you confirmed that belief with then?
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  He has binders full of women he has confirmed this with.

teawrecks 3y ago

I thought the point of COD was that you didn't get the package until you paid the fee.

water9 3y ago
Yea the article is complete bullshit because it makes no sense
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  UPS does it anyway. Might even charge you an advance fee for the “benefit” of prepaying the taxes and import duties on your behalf. She’s in Canada and it sounds like the packages were from US.
  - water9 3y ago
    So can I charge UPS the same fee. Can I charge you that fee? Because if so get your wallet out
xenadu02 3y ago
UPS official policy says they won't deliver without collecting the payment (though they can't verify the payment is valid) but in reality sometimes drivers do it anyway. UPS doesn't really have a procedure in their system for handling this or if they do most employees have no clue. The best bet is to take it to a service center and talk to a manager there. Let them know you refused COD (or the package was sent unsolicited) and that you are refusing delivery. Tossing it on your doorstep does not count as accepting the delivery, they just do that because it is cheaper for them. If you want to game the system sign up for MyUPS so you get advance notice of all deliveries to you. Then when these unknown packages show up bound for you reject them immediately. That goes into the computer sorting system and can often get the package pulled before it even reaches your local service center.
fatfingerd 3y ago
Unless processing fees are limited by law, shipping companies gladly pay customs fees at a border so they can then collect more money from the recipient. Whether or not they demand COD or ever deliver that package, they want that money.

water9 3y ago

This article is written and posted by someone with no sense of logic what so ever. Would really love the OP to explain the full process of profiting from this because the guide is basically: 1) Collect shoes 2) ??? 3) Profit. Nothing about this story makes any sense.

Scoundreller 3y ago
> Nitu said she has lost sleep trying to make the packages stop coming, and so far she's accrued Collect-On-Delivery customs charges from UPS that now exceed $300. > "I refused to pay, and the dispute with UPS is still ongoing," Nitu said. "They're completely unreasonable. I tried to explain the situation and they were not nice, let's put it that way." Every Canadian hates it when someone sends them a UPS ground package internationally without taxes/duties prepaid.
- kwanbix 3y ago
  Just reject them. Can't you?
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    You're actually standing on your doorstep 24x7, to make sure no delivery people just leave packages?
    - kwanbix 3y ago
      Well, I work from home myself, so most of the time I can.
dwroberts 3y ago
Nowhere does it say anyone is profiting. Unscrupulous sellers are disposing of items they don’t want by sending them to a random address so they can avoid (more expensive) fees for them returning to their origin
- 3y ago

legitster 3y ago

> The Better Business Bureau (BBB) told CBC that it sounded like a vendor-return scheme that's common in the US but rarer in Canada, where foreign sellers dodge fees associated with storing and shipping return items by sending the items anywhere but their own addresses. So someone is dropshipping products from China. Because they are not fulfilled by Amazon, they would have to pay return shipping to... probably nowhere useful in China. So the seller says "screw it!" and just tells customers to ship their crappy returns to an address they pull out of a hat. Am I understanding the scam correctly? Would it not be pretty easy to at least figure out the seller responsible?

cyanydeez 3y ago
Knowing Amazon, they probably queried the address and it came up to a bunch of sellers who equate to some product owners annual bonus and are probably a single entity gaming the system by having multiple accounts with fake brands.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lolinder 3y ago
That's how I understood it, but then at the end she said this, which makes it sound like someone hacked her Amazon account and turned it into a seller account: > Nitu says the deliveries were tied to her dormant Amazon account. > "I don't know what Amazon is allowing them to do because they got a hold of my name, my address and my old phone number," she said.
nulltype 3y ago
A similar thing actually happened to me. I was receiving a small package (probably a phone case) about once every few weeks while living in a rental house. The seller had put my address as their address, so all undeliverable mail came to my house. I brought a bag full of these packages to the post office, explained the situation and gave them the packages. The entire pile of packages ended up back at my house a few days later. I found the seller on Amazon and messaged them: ——— Me: I haven't ordered anything from you. I have received 6 packages that you sent but ended up at my house because the return address that you used is my address, not your address. Could you use a different return address? Seller: Dear nulltype, We're sorry about this, we can't change the address at the moment because of the cumbersome policies on Amazon, but we'll change it when we have a new production facility. Please forgive us. You are free to use the packages. Sincerely, ———- The packages continued to arrive after this.

notnmeyer 3y ago

when life hands you lemons, open a shoe store?

bmitc 3y ago

This is like the computer saying no after it said yes even though no one ever asked it to say yes in the first place. Not even that long ago, you could probably place a call and speak to a human who knew how to stop this, or it possibly wouldn't have ever happened. Amazon should be held legally responsible and pay for the customs fees as well as for her stress induced by this.

can16358p 3y ago

How can they leave something unsolicited to their propery and demand a delivery fee for it? Seriously, how on Earth is that even legal?

papercrane 3y ago
It's not legal. Canada has a negative option billing law that says they need your express consent to charge you.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Nor in the US either, for the same reason of preventing a once-common scam of sending unsolicited goods to someone and then asking them to pay for it.

bigcloud1299 3y ago

Sharing some experience.

bigcloud1299 3y ago

Sharing some experience. When hackers steal credit cards and want to verify if it’s working or blocked they also do something similar. Another pattern I have seen is that hackers order multiple items for a seller (retailer website) and have them delivered to multiple addresses over time where they don’t live and don’t care for the item. They however order an item that they want to a address which they can access. This throws off security and police as there is no pattern for machines to track and police don’t have resources to go to all addresses for checking.

stOneskull 3y ago
i guess for the next order, it has to be a completely new set of addresses?
- bigcloud1299 3y ago
  Doesn’t matter cause still not a huge pattern to be able to figure out and limited resources.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

It... it's Canada. You can refuse deliveries and they just go back to the sender. That's how that works. Why did she accept them if she didn't order things? Because UPS sure as hell doesn't deliver anything that hasn't had the import duties and taxes paid first (source: me, several times because the phone number their automated system calls you from gets flagged as a spam number).

mcyukon 3y ago
Not sure who's delivering them to in this instance but here in the Yukon Territory, Amazon has contracted a private company to deliver their parcels. I have them on video just throwing a delivery over the chain link fence at our business at 8PM. Previously our Canada Post office handled them, which would have allowed someone to refuse the parcel.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  Packages with taxes on duties on them must have those paid before delivery happens. If it's a "normal" delivery then sure, you might end up with a pile of boxes, but that doesn't seem to be quite the case here.
ke88y 3y ago
The article specifically states that UPS delivered without contacting her and when she wasn't home, and then sent her the bill.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  As someone in Canada who's had UPS refuse to deliver due to outstanding import fees: something's fishy about that claim.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    The carriers are inconsistent in this policy: I've experienced both situations.

windowshopping 3y ago

I originally parsed this as "[B.C Woman = Woman from Before Christ] [buried = laid to rest] in [Amazon = rainforest].....packages she did not ask for" and REALLY had to re-read it carefully.

ke88y 3y ago
Same. I sometimes wonder if in these cases it's a cultural/not-intended-audience thing (USA brain vs CAD brain top-1 expansion of B.C.), or objectively bad writing, or intentional.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  Probably a cultural thing. As a resident of B.C I parsed that bit intuitively, but the "buried in" bit seemed like some sort of literal warehouse mishap, because we do have at least 1 fulfillment center here. I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia. I’ve lived in Australia my whole life, never been to Canada, etc - and yet I immediately assumed “B.C” meant “British Columbia”. It just seemed like the most likely expansion in the context (looks like a news headline, posted on a North American website). Although a bit like you, my initial parse of the sentence was that she was crushed to death in a warehouse accident, it took me a couple of seconds to realise it was more likely meant figuratively
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      Australia and B.C do have somewhat of a kinship though
      - skissane 3y ago

skeeter2020 3y ago

I tried to return some clothing purchased on Ebay that was supposed to be equivalent of a Men's XL but was child-sized. The seller strung me along and the return address was random parts of Canadian locales strung together, like "Toronto, New Brunswick" with a postal code in BC. eBay kept saying "you have to use the return address" while the seller kept offering small but increasing refunds if I'd cancel my compaint (yeah sure). It took weeks but I eventually got all my money back. It was obvious this was an overseas seller who never intended to accept returns, but eBay obviously didn't care.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
The way to do "returns" on eBay goes like this: - Open a "not as described" case against the seller - When they say you should return it, ask them for a prepaid label to do the return, which is your right, never pay to return it yourself, especially if they claim they will refund your costs (they won't) - When they invariably don't give you the return label, or a refund, or something else to your satisfaction, raise it with eBay (after the requisite number of days), who will refund your purchase - keep, donate or destroy the product
- PNewling 3y ago
  >When they say you should return it, ask them for a prepaid label to do the return, which is your right Which countries does this apply to? (Story is about Canada, but wonder if this is true in the US as well)
  - ornornor 3y ago
    I think this is a visa/MasterCard rule as in if any of these steps fail it’s a slam dunk chargeback.
    - maccard 3y ago
      Performing a chargeback against eBay will get your account closed pretty quickly.

dTal 3y ago

Wait, this sounds oddly familiar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19516868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19516868

atum47 3y ago

I never really liked Amazon but i thought they had their shit together. Bought a pretty expensive shower with them and it didn't arrived for a week. Went to the website to track the order and it said someone else had received. They provide the name of the person who signed the deliver but no document no nothing. So, someone out there has a beautiful new shower while i need to go buy another one in another store and wait again for it to get here.

lolinder 3y ago
Did you contact customer support for a refund? If you never received it, then they screwed up, and in my experience it's very painless to get Amazon to issue a refund for things like this.
- serf 3y ago
  ...unless it was a third party seller ... or hazardous to ship ... or shipped via a third party delivery group etc etc etc. Amazon told me walk about and contact different people around my neighborhood when UPS dropped a refrigerator off at the wrong house. (let's nevermind that I use a wheelchair in an area with zero accessibility; blindly knocking on doors is dangerous.) It took weeks of coercion from both myself and the manufacturer before Amazon lifted a finger; meanwhile the manufacturer themselves sent me out a unit for the sake of providing some kind of justice. During the same period Amazon shipped me a quart of boat varnish that I had ordered. It arrived smashed in half with the entire contents spilled out of the cardboard box, obviously ran over or some such, presumably leaving its' contents all over the delivery vehicle. When confronted with pictures of the event they said "Oh , our apologies, but we offer no refund or guarantees on chemical/industrial purchases or deliveries that require hazardous shipments." Lesson learned : don't buy Amazon.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- atum47 3y ago
  Yep, they gave me the refund. I was disappointed because i kinda needed the shower.

maxbond 3y ago

This seems like a business opportunity. You can charge sellers to accept their returns, and then list them on Amazon or eBay and get paid twice.

chaostheory 3y ago

This is yet another reason I try not to buy from sketchy 3rd parties on Amazon. It’s getting harder and harder to shop at Amazon. Walmart is no better because they are copying Amazon’s worst practice. We’ve been slowly transitioning our purchases to Target and other retailers where there are either little to no 3rd party sellers

ta8645 3y ago

It really sucks that these shipping companies can act as customs brokers without the consent of the recipient. They rack up huge fees for this "service". They should be required to get an agreement or rejection before proceeding. Why should this woman be responsible for these fees she never agreed to in the first place? Why should anyone?

_8j50 3y ago

I will forever be confounded by people that get free stuff and then try to find ways for it to cost them something. If you are literally handed stuff free of charge, like... keep it or sell it? This isn't finding a lost item, this is an item being sent to your address explicitly! No law or moral violation in that. Even if I was filthy rich I would try to profit from this. Even if it was an accident, packages get lost or damaged all the time, what is your compensation for the time you spend fighting to send them back their stuff?

fatbird 3y ago

I'm not sure if the law is the same in Canada, but in the U.S., you are not legally liable for something you receive by failing to refuse delivery. This is a law put in place to protect businesses (or anyone) from being shipped something expensive that they didn't order, and then being sent an invoice, and on failing to pay the invoice, getting sued for non-payment because they have the item in their possession. In the 90s, this was commonly done with cheaply printed multi-volume business directories that would invoice for thousands of dollars. Aside from the customs charge fight with UPS, where she's absolutely in the right, I don't understand why this is causing her stress. If she's a bogus return address, then no one is coming to get the items and there's no expectation on her to do anything in particular with the items. She can keep what she likes and throw out the rest.

someidiot123 3y ago

[flagged]

mistyvales 3y ago

This is Dick calling from UPS. Hey, I’ve been trying to bring a box to your, uh, place, there, for the last three days but you guys are making so much noise you don’t hear me! I need a credit card payment on this thing: C.O.D. $242.

TeffenEllis 3y ago
My name's Trinidad, I'm with UPS. And I've been trying to do a delivery here, uh, since Friday and no one's picked up, or answered the door bell. It’s Tasmanian Syrup, on dry ice…

piuantiderp 3y ago

How is BC or the gender relevant?

whirlwin 3y ago

Just re-sell the products on Craigslist?

WentFullRetard 3y ago

[dead]

sfn42 3y ago

When I was around 19 I received a phone call offering me a free sample of underwear. No strings attached, I specifically asked if I would have to cancel a subscription and they said no, it's just a free sample. I could subscribe if I wanted to. So I receive my free package of boxers and socks and lo and behold next month I receive another with a bill. I actually liked them so I paid for a while and then I called in and canceled when I felt like I had enough underwear. They kept sending them. I sent an email canceling, they kept sending them. So I sent another email saying that if they send me more stuff I'll consider it a gift and keep it. They kept sending for a few months and eventually stopped. Never even heard from any collections agencies. If I had I figured I'd just show them my emails canceling the service.

lloydatkinson 3y ago

After a while it’s time to sell a few.