to not pay for this?

[Magstermay]

Perfectly prepared to be told I ABU but I'm interested to see what people think.

A few weeks ago I ordered something online, delivery was 3-5d and it was posted Monday morning, the day after the order, so reasonable to assume it would arrive in a couple of days. It hadn't arrived by the Friday so I emailed asking about it and they asked me to give it a few days which I did. It didn't arrive by the Tuesday so they agreed to send a replacement. Both items arrived a couple of days later.

They were only worth about £20 each, not massive, and I kind of assumed that the company would write off the first item or claim back from Royal Mail. A few weeks later I received an email saying Royal Mail had informed them of problems with a batch of mail that had since been delivered and would I please return the first item.

I completely forgot to reply (baby brain) and have just received a letter with return envelope to return item or send them payment. I appreciate that technically I have an item I haven't paid for, but that was only sent out because they didn't fulfil their own advertised delivery which left me in limbo waiting for it. I think it would be good customer service to have just said to keep it. WWYD?

"or claim back from Royal Mail"

I know she's sent it back, and FWIW I'd probably have said don't bother, but I run a mail order company, and I can tell you with absolute certainty hell would freeze over before the sending company got anything out of Royal Mail. (We just allow in our prices for 1 - 2% of items to get lost in the post.)

In a similar future scenario (because I have RTT) I would send it back if they made it easy for me to do so - i.e. provided a prepaid way of sending it or arranged a pick-up service that was convenient.

I dislike being inconvenienced by others mistakes. This was a Royal Mail error, but nonetheless I shouldn't be made to wait in all day for a courier to collect or paid to deliver it back. They have made it nice and easy for you so I think you are doing the right thing. Well done!

I dislike being inconvenienced by others mistakes. this exactly for me, if they had asked for it back at my expense then hmm no maybe not, however an envelope to post pre paid then hell yes no issue. I do think a gesture eg: discount, refund of any postage / delivery charge / voucher may have been nice bit no big shakes. as long as I got what I paid for in the first instance then that's ok.