To ask for help - phone ordered, empty box delivered!

[TwinItToWinIt]

Not strictly AIBU, but I’m at a loss and don’t know where to post.

I ordered an iPhone from Sky on a contract. Took delivery last week. I opened the box, plastic it was wrapped in came off very easily (didn’t think anything of it at that point), but then when I opened it there was no phone inside. (Charger etc all present and correct - literally just the device missing).

Obviously phoned Sky straight up - totally unhelpful. They wanted to conduct investigations (fair enough) but basically would only accept it could have been tampered with during delivery - but the outer box was sealed tight, had one of those cardboard strips that needs ripping off and it was clearly intact.

Anyway, now they’ve come back to say CCTV shows no tampering with by the delivery firm and so we’ll have to cover the cost of the device! I can only assume it’s been stolen their end - but they’re saying that as far as they’re concerned they delivered it and we need to pay. But I’m not paying close to £1000 for a device I’ve not received!

No idea where to go from here. Feel totally helpless - I can’t prove it wasn’t in the box, but clearly the fuck up is on their part, not ours...

What do I do?!

Somewhere along the way, it will have been weighed. Probably by the courier.

You need to see if you can get hold of them. If it came in underweight, then you know the issue was before the courier.

This happened with a fitbit my hubbie bought me for Xmas two years ago. The courier/delivery driver slipped the box open enough to get device out and then replaced everything else. Leaving box "intact".
Luckily amazon were understanding and replaced it and covered return postage of chargers etc.
Hope you get replacement.

DH had the same problem with an expensive piece of computer kit he had bought. Seller said same thing. We were lucky he paid through PayPal and they forced a refund through. It's rubbish and no obvious easy solution. Good luck.

I had a similar issue with a piece of jewellery I ordered from a large company - I received just an empty box although the outer packaging appeared intact. Local post office agreed to weigh it and put their stamp on the piece of paper giving the weight. This was compared with the weight when the delivery company picked it up and showed that the jewellery was not in the box at this point. Presumably it had been pilfered during the packing process, anyway I received a full refund.

Did you pay by credit card? If so, could be worth checking whether they will take on the fight on your behalf.

Ooh thanks for the weight tip. According to Sky it was ‘case closed’ with the delivery company because of CCTV and the fact the weight was the same at both ends of the journey. So I phoned delivery company direct and discovered the declared weight was no where near enough to ever have had an iPhone in it! So the phone was clearly not in the box at point of despatch. Why no one had Sky had picked this info up, after over a week of investigation, I have no idea!

But armed with this new information DH is now back on the phone to them (for about the 5th time) and seems finally to be getting somewhere.

Shocking customer service though! (I get they need to conduct investigations, but how they’ve spent over a week trying to figure out something that took me about 2 minutes I have no idea...)

Good luck to hubby, fingers crossed this can now be resolved

Scary stuff. It’s awful things like that are still happening these days.

Good luck!

Jeez this is shocking, DH was about to buy a phone through Sky but after reading this he's going back to Carphone Warehouse!

We ordered a phone from Amazon once. The package with all the chargers and stuff was delivered but no phone. Bizarrely we got a pack of wedding table name cards instead. Presumably some sort of scam at the packing stage to pack something of roughly equal size and weight. Amazon sent another phone with no questions.

Havelock tell your DH to go out and buy one. Have heard this a few times about buying high end goods online.

Picture my surprise a few weeks ago when I opened the box of expensive electronics from Amazon to find a pack of Pampers inside. Box was not visibly tampered with. Thank goodness they believed me and replaced - replacement package was the exact same size.

I hope you resolve it, great tip about weight (puts it into memory bank for future use)

@TwinItToWinIt glad it helped. I only know because I used to own my own business. When people complained about things being missing the courier would tell me the weight when it arrived at their depot and left. I would weight them at my end too.

Hope it gets sorted.

This happened to me with Amazon, empty box delivered, I complained and their answer was they trusted all their staff implicitly, well I didn't ask them that, apparently this has happened to a lot of people and Amazons attitude is shit, I had to really push to get my money back but got it back in the end.

Yeah Sky’s response was ‘unfortunately some people do dishonestly claim items haven’t arrived’. Well I dare say they do, but that really isn’t my problem! I don’t blame them for the fact it wasn’t in the box - it’s probably impossible to completely prevent - but their denial that it could have happened their end / shoddy customer service / expectation that we’d simply fork out for a non-existent phone really took me aback.

But anyway, we now had an assurance that we’ll get a replacement, and waiting on a confirmatory phone call tomorrow. (A cautious) phew and thanks for the help!

So glad they sorted it.

I get people lie.

That doesnt excuse them lying about the weight.