To keep the computer and wait for somebody to want it back?

[fitneyfears]

I applied for a random job on Indeed about 2 weeks ago. A call centre type thing but work from home. It was through a recruitment agency. I was desperate. Heard back straight away and was offered the job immediately with no interview. The guy then disappeared after I gave my NI number so I thought “Shit, it’s a scam.” However he then reappeared a few days later and asked for more details, I was suspicious at this point and said I’d found another job. He thanked me for letting him know and so I thought that was the end of it.

Then a week ago I had a computer and monitor worth £650 arrive in the post. Not from the recruitment agency but the company who were hiring, who I never directly corresponded with. Nobody ever informed me they were sending me this stuff. The gear isn’t branded, it just has the company’s office on the return address. I was going to contact them but DH told me to wait a week.

It’s been a week and nothing. Obviously they sent it because it was needed for the job (though when the recruitment agent asked if I had a functioning computer I said yes and that was that) and now I’m not taking the job I have no right to have it but I’ve heard absolutely nothing. Surely after I gave notice that I no longer wanted the job it should have been the recruitment agency’s responsibility to cancel an order I didn’t even know I was getting? I’ve had nobody contacting me about it, nobody has been around for it. DH thinks we should just keep it boxed up for a while and see what happens, essentially hope they forget and then keep it. But I hate having it all boxed up in my living room and feel like I’m going to get in shit for not sending it back. I feel guilty as fuck to be honest.

It does all sound a bit suspicious really, I would try and get hold of someone at Indeed and try and get it sent back.

I'd contact the recruitment agency.

If you are honest you should contact the firm.

Yes speak to the agency. It’s not going to look great if you have to admit you have been given a computer that you haven’t sent back!

I would send it back - or as you say - keep boxed up and keep asking who is going to come and collect it. Of all the things you could be given for free a computer is surely not one of them - arrived under inexplicable circumstances - I may be slightly too wary - but imagine if you put all your stuff on a non branded computer you did not ask for and were sent for free . I'd leave it boxed up and ask who sent it and come and get it asap

I wonder if after you declined they found someone else, but accidentally sent the stuff to your house rather than theirs and nobody has joined the dots.
I think contact the agency and ask them to contact the job contact for you, tell them you can share your availability for them to send a courier to collect. Its better than a potential ball ache down the line when they audit the equipment and realise what happened.

Lolz i wouldn’t bother wasting my time chasing them tbh ! I’d leave it boxed up and if they want it back they can Contact you and arrange it themselves

Is be contacting the recruitment company and the actual company as well if you have contact details for both. Tell them you have it. As another poster said, I expect it’s gone to the wrong temp.

Preferably email them so there is a trail. Ask them when their courier will be coming to collect it.

Check the law about disposal of items sent to you that you didn’t ask for and see what it is in your country. In Scotland where I am i think you can dispose of it after a reasonable period of time if you’ve given them the opportunity to collect it. ie if you give them a couple of emails requesting they uplift and they don’t then you can keep it or give it away or sell it. But you need to keep yourself right because if they come after you in a couple of months and you’ve sold it or kept it then you could end up in trouble with the law. Hence keep the email trail that proves you tried to get them to take it away nd made every attempt. I don’t know if it would count as theft if you kept it where you are, but I wouldn’t risk ending up with a criminal record over this, especially if you need a job!

If they don’t reply I’d email them both again advising if it’s not collected by x date (I’d suggest two weeks) that you will dispose if it. Then if the law is on your side you may get to keep it. You will have checked the law by then. But you don’t want to be sneaky about it. So many companies are going bust and somebody could be getting fired for incompetence for losing it or being accused of theft themselves if you don’t fess up that you have it!