I’ve stolen someone’s shopping. Do I own up?!

[RachyRoo1]

I’ve name changed for this. I feel absolutely awful….

My shopping was delivered tonight.
As I was putting the bags in the house, the delivery driver told me that my “meat” bag was on the top of the tray of bags.

I wasn’t really paying much attention to what was in the bag, but I do remember thinking that it was heavy that I didn’t remember ordering that much meat…. I then briefly thought DH must’ve added it on.
I did think to myself, I wonder if this is even ours, but brushed it off as me just over thinking.

Once the driver had gone and I was unpacking the bags, I was checking off my items against the delivery sheet and realised the items infact weren’t on the list.

I checked with DH and he hadn’t ordered them, so we have been given a bag of meats by mistake.

We have….
2 x pack of chicken breasts
1 x pack of diced chicken
2 x pack of sirloin steak
2 x pack 20% fat beef mince
1 x pack 5% fat beef mince
1 x pack pork meat balls

I feel really awful about it now. I should’ve spoken up at the time.
I was rushing and just trying to get my bags in the house as quickly as I could.
DH has often added things to our shop last minute and I did just think he’d most likely done the same this week.

So what do I do now. Do I contact the supermarket and take the items back?
What if these items belong to someone old / vulnerable and they were reliant on them…

I’ve stolen someone’s shopping and I feel shit about it now.

Supermarket's mistake. Supermarket puts it right.

They cannot collect and re-deliver it, as they cannot guarantee its safe storage since it left their control.

And cut the self-flagellation (from your life) OP!

You are not personally responsible for the conduct of every other person in the world. Imagining that you are and not 'allowing' other people to make mistakes and take responsibility for them, (instead, prostrating yourself in front of them crying 'no, kick me instead, kick me!') is a weirdly self-absorbed pattern of behaviour. You are trying to attribute a level of power to yourself, that you do not have.

I understand you wish you'd checked, because that would have saved the supermarket from making their mistake in full. You'd have done them a favour. They cannot expect to rely on their customers doing that for them though. Mistakes happen.

So, to complete that thought... you can feel sympathy towards the person who's missed out on part of their delivery, without feeling responsible for someone else's mistake.

Why doesn’t this every happen to me???

(Saying that, Amazon delivered 2 bags that weren’t mine, but I ‘lost’ 2 of my bags. Fortunately they weren’t perishable and had the name and address on, so I went round and swapped them. Fortunately the other person only lived 10 mins away - and I was refunded for my items).

For heavens sake stop feeling guilty about it. It wasn't your error. There's hardly going to be an old vulnerable person waiting on that amount of meat. When my parents aged they ate feck all. It's more likely a busy family house where the parents buy for the week. I guarantee they will have already received their bag of meat by now having called the supermarket as soon as they noticed their meat was missing. Call the supermarket to let them know. I doubt they will take it back for health and safety reasons. For all they know you could have left it sitting on the counter top overnight. And stop fretting over it.

Phone the number on your receipt. They will no doubt let you keep it anyway but at least they can send out replacements to the other shopper.

I would call them up and then the company can sort it out. Ideally put the meat to keep fresh in the fridge.

I don't think you know the definition of stealing. Just call them. You'll get to keep the meat and the supermarket will sort out the other customer.

Win win.

Your husband is a dick for wanting to quietly keep it though.

This happened to us a few months back. Ocado delivery arrived with 3 bags of stuff that I hadn't ordered. I did spot immediately that there were extra items and told the driver but he said that as he had already put the bags down on my doormat he couldn't take them back. I rang Ocado and they said just keep the items, no charge and they would sort out the customer with missing items. This was during lockdown so it may be different now but they probably won't want the meat back

@LadyAdrianDangerous

Everyone is saying they'll replace it for the person it's meant for, that's not always true. This happened to my mum and the shop refused to replace or refund and told us to contact the police. Police said they couldn't help and we were left with nothing.

I've never heard about the shop refusing to replace or refund. It's their mistake after all- Just wow

Call the local supermarket and let them know you've been given an extra bag of shopping by mistake. They'll know how to handle it :)

I would keep it to be honest i recently paid for a couple of rump steaks in my local supermarket, i was halfway home and realised that i should have bought ribeye, i went back literally 5 mins later to swap them. I was told because i had took them out of the supermarket they couldnt swap them over due to the drop in temperature.

Yeah they shouldn't be collecting food to take to the right customer. All sorts of safety issues there.

I'm just jealous you get your shopping delivered in bags!

I got home one morning to find a full shop (hundreds of dollars worth of shopping, milk, meat, fruit, veg, washing stuff, body and face cream, yoghurts, icecream, chips, custard etc had been left on my doorstep and I hadn't even ordered anything.

I rang the supermarket (the shopping was in the sun but the ice cream was still mostly frozen so it hadn't been there that long) and they told me to keep the shopping.

It was like Christmas, the kids had a ball helping unpack it because there was a lot of junk in there lol but I could never have enjoyed it without the supermarket telling me to keep it.

Did I imagine a thread about missing meat on here this morning??

@meercat23

This happened to us a few months back. Ocado delivery arrived with 3 bags of stuff that I hadn't ordered. I did spot immediately that there were extra items and told the driver but he said that as he had already put the bags down on my doormat he couldn't take them back. I rang Ocado and they said just keep the items, no charge and they would sort out the customer with missing items. This was during lockdown so it may be different now but they probably won't want the meat back

Wow some stores are mad as this makes no sense! I had this happen with Tesco’s where the driver gave me some stuff by mistake, he realise when he went back to the van and came back and demanded I gave it all back (I hadn’t realised) but he acted like I had tried to keep it deliberately and made me go through all my shopping to check what wasn’t mine. He took the stuff back but when he left and I closed the door I realised I had some bottles of water that wasn’t mine after the way he acted I decided it was best not to call him back again as he will want to go through everything again.

@DebbieHarrysCheekbones

Did I imagine a thread about missing meat on here this morning??

It's probably in the same place where you left your sense of humour.

I don't think it's mad at all. How can a shop guarantee the quality and safety of a customer's shopping when it's been in a random person's house? That person could have done anything to it, not to mention they have no idea how things have been stored during that time. They have no idea what temperature the meat has been stored at, for example. It's not possible to be compliant with food safety regulations in those sorts of circumstances.

@MitheringMytryl

I don't think it's mad at all. How can a shop guarantee the quality and safety of a customer's shopping when it's been in a random person's house? That person could have done anything to it, not to mention they have no idea how things have been stored during that time. They have no idea what temperature the meat has been stored at, for example. It's not possible to be compliant with food safety regulations in those sorts of circumstances.

I was referring to the fact that they wouldn’t take something he literally just place on the doorstep back! That’s mad! And considering Tesco’s did with me after he left my house he went to his van and came back and demanded it back seems odd that another store wouldn’t take something back because it had been already put down. The poster said she had alerted him immediately

Ah, I see. I wonder if the delivery driver was worried about being penalised, and would rather break than rules than have the next customer report stuff as missing?

Honestly I would just keep it I've heard they'd only have to throw it away and replace their stuff as it's been in your house now. We once got a £18 keg of lamb delivered by mistake, it made a lovely meal 😂

Okay so I spoke to them this morning, customer services asked me if I could return the items to a local store.

She put me on hold whilst she checked my local store, and then came back to me saying she had discussed with her supervisor and they had forced that actually the local store won’t accept them and I should just keep the items…!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

So I guess we just keep them! I saw someone had mentioned police. Surely I can’t get into trouble for this. I hope not anyway!!

decided (not forced)