What would you HONESTLY do in this situation?

[Friends1996]

Say you ordered a few items from a big online shop (clothing), then successfully cancelled the order, and was refunded.

A few days later, you ordered a single item of clothing from the same place. Today that item was delivered, however they had also sent the items you had cancelled and was refunded for (probably around £120 worth of stuff).

Would you contact them about it or would you keep quiet, see if they emailed you about it and if you didn’t hear anything say 3-4 weeks down the line, just keep the items as normal? This is a place you regularly order from, spending between £300-400 a month.

What would you HONESTLY do?

@Friends1996 I’d tell them. Even if it were a big company, because ultimately this kind of thing would add to their costs which get passed on to the customers, even if only pence it would add up if it happened a lot, or mean less pay for employees. There is always a cost somewhere and my conscience would niggle me otherwise.

I once ordered a case of wine to be delivered to my school address, a couple of days before we finished for Christmas it hadn't arrived. On the phone they said they'd sent it to the wrong address, a pub with a similar name but they would express deliver another to my home address which they did. On returning to work in January there was another case to the correct work address and when I phoned they said to keep it, it was easier than having it collected!

So i assume you would feel justified in shoplifting from a business with a turnover of around this amount , as you are still stealing the items , regardless of how you came to have them without paying for them .

I'd keep them.

They weren't unsolicited though, in that they weren't sent out of the blue.

OP ordered the items, cancelled them and obviously due to an admin mixup they've been sent out. Morally, if not 100% legally perhaps it is theft.

Any decent person would get in touch with the company and ask them to arrange collection.

Marjory the trash heap from Fraggle Rock is my style icon.

THE TRASH HEAP HAS SPOKEN.

Morally it is no difference what size of business it is, it comes down to whether you think you are entitled to something for nothing because someone made a mistake.

That’s not legally true. Firms can take you to court to recover their goods, if they wanted to.

Return them

Keeping them is tantamount to shop lifting.

Although there is a glitch in their IT system, it may come to light and you will be shown to be stealing.

It's pointless quoting their annual turnover (I mean- you've actually looked! That's very telling in itself.)
Annual gross turnover is meaningless - of course you can dig further and maybe see what the CEO earns . Why not? Will it confirm you're right to steal?

Is this Boden? Just thinking of a clothing company where most items are £70-80 a piece. It's not M&S for sure.

You buy the same item in different colours and patterns, to the tune of £300-400 every month?

That seems very unusual to me but maybe I'm out of touch.

I'd keep the items.

This happened to me with an expensive tool and I kept both the tool and the refund with no repercussions.

So far....
I hope your conscience pricks you now and then.

Stealing whether it's for remotely ordered goods or in a shop simply puts the prices up for honest shoppers.

Honestly, I would put the ball in their court and notify them. At worst, they would ask for the stuff back, at best they may say keep it.
As an aside, £32 million turnover isn't massive. I thought you were going to say Amazon or a similar company in the billions!! (although my advice would still have been the same, even if it was!)

In my experience when you contact they say it's their issue and to keep it. I had a situation with a big brand where they told me most of an order was cancelled due to stock issues and a refund was issued, two days later everything arrived. I emailed them, didn't get a reply so the next day I used live chat on their site and explained. The chat agent told me as it was their error I could keep the items.

It's better to be honest.

Regardless of whether it was an item I'd initially wanted or not, I would still let them know.
It's their error but keeping the items is morally wrong.
Absolutely fine to explain why retuning is difficult and asking about a courier. Then if they say to keep the clothing you can do so with a clear conscience.

Unless it was a small business / independent, I would definitely keep it.

I've also just spotted on the end of your post that you regularly spend £300-£400 on this website - is this just on clothes?! 😮Per month??? 😮So you don't even have the excuse of being short of a few bob. I'm not sure how you are justifying this to yourself, but you need to at least offer to do the right thing.

Because I guess PP assumed that when you cancelled the items you no longer wanted them. Thats what I assumed too.

I had this with some face flannels

I ordered 6,6 arrived,and then another 6 and another,and another

It took a week or so for the parcels to stop,by which I had over 60 face flannels

I contacted the seller to let them know,to please stop sending them and could I have a pre-paid label and I'd send them back as i hadn't ordered so many

I got the rudest message back,telling me to send them back at my own expense and practically telling me I'd stolen them

I sent another message back,telling them I hadn't ordered so many,I hadn't paid for 60+ face flannels-only the 6 I'd ordered and could I have a label and I'd send back the ones I hadn't ordered,I'm damned if I was out of pocket for their mistake

I even got in touch with ebay to sort it out and didn't hear anything back

Never heard a thing back from the seller so kept them-most are still in the packaging and sat in the airing cupboard

And the ones I did order,they've never been used as dp went off the idea of using them!

Normally I'd own up and sort it out,but these sellers where unbelievably rude,ignored me when I tried again to sort it out and ebay where no use at all

I agree with you - if the company sends the items to you then it's their error and becomes the customers' inconvenience to them contact them and return them. I don't think it's the same as theft at all, it's the company sending you something you've asked them not to send.

I would still contact an individual seller (like on Etsy) or smaller company though, just to be nice. Don't think I would bother with a big company.

Turnover means nothing. It just means how much money goes through the company. It's not the same as profit.

For example, a small, local trader like a roofer or a window fitter could turnover 100s of 1000s a year because their customers are paying them high amounts. But that's because the products are expensive, not because the profit margins are high.

I bought some gifts in Waitrose recently and paid with contactless and took the items. When I got out of the store I checked my bank app as I sort of thought that was not the amount I'd expected.
Turned out they hadn't charged for one of them. The person serving me (I was at a till) clearly hadn't scanned it.
Honestly, I just walked away with it. I didn't have time to go back as I was in a rush to get to my event with said gifts and I'm not 100pc sure I would have done even if I had time. My view was that the member of staff was clearly responsible to scan the items, they were clearly laid out for scanning and so it was reasonable for me to assume it had been done correctly

Contact them

E-mail them:

"Dear Big Company. You recently delivered some items to me but I had previously cancelled my order for these items and I have received a refund. You are welcome to arrange their collection, with no charge to me, from my address at a day and time that is convenient to me. Please let me know your preferred next steps to resolve this issue".

If it's a big company, there's a 50/50 chance they won't be arsed and you'll get to keep them.

Always be honest. That’s how I feel in general about everything. I once received a T-shirt in an order from ASOS that wasn’t mine. I told them and they asked me to return it. The return price was more than the T-shirt, in the end they told me to keep it.