To keep an item that I have received a refund for as it was lost?

[Confusion33]

I ordered some shoes from JD Sports, £40 and they didn't arrive for weeks. I contacted them and they agreed to issue a refund. Just got an update from Evri that the shoes are ready to collect. Ive already got the refund but would like the shoes. AIBU to collect the shoes?
I bought the item from the website as a guest with no account and used my bank card so don't think they can realistically charge me again can they?

No you don’t. Such a black and white view of the world.

This is what I would do, and recommend.

I once ended up with two identical large items from JL in this manner, worth £250 each.

The first item was slightly broken when they delivered it, so they arranged a new one as a replacement. When they came to deliver the new one the delivery crew refused to take away the old one saying they don’t do that!

I contacted JL several times, they repeatedly said they would send someone to collect it and never did, so in the end I gave up. This was in Summer 2020 (at the height of Covid) so it’s possible they may have been overwhelmed with the demand for home deliveries, but I just wanted it gone. The old one is still sitting in my garage 😩😩😩

Keep em and give £40 to charity

You've been refunded now so they'll be sent back to seller. Unless you're trying to get them for free?

Say they’ve finally turned up and offer to pay. 🤷‍♀️

Posters keep saying that the OP would be breaking the (criminal) law, that she’d be a thief.

Are there any criminal practitioner lawyers on this thread who’d be willing to offer their view on the principles?

I just can’t see why this would amount to an offence of theft. It’s not like the OP set out to steal. Seems more like a matter of contract to me.

Fuck it. Keep ‘em.

Not a criminal lawyer but I am a lawyer. Theft is defined as the “dishonest appropriation of property with the intention to permanently deprive”.

The shoes are clearly property. Going to pick them up would be an act that clearly amounts to the appropriation of that property. Nothing passive there.

OP knows she has been refunded and therefore is not entitled to the shoes. If she does not let them know she has or plans to pick them up it is likely to meet the test of dishonesty.

If OP does not take any steps to tell the retailer she has them and / or offer to return or pay then this is pretty good evidence of an intention to permanently deprive the rightful owner of the property.

So yes, likely theft when you walk through the elements of the offence. However, as I said upthread, probably highly unlikely steps would ever be taken by the retailer via the police. They would likely simply request payment (which it sounds like
OP would do) or even just charge the card if they have a legal right to do so (mainly a contractual question around their T&Cs) if they identified they’d been delivered and picked up and so it would probably never get to that point / remain a question of civil law.

For the “property belonging to another” bit. For completeness, as OP has been refunded in lieu of JD providing what they agreed to, the property belongs to them so this is met.

Thank you.

I had an annoying situation a few months ago.

Large retail chain, but one which doesn't have branches in every city, this will be relevant eventually.
From their website, I ordered 2x Item A, 1x Item B.
They duly sent an email saying that my order would be arriving in two packages, (1) 1x Item A and (2) 1x Item A + 1x Item B. Following me so far?
When the packages arrived, (1) contained 1x Item A but (2) contained 2x Item A + 1x Item B. So now I had 3x Item A. I most certainly did not want 3x Item A.

I spent an excruciating length of time on their webchat being escalated higher and higher up the chain, trying to explain the issue. Yes, I wanted to return 1x Item A, how could this be done. No, there was nothing wrong with the items. No, I didn't want a refund, etc. Finally a supervisory person told me to take Item A to a store and just quote my order number.

Fortunately, this chain does have a store in my city. But at the other end from where I live and work, so very inconvenient to get to (and that's why I bloody ordered online for delivery in the first place). I must confess I didn't rush out immediately to return Item A because inconvenient, but a couple of weeks later I did have a bit of spare time so off I went to the store.

Nice fellow at the returns desk was perplexed. I explained all over again, in great detail. He took the surplus Item A, did all the computer typing stuff, apologised for the inconvenience.

Several days later, they sent a refund 🤦🏻‍♀️

Did I pursue it further to ask them to unrefund me? No, I did not. I felt I'd made enough bloody effort.

(I wonder - What if there hadn't been a store in my city? What if I'd had some reason e.g. illness or disability or just not having the time, why I couldn't have got to the store in my city? Could I have told them to get stuffed in those circumstances?)

Well your card has been marked!

nobody is being a martyr but go ahead and throw rocks at people for doing the right thing.

I agree. Offer to do the right thing.

I had 2 dresses sent out by next as the first one looked like it wasn't going to arrive in time. Of course the original one arrived a day after the replacement one so I put it aside and kept meaning to return it. I got an email asking for it to be returned or if be charged after about 2 months. I returned it. Then I got a gift voucher emailed to me for the value of the dress!

I’ve worked in a shop where this kinda thing happens ( not JD ) but when we go to scan parcel out it says refunded so be prepared to be very embarrassed if this happens , although you’ve clearly got a brass neck so will probably just deny all knowledge of said refund 🤷‍♀️

Please🙄

The parcel is a local corner shop that offers Evri delivery so dont think they would care either way! I've already said ill collect and email them to ask them for a solution, happy to pay if needed

Just let them be returned to sender, you've been refunded.

Well it is needed isn’t it ? You’re taking the shoes knowing you’ve had a refund , it’s theft however you dress it up

Items returned are absolutely resold why do some people have this ridiculous idea? When I worked in a shop we would have returned items that we checked over and put straight back on the shelves.

Imagine all these companies doing free postage and then just chucking millions of £ of returns 😂

There are loads of articles stating this isn’t the case - was it a long time ago you worked in a shop? They’re usually returned to a distribution centre now even if you take them back to the shop.

www.bbcearth.com/news/your-brand-new-returns-end-up-in-landfill

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/31/what-happens-when-we-send-back-unwanted-clothes

“This, Frei says, is very often not what happens. “If it’s not in perfect condition, if there is a delay in the shipping or in the processing, or if you keep it for quite a long time before returning it, then it’s not going to be resold,” Frei says. Third-party returns platform Optoro estimates that only 50% of returns will be.”

Donate one shoe to charity - then you can't use them, so won't feel any guilt, but you'll also have got one over on "Big Shoe" 😉😀👟

It's not greed, it's theft

Why wouldn’t you pay for them ? You’ve been refunded so not out of pocket / if you collect and like and keep then ring up company and pay or just pay via your account

Because it’s caused a giant hassle! Shoes are way later delivered than promised, she now has to go pick them up, also has to ring the company up and pay which takes more time. Life is too full to add all this extra admin ontop when a company hasn’t delivered on service to begin with. I would feel differently if she had ordered from a little indie company who will feel the £40 in their profit margins but this is JD sports we are taking about