DSW's Dirty Trick Backfires; Now Customer Has Free Shoes
DSW is playing dirty with Brook, who tried to legitimately order two pairs of shoes on January 30th. Due to an error on DSW's side, the order was never fulfilled. He called and resolved the problem and they re-processed the order, but a few days later DSW decided to send the order a second time, and this time they jacked up the price by $20. They won't let him cancel the order and say they'll only refund the smaller of the two amounts if he returns it. Surprise, DSW! According to the FTC, you just sent Brook some free shoes.
I placed an order for two pairs of shoes on 1/30/09 for $79.57 at DSW.com.
One week later, they still hadn't shipped, so I called customer service. I was told my order had been canceled due to a computer error, but she said she could place the exact same order for the exact same amount. She even 2nd day shipped the shoes to compensate me for my trouble. I received the shoes on 2/6/09, and everything was fine, so I was happy.
On 2/7/09, I was emailed an order confirmation for the exact same shoes but with a total of $100.82. I called and they refused to stop shipment of the shoes, insisting that I ordered MORE of the IDENTICAL SHOES I had just received. Huh?
It is now 2/10/09, and they insist the second set of shoes is en route, even though I have not received any tracking numbers (I didn't even place the order). They say that I can ship the shoes back to them, but they'll only refund me the $79.57 amount (the order I'm wearing), not the unauthorized purchase amount of $100.82.
Essentially, they're hijacking my credit card for an additional $20 that I did not authorize. According to some customer support supervisor there named Ahmed, they're not pleased with the $79.57 price. I guess this is their way of ensuring that they can "legitimately" charge me the $100.82 price that they like, because when I ship the 2nd order back they're going to refund me the lesser amount.
They insist that the $79.57 amount was an error, but I say they'refucked now that I'm fucking wearing them. They can't just ship me another two pairs of shoes at the rate they WISH they'd charged me.
Also, isn't there some law that says a company can't just ship you things you didn't order? Are the two spare pairs of shoes mine without me having to pay for them?
Yes. Brook, you may want to call DSW back and read the following to them. It's taken directly from the FTC's "Mail Order or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule," and it applies to Internet orders as well.
Unordered Merchandise
Whether or not the Rule is involved, in any approval or other sale you must obtain the customer's prior express agreement to receive the merchandise. Otherwise the merchandise may be treated as unordered merchandise. It is unlawful to:
1. Send any merchandise by any means without the express request of the recipient (unless the merchandise is clearly identified as a gift, free sample, or the like); or,
2. Try to obtain payment for or the return of the unordered merchandise.
Merchants who ship unordered merchandise with knowledge that it is unlawful to do so can be subject to civil penalties of up to $11,000 per violation. Moreover, customers who receive unordered merchandise are legally entitled to treat the merchandise as a gift. Using the U.S. mails to ship unordered merchandise also violates the Postal laws.
Explain this to DSW and then file a chargeback on the $100.82 charge. Enjoy your back-up shoes.
Note: Brook is a dude. I apologize for the pronoun errors; they have been corrected.
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Comments:
Nice! Good going Chris!
HUh! I wonder if this would have worked with the stupid duplicate Office Depot order I received.
"Merchants who ship unordered merchandise with knowledge that it is unlawful to do so..."
So obviously their argument will be that they had no knowledge that it was unlawful to do so.
wow this is cool. One time Buy.com accidentally shipped me extra usb thumb drives (I only ordered 1, but got 5), so now I don't feel bad about keeping them.
Ha! Thanks for that little FTC link, Chris.
We've been having troubles canceling our Gevalia account. In fact, more than 6 months ago we stopped the account completely. They recently pulled this with us (sent us the coffee then told us we had to pay for it). We told them to send us a return label and we'd gladly send it back to them. It's been a few weeks and no label.
So if they call back to demand payment, I will gladly use this FTC link to thank them for the gift. All the while, sipping on a nice hot cup of Roast Espresso!
definitely back charge before the dispute period is up. I've had to utilize that tool a few times in the past for double billing where visa would talk to me in about 10 minutes and the merchants phone tree would keep me on for an hour.
@concordia: That's fine, they won't be subject to a civil penalty.
As the rule is written, that only applies to the civil penalty.
@silver-bolt: unfortunately that's probably the case. if she really wants to keep the extra pair of shoes a small claims suit for the $100.82 would probably be the only way to get a refund without sending them back. The lawsuit approach also has the added benefit of there now being a public record that they know it is unlawful to ship unordered merchandise, which would be handy in imposing that $11K fine should anyone else encounter the same issue in the future.
I got a free laptop this way a few years ago after ordering one, they sent me two.
Look a gift horse in the mouth? no way!
Ikea once sent us a kid's art easel, you know, the kind with a chalk board on one side and paper on the other. Anyway, I gave it to a neighbor's little girl. They called a little while later and said they wanted it back. I told them about the unordered merchandise rule and said 'sorry, I already gave it away'. They were none too happy.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I mean, since they charged her, it will require a chargeback, upon which there will be a minor investigation where DSW will present the order #'s (and likely claim that she ordered both, but lose), at which point, credit card will authorize chargeback once she ships the shoes back. Right? I can't see a CC company just crediting a chargeback without any real proof that she didn't order the second set AND without ordering another pair. Either way, pretty f'd up on DSW's part. Can I somehow use this to convince my wife to boycott their shoes? (would save $$$$$$$)
Please, Please, Please, keep us updated Brook! I'd love to hear about a company getting smarmy and it biting them in the ass!
BMG did a similar thing to me. Sent me CDs I never ordered due to a mixup on the order form. They billed me and said I couldn't return them. I talked to the post office and they cited that same thing.
So I ended up with some free CDs!
Yes! Excitement!
Unfortunately the CDs were Jewel and a tribute to The Carpenters.
No! Sadness.
In the end, I was entertained for a few minutes while microwaving them.
@wickedpixel:
No, she ordered shoes, the order was "lost" by DSW.
She reordered and got the shoes.
DSW initiated a second re-order, without her consent.
She can keep the shoes AND charge it back. No need to send the shoes back, they are now a gift by FTC rules. See part 2, they cannot try to get payment for something they sent out without her ordering it.
i've received duplicates from companies before. actually, twice from amazon. both times i've called them and they sent me packaging to send the extra back.
apparently i'm in the minority here: an honest person?
it's sad how many people are willing to rip off companies. sure, it's a law, but whatever happened to compassion and helping people with their minor screw-ups?
Once when ordering from LL Bean there was a glitch and a canceled item was shipped anyway. It was clearly their fault and I knew I could keep it but because they were so nice about it and they're a pretty nice company I sent them back. If they were rude like DSW I would have kept it.
@katieoh: The one time this happened to me with Amazon, the items that didn't ship on time and were subsequently re-ordered without my permission were Christmas gifts, ones that I needed in my hand the day before they re-ordered them so that I could get them shipped to their final destination.
Amazon f-ed up my well thought out Christmas gifts and left me sweating and scrambling to find something to send to the recipients. They subsequently got the very late items as well, and I kept the second order. If that makes me dishonest, then I can live with it.
That happened to me, except it was a 20" LCD monitor. They sent me 2, one arriving two days after the other. A nice $200 gift from NewEgg. They're all about customer satisfaction over there!
You may be in the lost on this one if Gevalia has a recording of you agreeing to return the coffee.
@katieoh: If the companies in question are polite and do everything in their power to resolve the problem, sure, be nice and send the stuff back. If they're dicks about it (as they were to Brook), why would they deserve compassion? They tried to bill Brook twice for the same order and jacked up the price the second time, then insisted that there was nothing they could do about it. Why on earth should he help them after they tried to screw him?
@larrymac: i'm not saying that you shouldn't voice your complaints. look at several of the other comments here: people received things in the mail and then just kept them. to me, that's dishonest. in your situation, i would have called amazon and complained about the service, and then mentioned the duplicate order. perhaps they would say to just keep them, or maybe they would ask for them back but refund you for the inconvenience.
to me, it just seems kind of like ripping off a company. we complain when they have bad customer service, but then we aren't willing to notify them of their screw ups when it "benefits" us? it's dishonest and, i think, makes the consumer no better than the company. someone's getting screwed either way.
@katieoh: I don't think that's so much the minority. I would like to think that if it was an honest mistake, most people would attempt to find out if the company wants to go through the trouble of paying for postage to get said items back.
However, if a company sends you duplicates of something and then wants to charge you for those items (or, hold your credit card hostage), you have every right to tell them to get bent and keep your new "extras".
@katieoh:
Uh Holier that Thou now Katie? What a nerve calling people you don't even know dishonest. I love to have compassion; but when you screw up big time and behave arrogantly on top of that, "where is my compassion"? "Nowhere you can find it". By the way Bernard Madoff called, he want you to be honest and have compassion for his minor screw-up and send him back the deed to the Statue of Liberty!
@katieoh: For me it would all depend on the situation. In this case I think she's morally entitled since they were dicks about it. If it was an enormous faceless corporation I'd consider keeping it as well.
If it was a small mom-n-pop shop I would almost certainly send it back.
@katieoh: Brook was willing to send them back, but DSW wanted to retroactively charge him more. He's not being dishonest in any way! It's definitely on the company to know the ins and outs of the law.
@Aisley: It wasn't so much an agreement, more like telling them that if they want the coffee back (that was never ordered), they can send us a shipping label.
At this point, the amount of trouble they have been with keeping their own records straight, I'd figure they would just write it off and let it go.
@RedSonSuperDave: i'm not saying that what happened to the op wasn't ridiculous. i'm saying that, okay, complain first. clearly, in the op, there's a logistical problem going on, something else entirely. but still, if dsw refunds the $110 order, why would he not send the duplicate order back? as "payback"? as his "reward" for the inconvenience?
Everyone say it with me: ZAPPOS.COM
It's articles like this that make me so happy we have this site.
@Snowblind: Except that the government might not be able to make her give the second set back, but her CC can as a condition of the refund. They don't have to refund it, and can let her deal with DSW in court instead.
@katieoh: The reason the rules are this way is because, in the past, there have been companies that tried to make "ship first, bill later" their sleazy business plan. That is, unsolicited shipping not as an honest mistake but to compel a sale. I think it's a very good rule.
@copious28: While you gave it to the kid is nice, just up and giving away a mistaken shipment is douche. If they weren't trying to charge you for it, or for shipping, you should have offered to return it if they prepaid the shipping. Anything else is douche-y theft.
Did you have to sign for it? The delivery I mean? If so, that may well satisfy the stuff on agreeing to receive it.
I have 2 gigs of very expensive RAM in my PC right now because of this FTC rule. Hey... watch what you toss in the box next time. ;)
@custommadescare: What the Rule Does Not Cover
The following sales are exempt from the Rule:
* magazine subscriptions (and similar serial deliveries), except for the first shipment;
* sales of seeds and growing plants;
* orders made on a collect-on-delivery basis (C.O.D.); and,
* transactions covered by the FTC's Negative Option Rule (such as book and music clubs).
If she were to do a chargeback, who pays for the shipping on the return? Would the CC company charge the seller, or is the customer on the hook for that?
Any one ever heard of a crapper called Bottom Line Books? They're great on sending you stuff you never ordered then hitting you up with bills for them and collections. Does this apply to them also??
@DrMorison: Without going into too much backstory, there was no subscription when they sent the coffee. They basically just arbitrarily sent it.
We called them, even verified that there was no account anymore, and that's when we told them that if they want it back, send us a label.
Even researching your last bullet point (thanks, btw. that's 2 new things today!), we actually did the right thing and can treat it as a gift!
@Aisley: yeah, sorry for having an opinion. i forgot the internets was not the place for this!
if the company was not dishonest in any way, why not inform them of their missteps? i wasn't referring to the op in particular. look at the two comments, one about getting an extra laptop and the other about getting four extra thumb drives. the idea that those peoples' orders could have been processed as placed and they received the extra goods and did not mention it? i think it's dishonest.
@jodles: i wasn't referring to the op. i know that wasn't clear, but i was referring to the posters who received duplicate goods without being charged for them and just didn't feel the need to inform the companies. i think it's rude.
@LandruBek: i'm not saying that isn't a good law. but if it's a screw-up with an order you placed and the company doesn't charge you yet you still receive duplicates, i think it's dishonest not to inform them of their mistake and just take the goods as a "bonus."
@S. Patrick Kaine: Glad to think I wasn't the only person whose initial reaction to this was "well why didn't he just order from Zappos".
@silver-bolt: I fail to see how some company's mistake obligates the mistaken recipient to do anything. I wouldn't take their easel to the UPS store or box it back up or do anything else. I don't work for them.
@silver-bolt: If you read the law up there he can do a chargeback AND keep the shoes because they sent the shoes without her placing an order so they are considered a gift but then they charged him for the gift.
According to the lawhe should get her money back and keep her gifted shoes.
@katieoh: The issue here isnt honesty. Amazon didnt charge you for the duplicate items and while it was nice of you to send them back you didnt have to.
The issue here is this person was charged for the second set of Shoes and despite the fact that he TRIED to return them, he was told if he did he would be charged an extra $20 on the first order simply because they werent happy that they CSR gave him a discount.
@DrMorison: Agreeing to receive something and ordering it are different.
How was she to know what was in the box when it was signed for? They dont allow you to open it.
If you receive a box from UPS and your mother, father, sister, wife, husband, child, whatever signs for it. Then you open it and see its a...blu-ray player from Amazon that you never ordered THEN you notice they charged you for it should you be responsible to pay the bill?
Hell no.
The chargeback will most likely require her to send one set back.