Joined Feb 2014
L5: Journeyman
Forum Thread
Unsolicited shipment (philosophical question)
November 13, 2022 at
06:09 PM
Thread Details
Suppose that you have a FedEx account that sends you alerts when any package is being shipped to your home address. Now, suppose that you get an unexpected email from them (which looks like a phishing attempt) saying that you have a package from Walmart.com headed to your address, but your last name is misspelled.
Now, you haven't ordered anything from Walmart, so your first instinct is that this is a fake email that wants you to click on that ever-so-inviting link to Walmart.com to check and see what this mysterious order is all about. You're too savvy for that, so you go to check your Walmart account by safe means, and you see that you have no outstanding orders. You also check your PayPal, credit cards, and credit report to make sure no identity fraud has occurred. Everything seems fine.
Next day, you see the FedEx truck arrive, and they put a Walmart.com box in your driveway at the bottom of your steps (the FedEx person couldn't be bothered to walk all the way up to your porch). You hadn't planned on getting out of your chair today, but you bother yourself to get up, put on some pants (no need for neighbors to see you nekkid), and go out to retrieve this mysterious box. Sure enough, inside the box is an item of $60 value that you had been LOOKING AT on Walmart.com, but didn't actually purchase.
So, the question becomes, "What do you do now?"
There was no packing slip inside the box, (In this hypothetical situation that might or might not have happened to me today) but there was an order number and customer reference number printed on the FedEx label. You COULD spend time on the phone to further investigate this, but should I (I mean "you" hypothetically) do that?
Let's talk about the value of time and effort. When you call Walmart.com support, the person you speak to on the other end is not doing it out of the goodness of their heart and/or because it's "the right thing to do" for Walmart. They are getting paid. Logistics is big business. People who manage logistics get paid for their work. Also, storage isn't free. Go to one of those local self-storage places, and see if they'll hold a box for you for free. Nope. They won't.
If I (in this hypothetical situation) spend my time getting on the phone with Walmart.com to figure out why they sent me this thing I was pondering purchasing, then I'd need to find out how to invoice them for my services of handling the logistics and storage for them. I mean, making me get out of my chair and put on pants without paying me was bordering on "theft of services" already. By the time they got the bill, they'd likely owe me more than four times the value of the item.
What would YOU do?
Now, you haven't ordered anything from Walmart, so your first instinct is that this is a fake email that wants you to click on that ever-so-inviting link to Walmart.com to check and see what this mysterious order is all about. You're too savvy for that, so you go to check your Walmart account by safe means, and you see that you have no outstanding orders. You also check your PayPal, credit cards, and credit report to make sure no identity fraud has occurred. Everything seems fine.
Next day, you see the FedEx truck arrive, and they put a Walmart.com box in your driveway at the bottom of your steps (the FedEx person couldn't be bothered to walk all the way up to your porch). You hadn't planned on getting out of your chair today, but you bother yourself to get up, put on some pants (no need for neighbors to see you nekkid), and go out to retrieve this mysterious box. Sure enough, inside the box is an item of $60 value that you had been LOOKING AT on Walmart.com, but didn't actually purchase.
So, the question becomes, "What do you do now?"
There was no packing slip inside the box, (In this hypothetical situation that might or might not have happened to me today) but there was an order number and customer reference number printed on the FedEx label. You COULD spend time on the phone to further investigate this, but should I (I mean "you" hypothetically) do that?
Let's talk about the value of time and effort. When you call Walmart.com support, the person you speak to on the other end is not doing it out of the goodness of their heart and/or because it's "the right thing to do" for Walmart. They are getting paid. Logistics is big business. People who manage logistics get paid for their work. Also, storage isn't free. Go to one of those local self-storage places, and see if they'll hold a box for you for free. Nope. They won't.
If I (in this hypothetical situation) spend my time getting on the phone with Walmart.com to figure out why they sent me this thing I was pondering purchasing, then I'd need to find out how to invoice them for my services of handling the logistics and storage for them. I mean, making me get out of my chair and put on pants without paying me was bordering on "theft of services" already. By the time they got the bill, they'd likely owe me more than four times the value of the item.
What would YOU do?
About the OP
2 Comments
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I must confess I have received things I forgot about ordering though. I would hope to make the connection and be able to resolve it easily when I knew I had one coming from somewhere.
I have had sites use drop-shipments from competitors too. It is puzzling. Glad to see that the mystery and the moral dilemma are solved. I really hate unsolved mysteries when it comes to packages.