Real Life MMD: Should we keep the wine?

Saynoto23

I was going to just say 'keep it' and ENJOY. But having read down and seen Reality123's response - particularly her holier than thou attitude to Princes Coupon's comments on her £0.20p complaint - I feel a rather more reasoned and measured reply is forthcoming!

Now Reality 123 .... Take 30 minutes of my time at £10 minimum per hour (cheap at the price), plus the cost of the phonecall, and then add on a substantial goodwill gesture for the time and trouble taken for sorting out the error on behalf of this company and I think it would be quite in order to issue an invoice above and well beyond the cost of a few bottles of red???

Finally, think on before you condemn others for being pedantic about a few pence - it might be you, your child or another member of your family who is 'watching the pennies' in years to come. No fun I can assure you ...

Reality123

Joseph

You are quite correct about compensation. Any retailer should thank you and possibly compensate you for sorting out their error. But that was not the question. It was, "should I keep the windfall?"

As for watching the pennies, I do not denigrate people who need to or wish to, I just feel it warrants an answer-back when people claim hyperbole about "it happening all the time" and then use that to justifying an immoral and illegal position.

I feel that the general cry of "keep it" is just a sad indictment of the attitude which prevails in the country and it is at odds with the ethos of this website, being the saving of money by spotting opportunities and fighting sharp practices by big companies.

Keep it legal.

Bodincus

Have you seen the "shoppers" trundling along the isles in your supermarket with those big trolleys full of crates?
That's what they do, shopping from the supermarket floor on your behalf.

They have a list with some of the deliveries to do from their store, and fill the crates looking through it.
A human error could always happen, one item slipping in the wrong crate is possible.

But a rack of 6 bottles of wine? :shocked:

Either the chap who loaded the van put the crate with the wine in the wrong slot, or the driver picked up the wrong crate.

As it's your responsibility to check the order you made is complete, and you signed a receipt, if you got something more than you paid for it's very likely you are liable.

But it's also difficult to prove that the wine you have came as a freebie for a delivery error. How can they prove it's the wine bottles they misplaced?

If the wine is not in the list you signed and the people who paid for the wine - and didn't get it - report the problem, then it's likely somebody up the chain will get a kicking - the driver, the loader or the shopper.

Do The Honourable Thing (tm) and come clean. Email the Customer Service and tell them.
If you want to try the phone call route again, don't call 0844-0871 numbers as they're expensive, and call 0870 numbers only if they're in your calls allowance.
0845 numbers usually are cheap (like a local call) so it's up to you.
On the other hand, 0800 and 0808 are free, so you can stay on the phone as much as you like.

It's extremely likely they will tell you to keep the wine, after all they won't be able to put it back in the shop for Health and Safety reasons (they can't guarantee the integrity and safety of the item) so it's worthless to them.

It'll be accounted as a breakage, or in the 7% of the shoplifted allowance.

Remember to raise one glass to us!

little_miss_muffet

keep it, if its from asda definetly keep it, theyre always making mistakes and never scan my coupons properly!:) Enjoy it

wilmer000

As their mistake, send email offering them to collect at their cost. Not worth their while to do so. Get letter back saying thanks but keep it. Drink with clear concience. lovely.

LRoss

CutTheJargon wrote: »

How do you work that out? Just because they spot an error means their opinion is worthless?
Well, I spotted that Lidl had overcharged me by 28p for an item and I got it refunded. As a newbie to this site, you will no doubt learn that a lot of us are decreasing our debts or increasing our savings by being extra vigilant. And that is no exaggeration! :rudolf:

Couldn't agree more! Particularly at Asda and Tesco, it's well worth pointing out the error. tesco give you double the difference back and Asda give you £2 on a gift card for over-charging (plus the extra back that they overcharged). It happens all the time - I have about £8 of Asda gift cards in my purse, it happens so often!

kitaj

Sorry, stealing is stealing. If you don't have any qualms about stealing then do it. If you do, then don't. But don't wrap it up in some false justification. If you let the shop know an they then don't come and collect it, after a reasonable time it's yours anyway. Most large shops don't send out another van to recollect but it's not right to second guess what they 'might' do. It's not really that different from shoplifting - who (over 14 years old) is happy doing that?:p

Paris_Anthony

How many of the people here saying that it's theft and oh so wrong would pick up a tenner they found on the ground. You know it wasn't put there for you but would not feel bad for taking it...

It's not just black and white, there is so much grey, and anyone who says otherwise is either a hypocrite or an idiot.

blue70

The trouble with these sort of scenarios is that a lot of people offer their opinion, with good intentions (Mostly Reality!), but are a bit vague when it comes to knowing the facts.
You can argue that it is theft because he/she knew they hadn't ordered the wine or paid for it but you could also argue it wasn't theft (by finding or otherwise) because reasonable attempts have been made to return the items to their owner. It's the same if you find an item in the street as long as you make reasonable attempts to locate the owner then you can keep the item. The act of theft has a legal definition (Mostly covered by the Theft act 1968), a situation does not become stealing because someones moral compass thinks that it should (again with the best intentions)

We normally have our shopping delivered by Sainsburys and I know for a fact that perishable items that are returned as unwanted by the shopper (maybe a substitute item) are put straight in the bin and that other substitute items that are returned are not accounted for by the store. Our delivery driver is quite chatty and has mentioned this before.

We are not talking about a life changing amount and as reasonable steps have already been taken to inform the supermarket I would leave it a while to see if the supermarket makes contact and if they don't the wine is yours.
The post above is correct these things are not black and white, every situation is different.

mr-tom_2

It's not as if you've not tried to inform them. You spent 30 minutes on the phone suffering dreadful customer service. Their loss. Maybe post them a letter gving them the address for this forum thread (so they they learn a valuable lesson about service) and then drink and enjoy.