Unwanted deliveries from Amazon since December - please help!

Pilliwinks

Fosterdog wrote: »

It would be worth running free credit checks just to check that nobody has set any other accounts up in her name but it does sound more like either somebody has put the wrong address by mistake or they are deliberately fraudulently ordering goods and maybe there have been more packages that have arrived that they have taken before your mother gets home. Maybe they don't bother knocking for the others because they risk being caught/identified that way.

Good point. I see there are free services, I will get her signed up to these.

I would imagine someone gaining unauthorized access to the block on a regular basis might be quite hard. It has a door entry system with only 6 flats and everyone knows each other. I think they take the Neighbourhood Watch system very seriously.

I find it bizarre that someone could get their address so wrong. From some of the descriptions my mum has read out on the phone/I've looked up some of these items sound very expensive. For example, one box reads Razer Blade 15 (15.6 Inch 144 Hz Full HD) Gaming Laptop (Black) - (Edge-to-Edge, GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q, 8th Gen Intel Core i7, 512 GB SSD I looked this up on Amazon and at the time it was just short of £2000. Surely you must have £2000 to be able to fund this before they would send it out? Or perhaps not.

Pilliwinks

neilmcl wrote: »

Simple, if they're being left outside the door then just ignore it. They'll soon disappear, and they're not your responsibility. If they get delivered in person then don't accept the items.

Yes, this would seem an ideal solution. However, the block is council owned. There is a strict policy about not leaving anything outside your door (not even a doormat) as this is classed as a fire risk. Tenants are responsible for keeping their own doorways clear and can be subject to penalties if not adhered to. The council are not interested in who owns these parcels, the onus on keeping the doorway clear rests with the tenant.

The items don't get delivered in person. There is a button on the door entry specifically for trades/postman etc so I assume that is how the postman gets in (it is only operational for a certain period in the day).

Pilliwinks

wesleyad wrote: »

...Just to add, something must be amiss, if someone is ordering (what sounds like) £1000s worth of goods and not receiving why on earth aren't Amazon acting?

Couldn't agree more but Amazon will not speak to me. It seems they will only speak with the person named on the parcels. And of course nobody knows who one earth this person is.

unholyangel

lammy82 wrote: »

Anyway, in order to be legally protected, you should tell Amazon that you are giving them 14 days to collect the unwanted items before they are disposed of. This could be an email, a letter or a message through the website, but you need to keep proof that you sent it, and you need to make reasonable efforts to allow them to collect the goods if they want them back.

After the deadline has elapsed you can donate the goods to a charity shop, but hold onto the email/letter in case they change their mind and try to get you to pay for the items.

Be aware that you will never legally become the owner of the goods as they still belong to Amazon or whoever legally purchased them.

While I appreciate your post was attempting to be helpful, this is wrong.

In order to discharge your legal liability you need to send 2 written notices (not email or message through the website) stating certain information (such as your name, address, how they can contact you and that you intend to dispose/sell the items if they do not collect them). You must also give them a reasonable time (although is not defined so would be up to a court to decide what was reasonable, i would suggest given their value, longer than 14 days is given ). If you sell the goods, you need to get a fair market rate for them and any money from the sale would belong to the owner. I'm not sure that donating to a charity shop would be seen the same as disposing due to nuances of the law.

The added issue here might be that the owner of the goods is Amazon EU SARL, who do not have a UK presence. They outsource to a third party called amazon.co.uk Ltd. So you'd be wise to make sure its an address for amazon EU sarl and not amazon.co.uk ltd.

Pilliwinks

:wall:

This just gets better.

Pilliwinks

unholyangel wrote: »

While I appreciate your post was attempting to be helpful, this is wrong.

In order to discharge your legal liability you need to send 2 written notices (not email or message through the website) stating certain information (such as your name, address, how they can contact you and that you intend to dispose/sell the items if they do not collect them). You must also give them a reasonable time (although is not defined so would be up to a court to decide what was reasonable, i would suggest given their value, longer than 14 days is given ). If you sell the goods, you need to get a fair market rate for them and any money from the sale would belong to the owner. I'm not sure that donating to a charity shop would be seen the same as disposing due to nuances of the law.

The added issue here might be that the owner of the goods is Amazon EU SARL, who do not have a UK presence. They outsource to a third party called amazon.co.uk Ltd. So you'd be wise to make sure its an address for amazon EU sarl and not amazon.co.uk ltd.

So, I write the letters for the goods received to date. What about goods that come after these letters? Do letters keep needing to be written or would you know if there is some response I can put in there that says my mum also discharges all legal liability for any FUTURE deliveries. I wouldn't want to be in a loop of having to write letters every so often to keep up.

The whole situation is ludicrous. She lives in a tiny one bed flat. Her TV and sofa+armchair literally take up all the floor space. Some of these items come in big packaging. I would estimate there must be £6000-£7000 worth of goods there by now.

This would be mildly amusing if there weren't other problems involved, like how on earth is she going to switch her gas fire on during colder nights if she has nowhere to stack the increasing number of boxes safely. So incredibly frustrating.

unholyangel

Pilliwinks wrote: »

So, I write the letters for the goods received to date. What about goods that come after these letters? Do letters keep needing to be written or would you know if there is some response I can put in there that says my mum also discharges all legal liability for any FUTURE deliveries. I wouldn't want to be in a loop of having to write letters every so often to keep up.

The whole situation is ludicrous. She lives in a tiny one bed flat. Her TV and sofa+armchair literally take up all the floor space. Some of these items come in big packaging. I would estimate there must be £6000-£7000 worth of goods there by now.

This would be mildly amusing if there weren't other problems involved, like how on earth is she going to switch her gas fire on during colder nights if she has nowhere to stack the increasing number of boxes safely. So incredibly frustrating.

As advised above, don't take the parcels in. If she doesn't take possession of them and they're not there with her consent/under contract with her then I can't see any way she could be held liable. Especially if its been left in a communal space.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished!

Really, I'd try amazon again on the phone or webchat (positive they do a webchat although I might be wrong) before doing the letters but if the agent can't understand the request, ask for it to be escalated. Some frontline staff are fantastic even with "out of the box" problems. However some are more "monkey see, monkey do" so I can appreciate how frustrating it can be getting help when something like this happens.

theonlywayisup

This isn't isolated. I recall a case some years ago where someone was receiving all of amazon's returns, some considerable sum if I recall.

I can't find that story but there are others.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/11269888/Student-sent-3600-worth-of-gifts-from-Amazon-because-of-computer-glitch.html

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/apr/21/amazon-why-am-i-deluged-by-unwanted-parcels

lammy82

unholyangel wrote: »

While I appreciate your post was attempting to be helpful, this is wrong.

In order to discharge your legal liability you need to send 2 written notices (not email or message through the website) stating certain information (such as your name, address, how they can contact you and that you intend to dispose/sell the items if they do not collect them). You must also give them a reasonable time (although is not defined so would be up to a court to decide what was reasonable, i would suggest given their value, longer than 14 days is given ). If you sell the goods, you need to get a fair market rate for them and any money from the sale would belong to the owner. I'm not sure that donating to a charity shop would be seen the same as disposing due to nuances of the law.

The added issue here might be that the owner of the goods is Amazon EU SARL, who do not have a UK presence. They outsource to a third party called amazon.co.uk Ltd. So you'd be wise to make sure its an address for amazon EU sarl and not amazon.co.uk ltd.

Thank you for pointing this out. I didn't realise that two notices were required, although it looks like they can be sent together if you send them by registered post. I found a useful article from citizen's advice on the Wayback machine.

Edit: Just to check - are you sure the '2 letters' rule applies in Scotland? It's not mentioned here.

bris

You still have a duty of care over the items (involuntary bailee) and to hand them to a charity shop could see you liable for the cost of them.


You need to do thing properly as per Unholyangels post and get the best possible price for them if it comes to that. From that you can deduct the selling expenses if any and reasonable storage costs.


As a landlord I believe you have to keep the goods for 6 months in case of a claim on them, that's probably the same for any kind of abandoned goods which these technically are. So you best get your facts straight before you go disposing of them, if there is 6-7k then someone will come looking.