Ordered item to wrong addressed, threatened with legal action

Louise126

I placed an order today and accidentally put the delivery address to my old address, within 4 minutes I messaged the company and asked them to change my delivery address, I was told this was not possible. I then asked to cancel the order so I could re-order to correct address as old address is hours away they said that was not possible either. I replied and said this was ridiculous customer service given that the order had not been dispatched and I would provide a review on my experience, I was then threatened with legal action for defamation if any review was given. I'm not really sure what my rights are, the company have said I will receive a refund if I return the item but I am not going to receive it? Does anyone have any advice? 

Jonboy_1984

As this is your error you don’t really have any rights. Depending on the size of the entity and if they outsource their logistics, intercepting a single order can be troublesome.

If you get a tracking number see if the couriers will redirect (they may need to check with the sender, which may add a couple of days on).

pinkshoes

Anyone can sue anyone but if the review is factual then that's fine.

Assuming it is a UK company and the item was a standard item and not customised then you can cancel. Put it in writing that you would like to cancel.

Which company was it?

nyermen

pinkshoes said:

Anyone can sue anyone but if the review is factual then that's fine.

Yup, and your review could also state that they made such a threat.
Any such legal action would fail as you wont have defamed them (no false statement)

As mentioned, assuming distance sale, UK company, and its B2C (consumer purchase) then you have the right to cancel of course.

DullGreyGuy

pinkshoes said:

Assuming it is a UK company and the item was a standard item and not customised then you can cancel. Put it in writing that you would like to cancel.

You have a right to cancel but that doesnt mean the company has the ability to stop the order being sent. If you've cancelled but its too late to prevent a delivery then you have an obligation to return the goods.

With third party fulfillment, automated fulfillment etc it can be exceptionally difficult to attempt to pull an order. We used to send 50,000 orders a day, fully automated to the point of filling sacks of orders and collected 3x a day by UKMail. Once it was on the conveyor belt there was no way of stopping it and no one was going to search through all the sacks to try and find one packet. Plus the 50k was just ours, the fulfillment centre processed our sister companies stuff too and the sacks will have had mixed brands in them.   

diystarter7

Hi OP

Did you phone them immediately you noted your mistake?
If I feel something is important and made a mistake on the colour of item ticked the wrong box, I emailed and rang them straight away as the last thing i wanted is problems because of my mistake.

Thanks

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Louise126 said:

I was then threatened with legal action for defamation if any review was given. 

Anyone can say they are going to do this but first it's very expensive and secondly the review would have contain untruthful information. 

Which company did you buy from OP?

Is your old address far away? Standard house or multiple occupants there? Any friends/family nearby that could pop round and pick up the parcel? 

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:
Is your old address far away? 

Louise126 said:
old address is hours away

Seems like it

k3lvc

Assuming the order is already placed/confirmed then you're in the realms of having to either have the item in your hands to return it or get someone at the address to return it on your behalf.

Given it was your error you may now have to do the legwork to sort it out rather than complaining about the vendors behaviour

Louise126

Thank you for responses. Delivery address was indeed my error, item was standard and not customised and bought from OnBuy, which says orders can be cancelled within 30 minutes. I emailed the specific seller 4 minutes after placing the order, although from responses I understand that changing or cancelling delivery can be practically impossible in big warehouses.  I am concerned I will never receive the parcel in order to be able to return it. 

k3lvc

Now you mention OnBuy will be interesting to see how you get on - it seems to have a significant number of +ve reviews but I've only had (3) negative experiences where orders were placed and were never despatched. I see it as an Amazon Marketplace pretender based on a whole load of drop-shipment type operators who, once the order is received, realise they can no longer access the goods at the price they thought they could