Ordered item to wrong addressed, threatened with legal action

sheramber

It is a pity you didnlt follow the cancellation procedure 

https://www.onbuy.com/gb/help/orders/

Can I cancel my order?

Yes, of course! If you decide to cancel your order within 30 minutes of placing it, simply log in to your OnBuy account and locate your order. Click ‘Cancel Order’ and select your reason for cancelling. Your order will be cancelled immediately.

If it has been more than 30 minutes since placing your order, your cancellation request will be sent to the retailer for confirmation. They will contact you directly if there are any issues.

TELLIT01

Can you write to the occupants at your old address explaining the situation and ask them to forward it to you and you will refund the postage cost?  There is always a chance that they will refuse to accept it anyway as it isn't for them.  If that happens it will eventually find its way back to the supplier and presumably a refund will be issued at that point.

Manxman_in_exile

@Louise126 -  did you actually follow the cancellation instructions identified in @sheramber's post?

If you didn't, it might depend on what their T&Cs say about when a contract is formed.

Most online retailers stipulate that a contract is only formed when the goods are dispatched to you - not when they accept your order.  If this is the case with your purchase there is (or was) nothing to stop you notifying them that you were withdrawing your offer to buy (your order) before they sent the goods to you, and that you wanted a refund.  [Edit:  if they told you that they couldn't "cancel" the order before a contrcat was in place, they were almost certainly wrong]

Of course, if a contrcat was already in place before you tried to cancel the order, you have 14 days after the goods come into your possession in which to cancel the order.  The law doesn't specify what happens if the goods never come into your possession, but if the reason they never come into your possession is because you supplied the wrong delivery address in the first place, then I suspect the law may not be on your side...

Louise126

Understood, I have accepted that I am unlikely to get my money back if parcel is accepted my new residents, through my own error of course, will make sure address is correct in the future.

I just felt the response from the seller's customer service was very extreme (threatening a fine of several thousand pounds if I wrote any negative review and sending a screenshot of all the court battles they have had with their customers over the last 12 months regarding similar issues...)

Louise126

Manxman_in_exile said:

@Louise126 -  did you actually follow the cancellation instructions identified in @sheramber's post?

If you didn't, it might depend on what their T&Cs say about when a contract is formed.

I have just read the T&C's, which state: 

7.3 Without affecting your rights to return the Product as set out in these Terms, you can cancel your order for a Product at no cost to you at any time before we dispatch the Product to you.

7.5 The Contract between us will only be formed when we dispatch your Product to you. 


As the product has still not been dispatched does that mean I am within my rights to cancel?

in_my_wellies

I received a parcel today, correctly named and address to me, which I didn't order. Just the item in a plain box without any label/branding or sender information. I contacted the courier and await their response. I didn't receive an item I ordered. I wonder if just the two got 'swapped' or a whole chain along the conveyer belt all mis-labelled. No idea how the checking systems work. 

Good luck OP

Manxman_in_exile

Louise126 said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

@Louise126 -  did you actually follow the cancellation instructions identified in @sheramber's post?

If you didn't, it might depend on what their T&Cs say about when a contract is formed.

I have just read the T&C's, which state: 

7.3 Without affecting your rights to return the Product as set out in these Terms, you can cancel your order for a Product at no cost to you at any time before we dispatch the Product to you.

7.5 The Contract between us will only be formed when we dispatch your Product to you. 


As the product has still not been dispatched does that mean I am within my rights to cancel?

So you tell them that because they still haven't dispatched the product to you, then either (1) you can cancel the order under their own T&Cs, or (2) because their own T&Cs say that a contract has only been formed once the product has been dispatched to you, then you can withdraw your offer (ie your order) to buy it at any time before a contrcat is formed, according to general principles of contract law.

Point out to them that if they want the benefit of hiding behind a clause that says that a contract is only formed when the product is dispatched to a customer, then they have to accept the downside that a customer can cancel their offer to buy (ie their order) at any time before dispatch.

However - if the retailer doesn't accept this argument I'm not sure how you progress it further as it was clearly your fault that you provided the wrong delivery address.  As much as I might want to support consumer rights I don't want to penalise honest traders when it's clear;y the consumer at fault...

Manxman_in_exile

in_my_wellies said:

I received a parcel today, correctly named and address to me, which I didn't order. Just the item in a plain box without any label/branding or sender information. I contacted the courier and await their response. I didn't receive an item I ordered. I wonder if just the two got 'swapped' or a whole chain along the conveyer belt all mis-labelled. No idea how the checking systems work. 

Good luck OP

It would be a curious serendipity if you now live at the OP's old address...

DullGreyGuy

Manxman_in_exile said:

in_my_wellies said:

I received a parcel today, correctly named and address to me, which I didn't order. Just the item in a plain box without any label/branding or sender information. I contacted the courier and await their response. I didn't receive an item I ordered. I wonder if just the two got 'swapped' or a whole chain along the conveyer belt all mis-labelled. No idea how the checking systems work. 

Good luck OP

It would be a curious serendipity if you now live at the OP's old address...

They said it was addressed to them.... so not only live at the OP's old address but share the same name as the OP/previous tenant

pinkshoes

in_my_wellies said:

I received a parcel today, correctly named and address to me, which I didn't order. Just the item in a plain box without any label/branding or sender information. I contacted the courier and await their response. I didn't receive an item I ordered. I wonder if just the two got 'swapped' or a whole chain along the conveyer belt all mis-labelled. No idea how the checking systems work. 

Good luck OP

There's also a scam where people order stuff using stolen cards and send to a person, then a "courier" (scammer) turns up at the door once they know it has been delivered to collect the wrongly delivered parcel.