My mistake, sent return to wrong company, where do I stand?

Alderbank

So section 2 of the Act doesn't apply to those such as the OP who aren't acting in their trade or business, I don't think the rest of the Act applies to this type of situation either. 

...but the act doesn't say acting in their trade or business, it says in the course of any trade or business. This case isn't about your aunt posting you a birthday present. It is a business transaction.

I think we all agree though that it would not be a breach of the 1971 act.

@screech_78's post is very interesting. The judge's 3:1 apportionment of costs seems a very fair distribution of responsibilities for the loss (ie. the consumer was careless and carries some blame but the trader actually lost it and as a professional has a higher duty of care).

RefluentBeans

Alderbank said:

So section 2 of the Act doesn't apply to those such as the OP who aren't acting in their trade or business, I don't think the rest of the Act applies to this type of situation either. 

...but the act doesn't say acting in their trade or business, it says in the course of any trade or business. This case isn't about your aunt posting you a birthday present. It is a business transaction.

I think we all agree though that it would not be a breach of the 1971 act.

@screech_78's post is very interesting. The judge's 3:1 apportionment of costs seems a very fair distribution of responsibilities for the loss (ie. the consumer was careless and carries some blame but the trader actually lost it and as a professional has a higher duty of care).

I would expect that as the amount awarded was based (partly) on the poor processes in place, there was some degree of perceived negligence. I would expect if the stock goes to an area of the warehouse for ‘sin bin’ stock, there would be a reasonable expectation that they hold it for claims. I can’t imagine it would be on the business who received it to find the rightful owner. 

I would also think that it depends on the size of business. I would actually expect that a small business (like a mom and pop online seller) would handle it better than medium companies. 

If the parcel is lost, and that is the result of the receiving company (which it sounds like it is) they should be obliged to pay a fee for that. The question is how much, as the business isn’t wholly responsible for it in my opinion. A 25% blame on the consumer for posting it to the wrong address seems fair, but that’s only what a judge can decide. 

screech_78

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Alderbank said:

I think PHK is referring to the Unsolicited Goods & Services Act 1971. This is not specifically consumer law so applies to anyone sending unsolicited items to a business.
It is indeed a criminal offence under the act to demand the cost of goods, but as usual in criminal law it would be necessary to show criminal intent which is of course not the case with this simple mistake.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/30

2Demands and threats regarding payment.

(1)A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to payment, in the course of any trade or business makes a demand for payment, or asserts a present or prospective right to payment, for what he knows are unsolicited goods sent (after the commencement of this Act) to another person with a view to his acquiring them [F2for the purposes of his trade or business], shall be guilty of an offence and on summary conviction shall be liable to a fine not exceeding [F3level 4 on the standard scale].

(2)A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to payment, in the course of any trade or business and with a view to obtaining any payment for what he knows are unsolicited goods sent as aforesaid—

(a)threatens to bring any legal proceedings; or

(b)places or causes to be placed the name of any person on a list of defaulters or debtors or threatens to do so; or

(c)invokes or causes to be invoked any other collection procedure or threatens to do so,shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding [F3level 5 on the standard scale].

So section 2 of the Act doesn't apply to those such as the OP who aren't acting in their trade or business, I don't think the rest of the Act applies to this type of situation either.  

Alderbank said:

I think your excellent model letter for the OP to send to Joules should include an offer to pay their reasonable costs for searching for and retrieving that unsolicited pair of trainers identified only by their non-existent order number. I would budget for someone from head office to have to go down to the warehouse for at least half a day.

I don't think such costs are claimable as the staff are there any way and when a parcel came in to returns that wasn't associated with their company rather than becoming "lost" it should have been handed to management or such so that it could be dealt with (i.e having to search for the parcel isn't a cost the company have mitigated)  

screech_78 said:

Funnily enough, we’ve recently had a case like this go to small claims. 

A customer returned a laptop to us instead of Curry’s. We couldn’t locate it as it should go to unallocated stock (in the absence of a valid order number) but couldn’t be found. 

Went all the way as our team thought we had a good chance of defending it. Judge decided that customer should get 75% of the cost back. They felt that the customer had made the mistake however we should have better processes in place for things like this. 

Interesting, you don't know if the customer was awarded costs by any chance? 

I don’t know, sorry. I have weekly meetings
at the minute with our legal team and we discuss the outcome of certain cases. I don’t see the actual judgement and they don’t drill down that far when discussing it with us. I’ll ask the question in future conversations for ones we lose.