Item sent and charged for after being cancelled

BN1129

I recently made an online purchase and mistakenly it used a saved address that was an old address. I realised within minutes and contacted the company an they told me they had cancelled the order. I later got an email saying part of my order had been shipped. Confused I contacted the company to find out what was going on and they told me that the parts that have been shipped are from a brand partner and because they have been shipped they can't do anything. Currently they want me to travel to the address where they were sent to collect the parcels and then return them. I don't drive, it's an 8 hour public transport journey so would take me 2 days to attempt to collect them. 

Given the fact I contacted them immediately and they told me the order was cancelled where do I stand? They have refunded me from the parts of the order that wasn't shipped but not for the bits that were sent out. 

Currently I'm waiting for a senior manager to get back to me from them but want to have a knowledgeable response to them if they again refuse to refund what they sent out even though they had confirmed it was cancelled. 

Ergates

Check through their T&Cs - most online companies will say that the contract is formed at the point the goods are shipped.

Given you cancelled the order (and they acknowledged the cancellation) before the shipping happened, then I think you should be able to consider the contract null and void.   How their structure their company internally (and the apparently lack of communication between different parts of the company) isn't your problem.

Mark_d

I believe you have the right to a refund (depending on the nature of you order) because you have not taken receipt of your order.  You advised the retailer of your mistake within minutes, so it would be unreasonable for you to be held responsible for the retailer delivering to your old address.

visidigi

Mark_d said:

I believe you have the right to a refund (depending on the nature of you order) because you have not taken receipt of your order.  You advised the retailer of your mistake within minutes, so it would be unreasonable for you to be held responsible for the retailer delivering to your old address.

Why is it unreasonable to be held responsible for delivering to your old address? The OP has a role here, in the sense they selected and confirmed the order to the incorrect address. The seller has merely done what the order outlined, they clearly have missed the fact that part of this order is dropshipped, so while they have cancelled the order the supplier of the drop shipped item clearly didn't cancel it.

There are many suppliers out there that don't allow an order to be cancelled after being made - so what this really comes down to is what the T&C's say in regards to cancellation.

At the end of the day the supplier was asked to send goods to an address, if the address is wrong that's not on the supplier. 

There is a reason why amazon of all suppliers says 'we will attempt to cancel your order and let you know'

I would suggest that the OP asks the supplier to contact the carrier and ask for the order to be returned to shipper.

MyRealNameToo

Mark_d said:

I believe you have the right to a refund (depending on the nature of you order) because you have not taken receipt of your order.  You advised the retailer of your mistake within minutes, so it would be unreasonable for you to be held responsible for the retailer delivering to your old address.

So to play devils advocate, by your logic I could order something small thats going to be sent by Royal Mail untracked wait for it to be dispatched and then cancel for a full refund because I'm yet to receive the goods? 

Try calling Royal Mail and telling them you sent a card to the wrong address and can they stop it for you! They will talk of the impracticalities of finding one letter amoungst the millions of others flowing through their systems every day. 

Certainly some firms use fully automated warehousing and once an order is in process it's not practical to stop. Even in the semi-automated warehouse a former employer operated they were shipping thousands of orders per day. There a person picked the order, put it on a crate on a conveyor and the machine bagged it, labeled it and put it in a sack for the courier. Couriers arrived a couple of times a day taking dozens of sacks each time. Trying to find one parcel would be looking for a needle in a haystack and as the sacks are moved about by machines you have to turn off the whole line so its safe for someone to go in to look. 

Whilst the OP told the website owners of the cancellation, they'd have to communicate to the partner which probably isnt done by phone, who then needs to communicate to the warehouse. It's very easy for it to be a day before the warehouse knows in which case the parcel is already long gone.