UKC

I recently ordered an item worth about £60 from a supplier along with a few other things. When I opened the parcel yesterday I was surprised to see that they had sent me two of the item. They do sell them in pairs at a small discount and we had considered buying two but decided to get one now and another later.
So turning to the wisdombase that is UKC - "What should I do?"

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Keep it

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Its unlikely to pay off however it is the right thing to do. Tell them.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Honesty never pays off but it can help you maintain a clear conscience. Tell them and let them decide whether it is cost effective to retrieve the item.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Honesty has always paid off for me, I've done well in interviews, got jobs, got time off work, won the respect of my peers and my students and had a fairly happy time doing so.

I'd let them know.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

When I bought my bathroom suite a few years ago, Bathstore somehow delivered 2 sinks. After pondering whether to keep/sell the spare, I returned it to the shop next time I was passing - I didn't need it and I hadn't paid for it.

The guy in the shop was pretty surprised - I don't think many people have done that.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

let them know, they may well let you keep it, honesty does pay in the long run

In reply to jethro kiernan:

"Does my bum look big in this?"

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Karma - tell them

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Yep, honesty pays off, although not necessarily for the person being honest. In your case, returning the item will very likely be a nice surprise for the person receiving it and make them feel good. And it could well inspire them to small acts of kindness or honesty. In which case, congratulations - you have just made a small but very useful contribution to the amount of good in the world.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

yes

In reply to Toby_W:





How do you know being a duplicitous, lying cheat wouldn't have improved your status more?

OP send it back.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

keep it

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:


Return it immediately.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Tell 'em. What's your integrity worth - £60?

Why not phone up, explain what happened and say you're entirely happy to send it back but you were thinking of getting another pair anyway, so is it better to send some money instead? It would be churlish of them not to offer you a greater than normal discount (though admittedly they might not). But even if they don't and/or you decide you don't want another pair, you can just send it back anyway.

How you will feel will be well worth £60 - not through any swarmy righteousness, just knowing you've done the right thing.

Re the larger question of whether honesty pays... in my experience, often it doesn't (in terms of material benefits). But I couldn't give a hoot.

Bernadette Devlin once said, 'The price of my soul is that it has no price, is not up for sale'.

Mick

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Honesty rarely pays you back in financial terms, it is simply the right thing to do, for the sake of simply fixing someone elses mistake and being morally right.

If it's Amazon I would just keep it really.
If it's one person company somewhere in the province I would sent it back.

In reply to nutme:

Amazon don't give a shit. I ordered a 2TB external from them once, got 3 of the same item mailed to me from a different address each time in Belgium (they were shipping them from there for some reason).

I phoned them and their CS guy told me to email them. Did that a few times to their normal addresses for sorting out problems and explained saying send me a prepaid sticker and I'll chuck them back in the mail and heard nothing back from them. Think I decided I'd done my due diligence so I kept em.

OP: Ask them for a prepaid return sticker and see if it's worth it to them. They might just suggest you keep it.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Tell them:

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honour is what you know about yourself.

Honour is all.

In reply to redsonja:


Agreed. This is not really a case of honesty at all. It's a case of them making a cock-up. I'm freelance, and to send that back (because I don't now have a car) would cost me 35-40 minutes of my time. Who's going to pay for that? Recently, I was massively undercharged for something, and I was good enough to tell them, and they said, didn't you realise we had a special deal on? I.e. it might even have been deliberate.

We all make mistakes in life, and they cost money. There is no onus on you at all to waste time putting right other people's cock-ups. Obviously it depends who it is.

I got a wrong item from Amazon - an action camera instead of a cheap lens bag - and they were not that concerned though they did want it back. No compensation for the extra hassle and costs of me to take the item to a post office! Still my conscience is clear.

To the OP, I would let them know and up to them to decide. I once got a box of some £300 worth of items delivered wrongly to my address (not for me) and following telling the company they choose not to get it either returned or sent to the proper addressee. I was then free to donate the items to charity.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:
I knew I could count on the UKC community to help clarify my thoughts. I was surprised at how many people went for the honesty approach - I thought more would come from the 'Its their mistake' angle.
Anyway, composing the thread made me more certain of my original plan to come clean and tell them. The subsequent responses reinforced this approach.
So I rang them and asked to speak to someone who could sanction a deal - my ask was that I keep the second item (A lifejacket) if I could get it at a knock down price. The person I spoke to immediately thanked me for my honesty and said she would talk to a manager. After about a minutes tinkly music she came back and said I could have it at half price (Which was well below the discount price for a pair). I struck the deal, paid and she again thanked me very genuinely for telling them about their mistake. I felt good and ended up a satisfied customer.
A couple of points worth making about this incident.
1. We did intend to buy a second lifejacket but wanted to spread the cost. If it had been something we didn't actually want two off I may have felt differently.
2. This is not a big company I am dealing with - had it been an Amazon who recently wrote off £1000's of stuff sent to the wrong address telling the guy he could keep it - I may not have taken the honesty route. Plus I doubt I would end up speaking to a human if I tried to get in touch.
So thanks UKC for acting as the sounding board - I am reassured by your collective honesty.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:
It's like knocking on somebody's door to let them know they've left their car lights on, you don't have to but it makes the world a slightly nicer place for other people. (:~))

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

A lifejacket may well fall into the PPE category, so a return might be troublesome for them (I.e. they may not be able to sell a return). So you get a cheap 2nd, and they get something, and neither of you has the hastle of arranging the return.

I have a vague recollection that you are legally obliged to inform a vendor of such errors. But it's up to them to sort out.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

Two of my customers have accidently transferred money to me recently, leaving me potentially over two grand better off. I've obviously done my best to return it - one being quite a struggle. However, my karma rating is on a high, so good things happen to me and my conscience is clear. The moral high ground is a good bit of high ground to be on.