If you get a parcel sent to you by mistake, can you keep it?

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Originally Posted by spudboy

I ordered a small part for my welder from a Sydney company.

About a week later, TOLL dropped of a marvelous (and massive) inverter welder that looked like it was worth $3-4K. Industrial!

They delivered it to my missus' workplace, and she just thought I'd bought some other bit of machinery, so she accepted the delivery.

Of course, the company who was expecting a whole welder got my small part, and wasn't all that impressed :D

If you end up with a 'windfall' like this, are you under any obligation to hand it back?

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I would just simplify the question for the same answer.

Do I have integrity? And boom, the answer falls out.

There should be a phone number on the packing slip.

Yeah - it went back the next day. The question was 'theoretical'....

In life you can't change what other people do, but you can control what you do.

Sent from my SM-G900I using AULRO mobile app

Quote:

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Originally Posted by s7000

The bank only facilitates the transfer...

If the person transferring gets account details wrong, and the money ends up in your account, the bank can only ask for the money back. With the amount of "confirm requests" the person transferring is at fault, and generally the police can't/won't do anything.

The way the banker words the request is usually the reason why the money gets returned. My ex-partner was a Bank Manager, and when it happened to her she would lay down the moral law on people, but it didn't always work.

Unfortunately the world is full of dishonest people...

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The Police are not the law, they oversee its adherence. They are bound by certain triggers that always lead to a court room (unless it's non criminal ... like speeding, etc.) In many cases they cannot intervene unless they are ordered to.

Anybody that has any dealings with the Law knows that it only exists in a court room.

Sounds simple .... doesn't sound right? Think about it. Even a speeding ticket is an invitation to contest.

But if you find yourself in said Court Room you may wish that you hadn't listened to the Google experts.

However, as I have found, sometimes the value of the item/event is less than the cost of pursuit. So lots of scumbags operate under that cover.

Some folks just don't pursue, even when there is a no cost 'small claims' arbitration facility at their fingertips .... thus allowing the scumbags to get away with things.

But the reality is ... if it isn't yours, and you can't prove it is .... push comes to shove ... you're screwed!!!

I'd prefer folks do the right thing ....

Noting that it is a theoretical question as the OP has done the right thing the short answer is no you can't keep it. I believe it may be covered in the Criminal Code under something like stealing by deception. At the very least the onus would be on the person who received the goods to prove they attempted to return them.

In short yes it is illegal. What the offense is depends on the circumstances. It would be more of a fraud than a stealing. There are offenses such as Obtain Benefit by Deception as mentioned above or Make False Representation if you pose as someone else if you are not on the delivery slip.

Of course it is illegal, but the onus is on the delivery company to ensure goods are dropped off at the correct address, as per the con note. If they fail to do this, the onus is still theirs to collect said item and forward it correctly. And you'd be astonished by the amount of goods are incorrectly consigned, and even more so by the number that require no POD ( proof of delivery ).

You are under no obligation to correct their mistake, but that doesn't make the goods yours. But, and this will vary from state to state, there is a 'reasonable time' quotient where the consignor can endeavour to locate and retrieve the goods, after which they can become yours. Nearly every service industry operates under an unclaimed goods framework.

Transport companies have huge amounts of goods around their warehouses that are undeliverable, broken, have lost labels or con notes or have been rejected by the consignee. It happens on a daily basis to thousands of items. Even a little 5 truck mob like I worked for has this issue regularly. TOLL, or Linfox? Sheesh. Mostly they don't want to know about it.

However, most people have a moral compass that points the right way, and most people make the effort to get things to their rightful owners, which is as it should be.

Rar110 and Ace are the only people suitably qualified to comment.