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A friend of mine ordered a 60 EUR PC case off of Amazon.nl, but when receiving it today it turns out it is an entire prebuilt gaming PC valued at around 1400 EUR. in the friends group, we speculated that it's returned product that was processed improperly by Amazon as just the case instead of an entire PC. He powered it on to test if it's a functional computer and made it to the Windows 11 desktop, and from what I understand he's planning to set it aside for a couple months in case Amazon notices their mistake, but he's not planning on contacting Amazon to let them know about the wrong shipment.

I read What to do if seller sends more than ordered? and it talks about excess quantity, but I'm not entirely up to date on whether the Netherlands has a law like this or whether a potential law would cover a situation like this, and the other question doesn't really answer this and is also 5 years old, which might mean the law has changed. I also know that Amazon is such a massive company that they're unlikely to notice this mistake, and that even if they do they're likely to just write it off as shrinkage because of the sheer scale of business they do.

Speaking purely from a legal perspective, can my friend keep the PC while awaiting communication from Amazon, or is he legally required to contact Amazon himself and ask what he should do?

Nzall
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3 Answers3

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This is theft. Theft is defined at Section 1 of the Theft Act 1968:

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.

The word "appropriates" includes the following under Section 3:

Any assumption by a person of the rights of an owner amounts to an appropriation, and this includes, where he has come by the property (innocently or not) without stealing it, any later assumption of a right to it by keeping or dealing with it as owner.

The Act also elaborates on "intention of permenantly depriving the other of it" at Section 6:

(1) A person appropriating property belonging to another without meaning the other permanently to lose the thing itself is nevertheless to be regarded as having the intention of permanently depriving the other of it if his intention is to treat the thing as his own to dispose of regardless of the other’s rights; and a borrowing or lending of it may amount to so treating it if, but only if, the borrowing or lending is for a period and in circumstances making it equivalent to an outright taking or disposal.

This means that you commit theft the moment you make the decision to hold onto the item and see whether Amazon notices. As noted above, it doesn't matter whether you originally obtained it innocently, and it doesn't matter if you would give it back if you are caught. What matters is that you intend to keep it if you can get away with it.

This has been confirmed in A-G's Reference (No 1 of 1983) [1984] 3 All ER 369 which was a case involving a bank payment made in error where the recipient kept quiet intending to keep the money if it wasn't noticed. I wrote another answer here where I provided more details.

is he legally required to contact Amazon himself and ask what he should do?

From paragraph 189 of the above judgment:

"there was a legal obligation upon the respondent to restore that value to the receiver when she found that the mistake had been made"

So yes, in this scenario you are required by law to contact the sender and inform them of the mistake.

JBentley
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Legally, you can treat unsolicited goods as a gift. The relevant law is 39 U.S. Code § 3009 - Mailing of unordered merchandise . The FTC provides a summary:

By law, companies can’t send unordered merchandise to you, then demand payment. That means you never have to pay for things you get but didn’t order. You also don’t need to return unordered merchandise. You’re legally entitled to keep it as a free gift.

The motivation for this law is to prevent companies from mailing you unsolicited goods, then insisting the recipient must pay for them.

Is he legally required to contact Amazon himself and ask what he should do?

As an aside, I'll note that Amazon's typical response to being asked what to do with accidental goods is, "just keep it."

Brian
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tl;dr: You must return goods sent by mistake when asked. You probably do not need to actively inform the sender.

General consensus

According to the article Welche Rechte bestehen, wenn zu viel geliefert wurde?, the sender can ask for the goods to be returned according to § BGB §812 (Herausgabeanspruch), because the recipient received them "without a legal basis". However, general opinion is that here is no law that would require the recipient to notify the sender - it is enough to wait for the sender to ask for the goods.

Also note that the above only applies if the delivery was erroneous, that is by mistake. If the seller deliberately sends the wrong article, or sends something without an order, then the recipient may keep it (BGB §241a).

Dissenting opinion on BGB §241

Some sources claim that the recipient may need to inform the sender because of BGB §241, which says:

(2) By its contents, an obligation may oblige each party to take account of the rights, legal interests and other interests of the other party.

This could be interpreted to require the recipient to protect the sender's rights by informing them. However, that would only apply in the context of an existing contract (such as a legitimate order), and it is unclear whether it is applicable here.

Not a crime

At any rate, not informing the sender is at most a civil wrong, and not a crime. Keeping goods delivered in error could only become a crime if the recipient does something to obtain them - such as deliberatly causing the package to be delivered in error (Betrug, fraud), or taking possesion of a package that was delivered to a different or non-existent address (Unterschlagung, misappropriation, StGB §246).

sleske
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