Receiving a product after getting a refund

Question

Last week I ordered 2 kits of impact drivers due to the unbelievably low price.

The product was discounted from 300EUR to 100, so I bought 2 of them. Next day I received an email from the company, that the given price was a mistake and that the order will be cancelled any my money was refunded.

But to my surprise, today I received the package that I have ordered, but my money was already refunded so I haven't paid for them but receive them. What should I do next? I ordered from the UK and it was shipped to Slovenia - both EU countries.

Answer 1

Contact the company and let them know you have received the product even though the cancellation was made.

Ask them if they want you to ship it back (this implies that they pay for shipping since it was their error). They should be able to arrange for a courier to pick it up from your house so that you don't have to drive anywhere.

You can also offer them to pay 200EUR per the original order to keep the merchandise. However, they may request the additional 400EUR in order for you to keep it.

There is a slim chance that they will say "This was our mistake, please keep it as a token of our appreciation; Happy Holidays!"

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You can choose to not say anything and just keep the item but it's morally wrong even though the company will probably not seek restitution.

Answer 2

I doubt its worth the company's time to try to get anything from you forcibly(through legal means or otherwise) after they messed up as described here.

That being said, you did end up with items you 're not entitled to by their mistake. I still think the honorable thing to do would be to contact them to let them know as a gesture of good will and work an outcome that satisfies you both.

Answer 3

There are a few different angles to this.

Firstly, morally and legally you certainly should inform the company of the situation and offer to pay the 200EUR you ordered the two items at.

The question then is what happens if they instead demand the return of the items. Here things become more of a grey area.

On the legal side, companies who want to rescind mistaken prices they advertised will generally claim that a contract to buy the item at the low price hasn't yet been formed, either because of the exact sequence of legal events or because the price was an obvious mistake. A discount of 300EUR to 100EUR, particularly in a commercial environment where discounting is commonplace, doesn't seem that extreme to me, though you yourself described it as "unbelieveable". Overall you may well have some room to argue that a valid contract was formed and you are entitled to keep the items but pay the 200EUR.

On the practical side, you have possession in your favour, along with the fact that at a minimum the company will lose out on two sets of international shipping costs if they do get the items returned. If they do want to pursue you legally they'd have to do it in the Slovenian courts. So if you do feel you have a valid case to keep them, you can probably just stand your ground.

Answer 4

You did nothing wrong. The seller made two gross mistakes: Offering a product for €100 instead of €300, and shipping the product after refunding your money.

If you have a bad conscience about benefitting from their double error, you can contact them and offer to pay the €200, or allow them to pick up the product. The result will be equally likely that they say "yes, please pay €200" or that they will say "our mistake, keep the product".

For financial reasons, they will not try to get the product back, because that will most likely produce so much work, it's not worth it. Why would they say "keep the product"? Because that hides the fact that someone made a big mistake (and that someone might not want their boss to know), and quite likely the company has no process in place to handle such an unusual request.

If you have no bad conscience, you can keep the product - it is most unlikely that they will do anything about it, and most unlikely if they do something that they can get more than your €200 which you were willing to pay anyway.