[HN Gopher] B.C. woman buried in Amazon packages she did not ask...
___________________________________________________________________
B.C. woman buried in Amazon packages she did not ask for and does
not want
Author : hnuser0000
Score : 121 points
Date : 2023-08-09 15:05 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| water9 wrote:
| Most women I know would consider this the blessing of a lifetime.
| When life gives you a horse, check it's teeth first.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _Most women I know would consider this the blessing of a
| lifetime._
|
| Most women you know want a mountain of boxes of clothes & shoes
| that are probably not their size nor their preferred style?
| water9 wrote:
| Glad you don't know my mother
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Most women you know are your mother?
| water9 wrote:
| Don't judge me.
| altairprime wrote:
| Have you confirmed that belief with then?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| He has binders full of women he has confirmed this with.
| water9 wrote:
| Yearbooks actually
| legitster wrote:
| > The Better Business Bureau (BBB) told CBC that it sounded like
| a vendor-return scheme that's common in the US but rarer in
| Canada, where foreign sellers dodge fees associated with storing
| and shipping return items by sending the items anywhere but their
| own addresses.
|
| So someone is dropshipping products from China. Because they are
| not fulfilled by Amazon, they would have to pay return shipping
| to... probably nowhere useful in China. So the seller says "screw
| it!" and just tells customers to ship their crappy returns to an
| address they pull out of a hat. Am I understanding the scam
| correctly?
|
| Would it not be pretty easy to at least figure out the seller
| responsible?
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Knowing Amazon, they probably queried the address and it came
| up to a bunch of sellers who equate to some product owners
| annual bonus and are probably a single entity gaming the system
| by having multiple accounts with fake brands.
| seeknotfind wrote:
| Uh? They are addressed to her? She's opening them? Sell them!
| Profit! What's the issue here? Sounds great.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| > "It's easier and cheaper for the sellers to have [returned
| products] sent to this random address than having it sent to
| China," said Hothi. "It could be that the warehouse has asked
| the seller to remove their unsold products from fulfilment
| centres, or their contract is ending."
|
| Not everyone is motivated by financial gain. Also to resell
| garbage products is a full time job that many wouldn't find
| worthwhile...
| damnesian wrote:
| > It could be that the warehouse has asked the seller to
| remove their unsold products from fulfilment centres
|
| And probably the seller can claim them as "lost" and add them
| to operational losses.
|
| I would believe this, knowing what I know about the
| restaurant industry and their need to demonstrate "drawdown"
| to calculate losses.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I wouldn't assume that "returned goods" can be sold at all, and
| UPS is charging her fees for some of the deliveries.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| These are shoes returned to a likely dishonest and fraudulent
| seller... if they had any value they wouldn't be dumping them
| on her like this. It's also possibly illegal for her to sell
| them.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Apparently some sellers keep their stuff on amazon shelves.
| Amazon will sometimes charge a stocking fee or a fee to send
| the stuff back if your business goes belly up. So the sellers
| will just pick a victim and dump their whole inventory on
| them because it is cheaper to ship them out than to continue
| to keep them stocked at amazon. But that may be wrong so
| someone with better insight could correct me if I have this
| wrong. This could be a side effect of the way Amazon works
| with 3rd party.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| > if they had any value they wouldn't be dumping them on her
| like this.
|
| A good percentage of online bought items are returned. Often,
| nothing wrong with the product.
|
| Wrong size, color different from expected, customer changed
| their mind or bought elsewhere in the meantime, bought 3,
| picked 1 or 2 most liked & returned the other, bought for
| specific occasion but item arrived too late, item looked good
| on website but fabric doesn't feel right, etc, etc. Many
| possible reasons.
|
| For seller, return shipping might be more costly than just
| dump product. Or was forced to clear stock due to storage
| costs. Doesn't mean item is worthless, just worthless to
| _seller_.
|
| But forcing random person to deal with this somehow vs.
| seller doing that themselves, is of course asshat way to run
| a business.
| whycome wrote:
| I mean the RCMP told her to keep them... She did some due
| dilligence of sorts
| vkou wrote:
| The RCMP aren't legal experts.
| clmay wrote:
| I'm not sure how things work up there, but in the US you can
| refuse any unopened package by taking it back to the nearest
| carrier facility and telling them you refuse it.
|
| This applies whether the package was dropped off or handed
| directly to you, signed for, taken into possession, or not. If
| the original seal is intact, the carrier must accept the refusal.
|
| It's unfortunate that she opened any of them, because now the
| above doesn't apply and she probably technically took on some
| legal risk/liability by doing so.
|
| Usually just because a package has been misdelivered, but you
| still know it's not for you, you still haven't gained the right
| to open it.
|
| Still, hopefully someone will help her find a way out of her
| predicament.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| > Usually just because a package has been misdelivered, but you
| still know it's not for you, you still haven't gained the right
| to open it.
|
| Not true. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-
| billed-th...
|
| _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._
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If it's addressed to you, then yes. But if the mail carrier
| mistakenly delivers you a package addressed to someone else,
| you don't automatically get to keep it.
| [deleted]
| chungy wrote:
| It's worth noting that the article is about a Canadian woman.
| Given that both the US and Canada have legal systems
| originating in Britain, there's a great deal of commonality
| in the legal code, but what the FTC says about US law does
| not necessarily apply to Canada.
|
| All that said, the spirit of the law the FTC is citing is
| something reasonable enough I do imagine Canada has something
| similar. Just don't quote me on that.
| justinclift wrote:
| Heh Heh Heh
|
| Trying that site now: Sorry,
| consumer.ftc.gov is down for maintenance. It will be back up
| shortly.
|
| Seems kind of fitting.
| whycome wrote:
| You think it's reasonable that she take.....all the continuous
| packages to a "carrier facility"? Should she make that her
| daily task?
|
| The RCMP said she could open them...
| thechao wrote:
| In the US, non-misdelivered items are considered a gift; there
| are no actionable courses for recovery -- other than being
| polite -- to get the item back. Misdelivered items must be
| surrendered, on request, or you can fall awry if a laundry list
| of theft/mispossesion crimes.
| bluGill wrote:
| The issue here is customs. Who is going to pay those fees -
| the women who got the product doesn't even want it. I suspect
| this is a never happened before situation and so the women
| legally owes. Though she can probably spend a ton of money on
| a lawyer and get out of it. She also has a case against
| whoever put her name/address in as where to return - but that
| is probably a foreigner so it is easy to win the case but
| impossible to collect. She may also have a case against
| Amazon, but this will be difficult as it requires arguing
| Amazon isn't a third party which they will claim they are.
|
| Of course the case is in Canada, so I don't know how their
| laws work.
| teawrecks wrote:
| I thought the point of COD was that you didn't get the package
| until you paid the fee.
| water9 wrote:
| Yea the article is complete bullshit because it makes no sense
| Scoundreller wrote:
| UPS does it anyway. Might even charge you an advance fee for
| the "benefit" of prepaying the taxes and import duties on
| your behalf.
|
| She's in Canada and it sounds like the packages were from US.
| water9 wrote:
| So can I charge UPS the same fee. Can I charge you that
| fee? Because if so get your wallet out
| xenadu02 wrote:
| UPS official policy says they won't deliver without collecting
| the payment (though they can't verify the payment is valid) but
| in reality sometimes drivers do it anyway. UPS doesn't really
| have a procedure in their system for handling this or if they
| do most employees have no clue.
|
| The best bet is to take it to a service center and talk to a
| manager there. Let them know you refused COD (or the package
| was sent unsolicited) and that you are refusing delivery.
| Tossing it on your doorstep does not count as accepting the
| delivery, they just do that because it is cheaper for them.
|
| If you want to game the system sign up for MyUPS so you get
| advance notice of all deliveries to you. Then when these
| unknown packages show up bound for you reject them immediately.
| That goes into the computer sorting system and can often get
| the package pulled before it even reaches your local service
| center.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| Unless processing fees are limited by law, shipping companies
| gladly pay customs fees at a border so they can then collect
| more money from the recipient. Whether or not they demand COD
| or ever deliver that package, they want that money.
| mcv wrote:
| I recently got a notification for a package that required
| some like EUR1 in customs plus EUR12 processing fees. With no
| info on what the package actually was. I found the whole
| thing rather ridiculous.
| water9 wrote:
| This article is written and posted by someone with no sense of
| logic what so ever. Would really love the OP to explain the full
| process of profiting from this because the guide is basically: 1)
| Collect shoes 2) ??? 3) Profit.
|
| Nothing about this story makes any sense.
| dwroberts wrote:
| Nowhere does it say anyone is profiting. Unscrupulous sellers
| are disposing of items they don't want by sending them to a
| random address so they can avoid (more expensive) fees for them
| returning to their origin
| water9 wrote:
| Why not just use a dumpster and/or fire? Why would you
| dispose of inventory as a seller? That's not how stores work
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Nitu said she has lost sleep trying to make the packages stop
| coming, and so far she's accrued Collect-On-Delivery customs
| charges from UPS that now exceed $300.
|
| > "I refused to pay, and the dispute with UPS is still
| ongoing," Nitu said. "They're completely unreasonable. I tried
| to explain the situation and they were not nice, let's put it
| that way."
|
| Every Canadian _hates_ it when someone sends them a UPS ground
| package internationally without taxes /duties prepaid.
| kwanbix wrote:
| Just reject them. Can't you?
| bell-cot wrote:
| You're actually standing on your doorstep 24x7, to make
| sure no delivery people just leave packages?
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Is the Canadian Better Business Bureau more legit than the entity
| in the US named Better Business Bureau? I kinda rolled my eyes
| when I got to where the article mentioned BBB, but maybe the
| Canadian one is more legitimate. And if I'm wrong about the US
| BBB, let me know, but from what I've read it's closer to pay for
| praise than a true consumer advocate.
|
| (edit) Apparently they're now effectively the same entity.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau Kind of odd
| to quote the BBB in the article then -
| JohnClark1337 wrote:
| [dead]
| TheSkyHasEyes wrote:
| Search term: bbb hamas rating
|
| Use whatever search engine you like.
| asgdnionio wrote:
| I have no experience with the BBB's accreditation process. I
| have read the same stories you have and it sounds like a
| textbook protection racket.
|
| I can say that every business that's tried to cheat me has
| prominently displayed an A+ rating. I've tried to report
| malfeasance to the BBB, with police reports, and been
| completely blown off.
| version_five wrote:
| I'm canadian and I've always assumed they are a scam. Anything
| "BBB accredited" is a red flag to me, but it's more just folk
| knowledge, I don't have any first hand experience.
| chongli wrote:
| _Anything "BBB accredited" is a red flag to me_
|
| There's a signalling theory basis to this [1]. The BBB is a
| cheap signal, not a costly one, so it comes across as "trust
| me! I'm trustworthy! Look, I gave a bit of money to the
| trustworthy business people!" That is, it's not a genuine
| signal of trustworthiness, so any effort expended on this
| signal may actually backfire: people might question why the
| business needs to send this signal in the first place.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)
| dfxm12 wrote:
| On the topic of cheap signalling, a very long time ago, I
| was out to dinner with a friend. She was excited to try the
| place out, but as it turned out, the restaurant was pretty
| disappointing. "But it says 'Zagat rated' in the window!",
| she said.
|
| I pointed out that they didn't have the actual score in the
| window & just because they rated it doesn't mean they rated
| it well...
| asgdnionio wrote:
| [dead]
| Scoundreller wrote:
| While I'm sure they do shake down businesses, they may actually
| do a better than nothing job of mediating disputes
| educaysean wrote:
| My understanding is that BBB is basically a glorified Yelp.
| They don't have any actual powers.
| RajT88 wrote:
| You have it in reverse.
|
| Yelp is a glorified BBB. Including the way they shake down
| businesses.
|
| BBB has been around for over 100 years.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| I think the point is people often think BBB is a government
| agency because of its name
| whatshisface wrote:
| Yelp has a lot of actual power...
| tacker2000 wrote:
| My guess is some scammy third party seller just chose a random US
| address as a their "return" address, since Amazon forces every
| seller to provide one.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > They were sent by people across North America who intended to
| return them to the Amazon seller, with each box containing a
| return authorization slip to her address
|
| Also in the video she states what the parcel has her name,
| address and her old telephone number... which is out of service
| for forty years.
|
| So yeah.
| iinnPP wrote:
| B.C. is British Columbia in Canada. Article is from our state
| sponsored media, which occasionally does some great consumer
| protection work.
|
| I assume the rest of your guess is correct though.
| katbyte wrote:
| *state funded.
| iinnPP wrote:
| My view is that CBC receives more than just funding from
| our government. Bill C-18 being a prime example.
|
| Sorry to derail. I believe the context is important and not
| generally well-known.
| katbyte wrote:
| That's why I pointed out it is state funded, not
| sponsored, or neither an arm of the government as many
| would say it is
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Did you read the article?
| hattmall wrote:
| Just put them in the trash or donate. UPS has no validity in the
| bill, just ignore it. They can't send it to collections or
| anything.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| Well that sounds fine in practice, but if you are regularly
| receiving stuff it becomes a part time job to dispose of it
| all.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Start a business reselling it?
| Marsymars wrote:
| > They can't send it to collections or anything.
|
| Yes they can. It's not a valid debt, but they can certainly
| sell it to a collections company.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| You are however free to ignore the collections attempts, and
| explaining the situation to them should cause them to drop it
| (my - admittedly very few - experiences with collections
| agencies all ended up with them dropping the debt once it was
| made clear to them it is not valid and that they got
| effectively scammed by whoever sold them the debt).
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I don't know how it goes in Canada, but in the US it is very
| easy to send someone to collections, and very difficult to
| dispute it.
|
| If anyone wants to start a company, make one that disputes
| collections on behalf of consumers. I'm sure there will be
| plenty of people to pay monthly for such a service.
|
| https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/credit-
| counseling/bad-c...
| bluGill wrote:
| That depends on the level of collections. The first level
| for people who are likely to pay. Some doctors send all
| bills to collections for example - nearly everyone knows
| they need to pay the bill and will pay it, and the
| collectors need to be polite about this so the doctor keeps
| sending bills their way. The levels after that though are
| for people who either can't pay, or won't pay and you get
| the jerks of the collections business here because that is
| your best chance of getting you to pay.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Good god, do not just put them in the trash, that's a crime
| against the environment. At least give it to charity.
| glonq wrote:
| "Woman receives dozens of pairs of free shoes" does not sound
| like a problem. It sounds like an opportunity. Finders keepers.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Ya it's crazy how far the US has fallen in terms of
| entrepreneurial spirit. In almost any other country, a
| continuous supply of resources like that would provide an
| independent income stream on eBay. And the products are already
| packaged!
|
| It's like how we used to have victory gardens and plant
| fruit/nut trees and eat chestnuts from trees growing like weeds
| before they succumbed to blight in the early 1900s. Now all we
| have are ornamental pear trees that smell like rotten
| undergarments. Because free food would encourage homelessness
| or whatever.
|
| Edit: woman lives in Canada, but I think my point still stands.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| She would just end up making less money than she would
| working a normal job.
|
| A huge amount of trash has theoretical value, but you'll lose
| money trying to extract it.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > would provide an independent income stream on eBay
|
| Except if the goods have strings attached. "Strings" here
| could be breaking local regulations, being counterfeits,
| contaminated with toxic materials, etc.
|
| Even if they are pre-packaged, reselling unexpected goods
| still means you have to open them, examine them, photograph
| them and write up a listing, and you have to do it for every
| single unique type of goods you receive.
| glonq wrote:
| Donate them as-is to charity or a thrift shop and reap the
| sweet sweet karma you've earned by putting like-new shoes
| into the hands (feet?) of people who need them.
| vkou wrote:
| > I think my point still stands.
|
| Where do you live? I'm happy to start dumping my trash on
| your porch...
| ke88y wrote:
| Unlikely.
|
| The packages are being sent to her because the fraudster
| sellers don't want to bother with them. The value of the shoes
| is likely not worth her time (else it would've been worth the
| seller's time -- the margins here are not huge).
|
| And to make matters worse, she's being charged for the
| shipping:
|
| _> She says couriers have also abandoned packages on her
| porch, denying her the opportunity to refuse them. It has also
| resulted in more than $300 worth of Collect-on-Delivery (COD)
| customs charges from the United Parcel Service (UPS). The bills
| are mailed to her by the delivery company._
| warent wrote:
| Hmm maybe you didn't read the article, she's being charged by
| customs for the imports. Also, she doesn't want this stuff.
| It's not free shoes it's forced trash.
| justinclift wrote:
| Wonder if she can charge customs back?
|
| Like maybe a processing fee or something. These abandoned
| goods shouldn't be her problem, except _customs_ is insisting
| on her dealing with it.
| jkubicek wrote:
| What is the legality of leaving your stuff on someone else's
| property? Unwanted UPS packages, phone books, door tags for the
| local Chinese restaurant, "newspapers" that are actually just all
| advertising, landscaping business cards weight down with rocks.
|
| This is all trash; how are people able to legally dump it in my
| driveway? Is it actually illegal but such small stakes that
| nobody ever gets the proper authorities involved? Is there some
| loophole in the law that allows you to dump your junk on someone
| else porch if it's filled with ads?
| [deleted]
| bluGill wrote:
| That will depend. Littering is a separate area of laws from
| mail. And this is in Canada which will have different laws.
| There is also customs involved here which is another tricky
| area. In the US if it is addressed to you, then it is yours to
| do with as you like, but if it is addressed to someone else
| (and misdelivered) you have to make it available to the
| intended receiver.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| ...I was sure they check the return address at the border/customs
| crossing but apparently not? Does that mean that person X can
| send mail to person Y simply by putting the Y's address as the
| return address and then sending to some closely located non-
| existent address (so that the post office there would rebound
| it)?
| wvenable wrote:
| All these packages contain Amazon return slips -- they are
| product returns not return mail. They were sent her directly by
| customers trying to return the product to the original seller.
|
| When you want to return an Amazon purchase, Amazon gives you a
| return address label that you can print and attach to the
| package. In this case, that return label had this person's name
| and address.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Hire a lawyer to write a demand letter.
|
| Amazon legal will fix this.
| RandomGerm4n wrote:
| Here in Germany, something similar happened to my neighbor. He
| always rejected the packages but sometimes they left them in the
| stairwell. At first, he took them to a drop-off station but at
| some point, he went to ignore them completely. After half a year,
| this led to the stairwell being full of unopened packages until
| someone threw them on the street. As a result, he then received a
| bill from the city cleaning service. I sadly don't know what
| happened after that because I moved away.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Fittingly Kafkaesque
| grecy wrote:
| She has plenty of documented evidence of UPS dumping trash on her
| doorstep, and refusing to stop when she expressly directs them
| to.
|
| Sounds like a great court case to me.
| pavon wrote:
| For the unsigned CoD sure, but otherwise UPS has no way of
| knowing what packages are legitimate and which are not. Amazon
| is more culpable because they can track the return packing
| slips back to a seller, and have been notified of the issue,
| but apparently haven't resolved it. She could use discovery to
| demand that Amazon provide the seller's information, but
| chances are they are overseas and suing would be useless. So
| Amazon is really the party she needs to focus on here.
| grecy wrote:
| > _but otherwise UPS has no way of knowing what packages are
| legitimate and which are not_
|
| She very clearly has a sign on her door that says "UPS - DO
| NOT DELIVER ANY PACKAGES HERE".
|
| Surely at this point anything they leave on her doorstep is
| just them dumping trash.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Sure they do. She told them to stop delivering packages.
| Period. None of them are legit after that.
| ska wrote:
| You can possibly get them to stop delivering to that
| address, but then you wouldn't be able to get any packages
| you actually wanted.
| jjulius wrote:
| I'd imagine that she knows that and isn't making her
| request lightly.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder what the mechanism is for that, it seems obvious
| that you do NOT have to accept any and all packages from
| any company (maybe you do from the postal service/royal
| mail?) but how exactly do you formally tell them to bugger
| off?
|
| And is it a UPS yes/no or do they get more fine grained?
| iinnPP wrote:
| In Ontario we can post a sign that enables a trespassing
| law which is quite empowering to the property owner(see
| legal language for other options).
|
| Walmart uses(or used) the same law to enable their
| security guards to restrain people inside of their store.
| [deleted]
| geoffeg wrote:
| A court case may not even be needed, sometimes a simple letter
| from a lawyer is all that it takes.
| notnmeyer wrote:
| when life hands you lemons, open a shoe store?
| alibarber wrote:
| The customs charges bit is interesting because I don't really
| understand where they (as in UPS) stand on this.
|
| I'm sure they're adding their own 'convenience' fee on top of the
| actual VAT or whatever they are collecting for the government too
| - but they don't have a contract with her to do this, so why do
| they expect her to pay it? The sender is the one who has
| contracted and paid UPS to deliver the parcel, but if this lady
| wants nothing to do with it - what are they trying to bill her
| for?
|
| I understand they have paid the government tax on her behalf, but
| she didn't ask for them to do so. Surely by this logic, anyone in
| the world could bankrupt anyone else in any country other than
| their own by mailing a brick that they declare to be worth
| millions to the unlucky recipient?
| jmspring wrote:
| Customs charges are an interesting thing. I had some stuff sent
| from Amazon US to myself in Finland back in the early 2000s.
| The package didn't arrive, they sent me another. That one
| showed up. About a month later, I got a notification from
| customs wanting duty on the original package. It wasn't much, I
| ended up with 2x of the items. Called Amazon, told them what
| was up, and they said just keep it. (Amazon customer service
| was much different back then).
|
| In another instance, I bought an expensive item off EBay from
| Italy. It was sent, forms had to be filed with FedEx for
| import, etc. A few month later the Franchise Tax Board in
| California was all - "hey we want our cut (use tax)". It took a
| bit of time to track down, but I finally got a hold of a person
| and pointed out that the purchase was off ebay and sales tax
| was paid. I had to send the proof so of such. At this point
| they had already assessed penalties. With the proof it all went
| away, but the government does want their cut.=
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I assume in the latter case the item was coming from Italy to
| you in California, not from Italy to you in Finland? If it
| was the latter case that would make for a truly bizarre
| story.
| everforward wrote:
| The whole thing is weird to me. I would have assumed that COD
| would require a signature from the recipient as an agreement to
| accept the charges. It's bizarre that UPS either thinks they
| can or actually can just drop packages off and presume the
| recipient agrees to the charges.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Welcome to Canada!
|
| FedEx and DHL does this crap too.
|
| A lot of the fee is probably brokerage fees rather than the
| actual taxes.
| stephencoyner wrote:
| My parents had the exact same issue. They kept getting packages
| meant for a random person they didn't know, but addressed to
| their home. Lots of cheap, random products like $20 massage guns.
|
| They contacted Amazon and they said "nothing we can do, enjoy the
| stuff." Pretty odd that they can't even message the person and
| tell them what's happening. It all ended up in the trash or given
| away.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| "Nothing we can do, enjoy disposing of mountains of garbage at
| your own expense!"
| switch007 wrote:
| Find the nearest Amazon depot, scribble "To: Amazon" on the
| boxes and throw over the fence.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I'm sure Amazon (or the scummy vendor) could open a waitlist
| for people who want to receive free random stuff for a week,
| and they could find plenty of volunteers. I'm also sure this
| also would be against some Amazon policy that supposedly
| prevents fraud, but just produces waste as a sideproduct of
| fraud.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Yes, they could, and they'd have people lined up around the
| block to sign up.
|
| But that's vastly different from just dumping a bunch of
| garbage on someone's porch.
| hedora wrote:
| You could always just wait till you have a vanload full of
| amazon leavings, and then dump it at the customer service
| desk of your local whole foods on a Saturday afternoon...
| ww520 wrote:
| What happened is that Amazon charges sellers storage fees for
| their products not selling. Some sellers have no ability to
| take the products back to store them themselves, e.g. the
| products were sent directly from the factories to Amazon
| warehouse. When the storage fees become excessive, sellers just
| start to ship the products to random people to get rid of them.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| They also need an address for fake reviews that are left by
| 'people who bought this product'.
| ke88y wrote:
| _> enjoy the stuf_
|
| This is abandoned property. In some states you can charge
| storage fees for abandoned property.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| For the customs charges she should ask for help from a
| legislator's office.
|
| Canadian equivalent of most senior Senator.
|
| A call from a major public official works wonders in getting
| companies to see sense.
| bpye wrote:
| In Canada it would be your local MP or MLA - depending on if
| it's a federal or provincial issue.
| [deleted]
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I remember TV ads in the 70's or maybe 80's that were PSA from
| the US government, where the entire message was "if you receive
| something unsolicited in the mail, you own it and do not owe
| anyone anything" They featured an Eskimo in the middle of a
| frozen nowhere opening a package that turns out to be an electric
| fan. He says "gee. Thanks!"
|
| Like what happened to that?
|
| I also don't know why they ran those ads. They must have been
| expensive (or maybe not, maybe the government back then could
| just commandeer them), so presumably there must have been some
| kind of popular scam they were trying to fight.
| thaeli wrote:
| There was a common scam back then of sending cheap goods to
| someone, then billing them a high price, when they didn't order
| anything to begin with.
| callalex wrote:
| There used to be "gift" scams where a company would send you
| products unsolicited and then send you a bill for them and
| aggressively push you into paying.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| we need a couple updates:
|
| "if you receive a phone call and the number is not in your
| contacts, do not pick up. listen to their voice mail, or make
| your voice mail message 'please send me a text' and wait for a
| text"
|
| "if you receive a text message / email from anyone and it has a
| link in it, don't click it"
|
| paid for by Restore Sanity to the People
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Meanwhile the nurse at my nieces+nephews school gets labelled
| as "likely spam"... probably because nobody answers
| jareklupinski wrote:
| the administration at school asked us to join a whatsapp
| room for those kinds of comms, and they DM from that for
| anything specific
|
| it's a cute solution, made me think of my school back-in-
| the-day having a basic php-type forum for snow days /
| announcements etc, always wanted to add DMs and
| notifications to that...
| bluGill wrote:
| This is in Canada not the US, so I don't know how laws are
| different.
|
| In the US if it is addressed to you - which these seem to be -
| then it is yours to keep or dispose of as you will. However
| customs charges are not a part of law that I know anything
| about, that is a weird area where the law may not even be clear
| who owes.
|
| Amazon often delivers a neighbor's package (neighbor lives a
| mile away, so not an easy delivery to make for us) to our
| house. However since these are address to the neighbor and just
| misdirected we do not own them and have to help the neighbor
| get them. (a few times we called amazon and they said "just
| keep it", then they became ours, but now the neighbor just
| drops by) I have updated both addresses in OSM, so hopefully
| this will stop, along with friends trying to visit us actually
| getting to our house.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| > However customs charges are not a part of law that I know
| anything about, (..)
|
| I'm no lawyer, but afaik customs charges are owed by party
| that does the importing.
|
| This may be eg. Amazon's customer, with Amazon just doing the
| warehouse/shipping part. It may also be that Amazon imports
| on customer's behalf, or does the importing itself.
|
| Either way, woman in the article would not be liable for
| customs duties (or any other shipping charges / fees for that
| matter), because she's not Amazon's customer here.
|
| She didn't ask Amazon to import anything on her behalf. Or
| arranged import herself using Amazon. Yeah, her name may be
| on the label. Yeah, she may have a (dormant) account with
| Amazon. But for all those packages mentioned in the article,
| there's no legal agreement between her & Amazon. Or between
| her & original seller. Or between her & shipper that brought
| the goods across international border. So how on earth would
| she be liable for custom charges for "importing" anything?
| She didn't.
|
| Legally speaking, that would leave her as innocent bystander,
| that just happens to be where delivery person dumped a
| package.
|
| In her shoes (no pun intended ;-), I'd just let this go to
| court & see judge move the charges to Amazon. Maybe Amazon
| would fix the problem if it turns into a recurring-costs
| issue.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| And I thought it was outrageous that no way for me to stop this
| trash advertising newspaper van from dumping their paper on my
| driveway twice a week every week for the last 15 years.
|
| There is essentially one out there, all water logged usually, at
| all times. I pick them up and throw them away, and the next day
| it's back.
|
| Years ago a few times I waited and watched and confronted the guy
| when he actually showed up, I almost got beat up! Mexican couple
| and the guys wife had to hold him back from getting them I into
| trouble). I tried calling an office number found on the paper
| itself several times. I did get a person, who said "ok", which
| resulted in nothing. They even asked if I rent and tried to say
| that if I rent, then I don't own the property, and so can't make
| the demand.
|
| It's a small thing but it's ultimately somehow just ridiculous
| that there is no way to stop someone from dumping some trash on
| my property, short of moving to a gated community which is nine
| thousand times worse than this "trash tattoo". It just boggles my
| mind that even if you decided to expend the effort, it turns out
| there is nothing you can do. Sue the paper company? For what
| damages? What court would waste 8 minutes on something like that?
|
| Anyway my point was "and I though _that_ was outrageous "
| TheRealSteel wrote:
| Hose him down next time he comes.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Yes, the right move is definitely to assault a person who's
| doing the job he was hired to do.
| mcv wrote:
| In Netherland mailboxes often have a no/no or yes/no sticker to
| indicate whether they want to receive free newspapers and junk
| mail. Deliverers tend to be reasonably good (though not
| perfect) at obeying these.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| In the USA it's illegal for anyone other than the Postal
| Service to place anything in your mailbox. Technically, they
| own your mailbox, even though you have to provide it at your
| expense.
|
| That's why they are dumping the advertising on his driveway,
| and why newspapers often provided a separate box for your
| newspaper that you mount below or beside your mailbox. I used
| past tense because we have no local newspaper anymore.
|
| If they put this crap _in_ your mailbox, they 'd be
| committing a federal crime and postal inspectors would
| probably track them down if they got enough complaints.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| From my experience elsewhere in Europe, I feel like that
| system has broken down in recent years, since for delivering
| junk mail, so many easily exploited and desperate refugees
| have been hired, who don't have much knowledge of the local
| culture and how important those stickers are here.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I had a similar problem. I opened the paper, found the small
| print with a phone number I could call to cancel the
| "subscription", and after a few weeks, the physical spam
| stopped showing up.
|
| Talking to the person delivering the paper will likely result
| in nothing; they don't own the business, and are likely
| contracted to deliver the stuff. You don't pay them, so they
| have no incentive to listen to you. (Although the violence is
| weird and unexpected. What did you say to them?
| 93po wrote:
| I mean theoretically this is littering, and theoretically
| police should stop people from littering. But I agree this
| would basically never happen.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I mean theoretically this is littering, and theoretically
| police should stop people from littering.
|
| The police (and public prosecutors) have no duty to stop
| anything, and are in theory free to prioritize their efforts
| against illegal activity anyway they want so long as they
| don't violate, e.g., anti-discrimination law in how they do.
| And, in practice, they are free to prioritize even more
| freely than that.
|
| Of course, leaving unwanted material on someone else's
| property is also the tort of trespass to land, so if you can
| identify the tortfeasor you can act directly against them
| rather than trying to convince public authorities to
| prioritize prosecution of the offense.
| ragestorm wrote:
| Typically renting has no bearing on refusing mail delivered.
| It's your current domicile. If they are coming into your
| property to deliver the mail, you could post no trespassing and
| call the cops on them.
|
| Courts spend time on all manner of things, so in fact they
| would spend 8 minutes on it.
| m463 wrote:
| Too bad canada doesn't have the law that the US has - it says any
| package sent to you that you did not request is yours free and
| clear.
|
| https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revi...
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