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Comment by lilyball | Hacker News Reader

This is not accurate. If the company intentionally sends you an item that you did not request, it's a gift and they can't demand it back. If they send you an item in error it's not a gift and you are not entitled to keep it for free.

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This is not correct, at least in the US. You can keep it even if you didn't order it, regardless of whether or not it was sent in error.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0181-unordered-merchan...

Your link doesn't refute what I said. It's talking entirely about the case where companies intentionally send you unordered merchandise and does not address the case where companies sent it to you in error.

Nothing on that page is conditional on the sender's intentions. And the relevant law is pretty straightforward: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/3009

> All such merchandise shall have attached to it a clear and conspicuous statement informing the recipient that he may treat the merchandise as a gift to him [...].

That part make this kind of confusing. If it doesn't, then can it still be considered a gift?

No, its still a gift, its just in violation. Still yours to keep.

When it talks about mailing unordered merchandise, it's not talking about stuff done in error but rather mailing of merchandise the sender knows was not ordered. Which is to say, "unordered merchandise" doesn't mean "merchandise ordered by someone else", it doesn't mean "merchandise mistakenly believed to have been ordered but wasn't really", and it doesn't mean "merchandise miscategorized by the seller and sent in place of the actual ordered merchandise".

The context here is companies realized they could mail out merchandise that was never ordered, then demand the recipient pay for it. This is why the law you cited says it "constitutes an unfair method of competition and an unfair trade practice". This law is combating that practice, not punishing companies for making mistakes.

You're making shit up.

> When it talks about mailing unordered merchandise, it's not talking about stuff done in error but rather mailing of merchandise the sender knows was not ordered.

Since you apparently cannot click through the link I posted, I'll quote for you the entire legal definition of "unordered merchandise":

>(d) For the purposes of this section, “unordered merchandise” means merchandise mailed without the prior expressed request or consent of the recipient.

That's it. None of that context you're imagining. Unordered merchandise is anything you get that you did not order. It doesn't matter if somebody else ordered it. It doesn't matter if nobody ordered it. It doesn't matter if you ordered something else. All that matters is whether the recipient ordered what was actually mailed, because that's all that the legal definition stipulates. The extra requirements you are trying to add are not part of the law.

What's going on here?

> What do you do when you receive merchandise that you didn’t order? According to the Federal Trade Commission, you don’t have to pay for it.

This is on ftc.gov. Did they write it or not? Do they stand behind it?

Generally speaking, government agencies have to "stand behind" these kinds of official statements, so yes.

That's what I'm saying, though. An official statement of the FTC should look like "You do not have to pay for merchandise you didn't order". It definitely shouldn't look like "According to the FTC, you don't have to pay for merchandise you didn't order". That language is only appropriate for a party other than the FTC itself.

The natural inference is that this is an article written by a third party which appears on the FTC's official website for unclear reasons. Is that true? And if so, is it nevertheless somehow binding on the FTC?

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