B.C. woman buried in Amazon packages she did not ask for and does not want
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
I’ve lived in Australia my whole life, never been to Canada, etc - and yet I immediately assumed “B.C” meant “British Columbia”. It just seemed like the most likely expansion in the context (looks like a news headline, posted on a North American website). Although a bit like you, my initial parse of the sentence was that she was crushed to death in a warehouse accident, it took me a couple of seconds to realise it was more likely meant figuratively
It is true that Australians and Canadians find themselves to have certain things in common, both being former dominions of the British Empire – but that doesn't mean that Canadian provinces have particularly strong salience for Australians.
Australians consume a lot more American media than Canadian media; and the US is a significantly more popular travel destination. I have a much better idea of the difference between New York and Florida than the difference between British Columbia and Ontario – I've been to both New York and Florida, as I said I still haven't got around to visiting Canada; even before I'd ever been to either, I'd watched countless TV shows and movies set in both, and that gave me a certain image of both in my head (and actually experiencing them in person wasn't hugely different from my pre-existing mental image). I think of Canadian provinces, and my mental images are a lot vaguer. I think that's generally true – the average Australian, if their idea of US geography is somewhat patchy, their idea of Canadian geography is likely to be a lot patchier.
I don’t expect that Australians hold a bond with Canada at large, I can’t very well imagine any of the Aussies I’ve met having a fond place in their hearts for Calgary or even the rest of Canada (read: Toronto, Montreal).
Now I think about it, years ago, I did hear something about Australians working in the Canadian ski industry, and I suppose that probably was in BC. But I've never really been into skiing, so the information didn't make much of an impression on me. So I doubt that's got anything to do with my immediate understanding of "B.C. woman..." as being a reference to British Columbia.
Also, one of my aunts (by marriage) is Canadian, and if I remember right she grew up in BC. But I've never been particularly close to her, and I haven't seen or spoken to her in years. So I'm sceptical that has anything to do with it either.
I'd say also that B.C people are fairly likely to want to pursue visiting Australia, despite not really digesting any substantial amount of Aussie media.
I get equally thrown when I read about Victorians doing something modern in news from Australia. Or that a Cork man drowned in news from Ireland.
There’s just a brief WAT? moment before your brain switches to the correct connect.
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Only "Amazon packages" falls into the right realm. But is that enough to qualify as a garden path sentence? Personally, I wouldn't say so.
I understand how the misinterpretation happens, but I personally don't think a single misinterpreted word is enough to make a garden path sentence.
Of course the meaning would be extremely weird - why would a prehistoric woman be buried with grave goods she refused and how would we even be able to know? - but I've honestly on par with the headlines and articles often posted here.
I'd definitely read it.
We had stuff like "this is the thing you have been looking for", with the sentence ending with "for".
This forced us to parse sentences with great care to understand them and we were usually fine only after the final word. Same with Latin.
This is to say that this title was surprisingly clear to me immediately after the first reading :)
(if a French is reading this - that was in the times when we were looking for Brian who was in the kitchen, and Jenny who was elsewhere but I do not remember where. They also had a cat)
To misquote Winston Churchill for the joke:
"Ending sentences with a preposition is a thing up with which I will not put."
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?
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.=
I got that just a few weeks ago when trying to return an item, from an automated system.
Ask me how I know, I lost over 400 EUR this way through no fault of my own and got stuck in an identical and irrelevant copy/paste CS email loop.
I can believe that, but I wasn't doing that, I keep most things I buy. I just happened to get this response for an item the other day.
FWIW it was a 7 Euro 2 meter long gas hose, the kind you use for a propane tank when camping.
I assume the restocking logistics didn't work out for whatever reason.
On second thought maybe they've got some hidden policies when it comes to certain products categories. The potential liability of reselling a gas-related product in this price range may not be worth it.
> The potential liability of reselling a gas-related product in this price range may not be worth it.
Maybe. But it’s amazon we’re talking about, they might not care.
FedEx and DHL does this crap too.
A lot of the fee is probably brokerage fees rather than the actual taxes.
You would get a bill, and if you received the package, you could prove that it was a brick, and you didn’t order it, and thus the customs declaration form signed by me was fraudulent and you would not be liable to pay the duties.
If the duties were particularly high (enough to bankrupt you) it would be held at the nearest port agreed upon, and you be notified to come pay the duties before it’s delivered. Again thats where you would be able to show it wasn’t an item you wanted. Or you could refuse it all together and it would be up to be me to pay to get it back.
If this were a bigger problem the freight carrier would work to identify me and bring charges of committing various fraud.
As an aside shipping goods DAP (vs DDP) is risky for this reason—if buyers aren’t made aware if additional shipping costs at time of delivery they may refuse to pay in which case the seller is responsible for paying to get their item back, including additional storage fees.
There is simply no part of FedEx customer service that would deal with it, or if there is, it's well hidden. Yes you could probably go to court over this, but this is almost certainly not worth the time and money.
Source: spent countless hours dealing with this problem in 2023.
The real “customer service” department of any corporation is their legal department. Someone will personally look into your case in response to a legal notice, I promise you. And, in the process of determining whether your claim has standing, they’ll ask the people who can actually address it — and boom, your problem will go away.
The real scam is the brokerage fees that they tack on to the taxes. For an item worth $40 cad you will end up paying about $20 in brokerage fees on top of taxes for ground packages. The only way to avoid it is to know that the package is coming and clear it yourself before it arrives, which can only be done in person if you aren’t a broker.
And IIRC there are something less than a couple dozen in-person locations nationwide where you can do so. Many people live hundreds of KMs from the nearest office. It’s infuriating - all you’re doing is filing some paperwork and giving a credit card payment. There’s no reason it couldn’t be done online.
About ⅔ of Canadians live within 2hrs drive of a Canadian Border Services office. This drops to about 56% of all Canadians if you limit it to a one-hour drive.
And there are a recorded 1,200 such manned offices across Canada. Not all of them handle self-clearing, mind you, as some are special-purpose offices that are not accessible to the public at large. But the vast majority do.
These CBS offices can be found at any border crossing, international airport, and harbour that has regularly-scheduled dockings of international ships, even cargo ships. There are 117 land border offices, 43 airport offices, and 393 marine offices in Canada alone.
> And there are a recorded 1,200 such manned offices across Canada. Not all of them handle self-clearing, mind you...
I was under the impression that self clearing specifically required an inland office, of which there are 50 across the country. I'm not alone in this - google "how to self clear goods Canada" and you'll get all sorts of advice saying you need very specific types of CBSA offices. I would also highlight that none of this is made particularly clear on the CBSA website - there's no page on "how to clear your goods" that I was able to find.
Seems like a broken system.
1. I chose the cheapest shipping option and would be hit by "customs fees" which was actually reasonable taxes or even no taxes for a small item, but with a brokerage fee added upon delivery. Small text was added to the invoice to make it plausibly seem like all fees were taxes to be blamed on the government, not on UPS or Fedex.
2. After realizing what brokerage fees were and doing research, I chose shipping which was a bit more expensive but included the paperwork and fees.
3. I would get hit with brokerage fees anyway because ebay shippers and small companies unilaterally changed shipping to the cheaper option for their own benefit to pocket the difference or for a perceived benefit to me.
4. As an added bonus, sometimes a private seller helpfully shipped without an invoice for the goods, or even put and inflated value in the shipping documents "just in case for insurance" and I would get hit with tax on the inflated value.
People using ebay or online shopping a lot back then (approx 2000-2012) would figure things out and know the blame was with sellers, UPS and Fedex. But I remember for years people around me placing the blame only on the Canadian government.
If you accept the package in a way where they pay the import taxes for you (you are not paying the government directly, they pay first then you pay them), it does indeed become your problem. They conducted a service on your behalf, with the expectation that you will compensate them, and the brokerage fees represent their labour in paying for you. Once or twice not paying those brokerage fees you could probably get away with, but eventually they’ll hold packages back until you have paid off all arrears + interest and penalties.
There is another way available to a small majority of Canadians:
If you live near a border crossing or international airport or harbour that regularly docks international ships, you will have a Canadian Border Services (CBS) office near you. This means you can self-clear any package, thereby avoiding brokerage fees.
The method is thus:
1. Refuse to accept the package from the shipper, tell them to hold it at the local distribution centre where you will pick it up later as you want to self-clear it personally. Ask for the Bill of Lading (BoL), which is a piece of paper attached to the package that defines the shipper, receiver, and contents of the package (usually itemized and $-valued). Some shippers call it something different, with other shippers you need to fill out an online form to be sent this document.
2. Within 24-48 hrs (2 work days), go to your local CBS office with your BoL, and if the BoL does not specify the value of the goods (preferably itemized), include any receipts or invoices you saved from the purchase. The CBS officers will calculate import taxes from those amounts and provide you with a BoL-linked invoice for that payment that includes all shipping numbers.
3. Provide to the shipping company the CBS form indicating that you have paid the import taxes directly to the government. This means that the shipping company will be reimbursed for its tax payment on that shipment, nullifying your obligation to pay the brokerage fees. Some (UPS) will demand that it be faxed in to a head office number (yes, even in 2023). Ask nicely, and the CBS officers may do it for you. Other shipping companies (FedEx) only need to see it when you pick up the package, as they’ll scan it into their records at that time.
Presto, no brokerage fees paid!
Good luck. And my condolences to anyone without a CBS office within easy travel distance.
What happens is they drop a package on your porch without giving you a chance to refuse the package and clear it yourself. They have to give you that opportunity by law.
It would be similar to showing up at your house, cleaning your windows and then sending you bill. You never asked for that service, in the case of UPS you never agreed for them to act as your broker to clear your package.
The exception is if CBS takes a long time to determine actual value, and therefore, taxes. Usually on used items with unclear but significant value. It’s happened a handful of times that they made delivery with no notice of brokerage fees or import taxes. Then, suddenly a few weeks to a month later, I got an invoice in the mail: they had paid the import taxes for me after delivery due to a delayed judgement by CBS, and so I was on the hook for both those taxes and brokerage fees. I still went to CBS with my BoL and paid the taxes directly to the government in order to avoid those brokerage fees.
> It would be similar to showing up at your house, cleaning your windows and then sending you bill. You never asked for that service, in the case of UPS you never agreed for them to act as your broker to clear your package.
But you did agree, by choosing them as a shipper. Certain fees can be implied as required in order to complete the transaction. In order to get your package across the border, the shipper needs to do what is necessary to get the package in your hands. Dealing with CBS and paying import taxes is the step needed to keep the package moving. If they waited for everyone to pay on their own then there would be billions of packages stuck at border warehouses, gumming up the works.
The contracts are between the seller and the shipping company, and between the buyer and the seller. There's no contract between the buyer and the shipping company. And in this case where parcels are being randomly sent to an address un-asked-for, that is most definitely the case.
I have also received packages that were left behind when I wasn’t home. I received an invoice later and told them to show me where I accepted the package. Didn’t hear about it again.
Yes, but this would be at the final distribution points immediately prior to delivery, not at border warehouses right smack in the middle of the transport chain.
Local distribution points will only ever have a limited number of packages waiting to get picked up, even if a lot of people decide to self-clear; THAT volume is manageable. Border warehouses would end up with millions gumming up the works and getting in the way. That ISN’T manageable. Having things pile up at major transport nodes is a recipe for failure and system collapse.
e.g. these day if I order anything from the UK (to an EU country) the package gets stuck in customs and I have to pay VAT(20%) + Import duty (optional depending on product type/value) + random service fee.
But I checked all I could and in Switzerland you’re not allowed to take the option of clearing the package yourself and so have to pay the courier’s racket.
The beauty of it is that how expensive the fee is depends on the level of service the sender picked, and you don’t even know how much the fee will be because they drop the parcel off and send you a bill a couple weeks later.
I never order abroad anymore and when I’m forced to, I only do it if they’ll ship through the regular post office as Swiss post is the least predatory in their “handling fees”… but like everything in CH: caveat emptor.
Several months later I got a letter in the (paper) mail from DHL regarding an unpaid bill for VAT that they had paid on a package I had received from them. Long story short, it turns out the thieves had got the expensive clothes shipped to an address about 500 km from where I live, with my name on it (I live in Norway, BTW). DHL had paid the VAT and delivered the package to “me” somehow. I disputed this, of course, and told them about the credit card issue. After a bit of back and forth, they told me I had to file a police report. I did so, sent them a copy, and they finally relented and did not pursue the issue further. But they also informed me that in the future, if a package came to me, I would have to pay the VAT/customs ahead of receiving the package. Which is fine with me.
It took weeks but I eventually got all my money back. It was obvious this was an overseas seller who never intended to accept returns, but eBay obviously didn't care.
- Open a "not as described" case against the seller
- When they say you should return it, ask them for a prepaid label to do the return, which is your right, never pay to return it yourself, especially if they claim they will refund your costs (they won't)
- When they invariably don't give you the return label, or a refund, or something else to your satisfaction, raise it with eBay (after the requisite number of days), who will refund your purchase
- keep, donate or destroy the product
Which countries does this apply to? (Story is about Canada, but wonder if this is true in the US as well)
Also, how is it even possible for a company to close your account if you charge back and win?? “We tried to rip you off once, you didn’t let us, so we don’t want to trade with you anymore” is an interesting stance.
You can eventually get your money back but the friction in the process is very high and time consuming.
As for Ebay I refer to it as the "place your grandparents go to get scammed" because there are simply too many gaps in their processes that allow scams to flourish and Ebay's customer service are only permitted to accept very specific types of evidence. This inflexibility allows scammers to thrive there.
I personally swore off Ebay after dealing with another type of scam that was operating in the UK. Whereby Ebay recognised unregistered mail tracking labels as if they were a fully tracked courier service. Scammers in the UK caught onto this error, providing a scam which goes roughly like this:
1. You buy expensive item on Ebay from scammer (usually a hacked account).
2. The scammer acquires Royal Mail tracking labels. (It's possible to pre-purchase them as Royal Mail aren't going to record the delivery address, unlike a fully tracked service where each label is associated with an address and parcel specs.)
3. The scammer assembles a basic parcel and addresses it to an address that is near the victim, but not exactly the victim's address. Typically the address will be a nearby convenience store as they will sign everything that comes in.
3. The scammer applies one of their Royal Mail tracking labels and drops off the parcel in a post box.
4. The tracking label's barcode is automatically scanned as it passes through sorting centres, however the address on the package is never recorded by Royal Mail; the tracking is effectively solely for the label.
5. The parcel is delivered to the false, but nearby address. The Royal Mail system receives a signature, a GPS imprint and a time of delivery - but crucially again the address is not recorded by Royal Mail.
At this stage you can see how the scam comes about. All a scammer needs to do is send anything to a nearby address and Ebay will deny refund requests because the scammer has a tracking history from Royal Mail.
However to be fair to Royal Mail, their website for this product clearly stated that it was not a fully tracked service, a nod to the shortcomings of the approach. I believe the product has now also been discontinued, instead now a photo of the delivery is taken - which would provide useful evidence to stop this kind of fraud.
tl;dr (partial spoiler)
* Fraudster lists Nespresso pods on eBay
* When you purchase from them, they use stolen credit card to buy from the actual Nespresso
* Why would anyone complain? Buyer gets Nespresso pods, Nespresso made a real sale, fraudster made money (what they charged the buyer minus ebay fees)
"What sort of scam gives you free stuff?"
If you have twenty minutes you should check out the whole thing.
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"
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.
Their job is to maintain order and protect all of society. They track down the guy that robbed you because society doesn't want robbers on the loose, not for you because you were injured.
Courts spend time on all manner of things, so in fact they would spend 8 minutes on it.
In the UK you’d have to ask a trespasser to leave first as it’s a civil matter.
If they don’t leave immediately or they threaten you then it’s criminal and you can call the cops.
So if you don’t catch them trespassing you can’t really do anything about it later.
Does Canada treat trespass a crime?
Here, if damage is done during trespass that’s also different. Which is why I think I’d go the small claims court route for the cost of clean up and time spent dealing with it.
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.
how does this work with outgoing mail?
>statute that prohibited the deposit of unstamped “mailable matter” in a mailbox
I assume the outgoing mail, if stamped, is ok. Edit; UPS may even be able to use it if the item has postage paid, but in that case they would just have USPS deliver it.
A more complete (but still not fully so) statement is that it is generally illegal for anyone but you and the postal service to put anything into your mailbox, and it is also generally illegal for anyone but you and the postal service to take anything out.
I saw one as I was leaving one day who had just left a typical pamphlet in our mailbox. I pointed out the no junk unsolicited sign and he started on how it was important information I may be interested in.
I suggested that while that was a nice rationalisation, he knows it's bullshit and he should get his hand off it.
Besides, littering isn't necessarily small potatoes around here. There are signs at the roadside that warn of potential fines exceeding $6000.
If he isn’t, the sign is irrelevant.
But if you must - it's even less of a defense now, because in WW2 Germany there was a significant amount of social pressure to fall in line. In the modern day no-one cares if you just refuse, or get a different job.
Gently putting your hand on someone's shoulder is assault if it's unwanted. Water is less pleasant.
Here's some people on a random website claiming to be lawyers, but also saying the right words: that they can't give specific legal advice and that the OP should not do that and/or get a lawyer. https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-i-be-charged-or-arres...
There's an article from San Francisco about a man being charged after hosing down a homeless woman. Ultimately the charges were dropped, but the answer to your question is yes with caveats.
But also, it's a terrible analogy because a punch to the face is potentially lethal force but delivering a newspaper isn't. Which, obviously, matters.
Spraying someone with a hose in this situation is battery. Unless the newspaper is being launched at your person with a potato gun, you're going to have a hard time coming up with a defense against that battery charge.
Unlikely, but not worth it. Also, MUCH more importantly, wrong target. Don't go after the laborer. Go after the capitalist paying him to harass you. Go after the owner's wallet and time, not the delivery guy's clothing.
In my head anyway. Apparently I'm more of a "well you can't look at any other part of my house and call me fastidious, so whatever my front yard has permanent trash" kind of guy.
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?
Why you think the person who's delivering doesn't have an incentive to listen?
They're paid to deliver to N addresses, if they know that X, Y, Z addresses don't want the delivery they're still getting paid for N deliveries.
When I did this job looooong ago I'd get a stack of papers, along with a strike-though list of addresses that shouldn't be delivered to, as those people had contacted the publisher.
But over the course of doing this job for a summer or two I'd also have people instead ask me to stop delivering in person, which I could use to overlay my own strike-though list at the beginning.
Those were much better, as unlike the first list they didn't subtract from the N, free money!
Clearly that didn't work for the GP for whatever reason, but I think it should in general. Then again this was a different time, and not even the same continent, YMMV.
Their unworkable business model shouldn't be my problem so I'm not excusing them, just saying what the realities probably are.
This'll differ by jurastiction, but in most of Europe you're allowed to deliver unrequested advertisements by post, but you're obligated to stop when asked.
I'm saying that in my case the paper boy was incentivised to oblige, but not inform the head office.
> Some individual exceptions like remember this house and that house is probably utterly impossible.
Most people (even the uneducated, or otherwise considered dumb) can remember and sing along to the lyrics of hundreds of songs, and remember the location of hundreds or even thousands of items kept in their house.
So even if you're delivering to hundreds of addresses you'll quickly start to remember the exceptions, at least that was my experience.
I usually try to charitable when interpreting other people's actions, but... There's always a possibility that someone's just mean.
I picked up the paper and tried to give it back (not by throwing it at him I swear). I live one house from the end of a dead end, and so he has to stop and back up or turn around so I approached the driver side while he was stopped.
I won't say I stayed perfectly bland and pleasant by the end but I didn't come out swinging or yelling. I never did more than just say "I don't want this" though.
I chalked it up to they probably just have a hard life with far more and worse stresses and worries than I. I actually feel bad for them having to do that job.
1) if they're entering your property without your permission, that is trespassing. If they've been doing it for ~15 years, you probably have a good case for reasonable damages worth more than 8 minutes of a courts time. You can start collecting evidence, sending a certified letter to the business requesting they stop delivery, and bring a lawsuit against the company. The courts are obligated to follow the law, and if your jurisdiction is like mine (WA State), you can sue for reasonable costs--investigation, 15-years worth of trash delivery (what is that like 10 garbing bins worth?) attorney fees, and ask for punitive damages (15 years of this behavior is clearly a nuisance, and you will likely find a sympathetic judge/magistrate). Of course, just because you get a judgement in your favor does not mean you will easily be able to collect. So that leads me to
2) They are also illegally littering on your property, which is a crime, and of which you can involve the police. As others have noted, this is a low priority offense to the police, but you can collect evidence (video recording of them doing it), and a certified letters requesting they stop. Armed with that evidence, you should be able to request the police to come and fine the driver for doing so. The police won't respond right away, but with enough persistence on your part they will. Depending on your jurisdiction, you could also elicit the help of your local city/county councilperson to get the police to take action sooner.
The OP definitely asked for the deliveries to stop, and even had a confrontation with the delivery driver. Seems pretty clear that he's expressed his preference that they not enter his property.
Yes.
> For what damages?
Your time. It has value.
> What court would waste 8 minutes on something like that?
Small claims. This sort of thing is what it's there for.
Don't get me wrong: the judge will be annoyed at the pettiness. BUT. As long as the judge sees that you went way above and beyond in trying to resolve the issue out of court, and you ask for reasonable damages, they will be pissed about the pettiness but the wrath will be applied to the other party.
For me:
1. I spent literally years trying to resolve the issue. Dozens of letters, phone calls, etc.
2. I asked for "2.49 times (my hourly rate times the number of hours I spent dealing with the issue)" because the statutory damage multiple was lower-bounded by 2 and upper-bounded by 3). I only billed for hours during the 9-5 work day when I was consulting, and only time during the work day when I was taking vacation time from a W2 job.
3. I included some of the time I spent on contacting them and writing letters, but not all of it. I told the judge that the sum included only time spent after my third letter, when it became clear that taking them to court might be the only possible resolution.
4. I apologized on behalf of both parties that something so silly couldn't be resolved out of court, and stressed that I tried really hard for years to work with the business owner.
In your case, asking for $1k or so would probably be fairly reasonable after a year or two of trying to resolve the issue, especially given the confrontation with the driver and the smoke-up-your-ass about renting.
Judges really do not want you to waste their time. The key is to demonstrate that you are also exasperated by the fact that the court was the only way to resolve your disagreement.
That's kind of funny, given that it's small claims court. I mean, I understand that it's a fee for littering, and not causing physical harm -- but... What else are you supposed to do if someone is habitually littering?
You’re not a violent criminal, so the way you solve disputes is with the force of law.
If you win but they don’t stop the behaviour then take them to court again. Small claims court is really cheap.
If they try to mess with you outside, well courts take an extremely dim view of that. Far in excess of any initial judgment.
If the thug doesn’t know that then they are going to prison for contempt of court.
Just out of curiosity, how did you know they were Mexican and how is it relevant?
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?
> Nitu says the deliveries were tied to her dormant Amazon account.
> "I don't know what Amazon is allowing them to do because they got a hold of my name, my address and my old phone number," she said.
The seller had put my address as their address, so all undeliverable mail came to my house.
I brought a bag full of these packages to the post office, explained the situation and gave them the packages. The entire pile of packages ended up back at my house a few days later.
I found the seller on Amazon and messaged them:
———
Me: I haven't ordered anything from you. I have received 6 packages that you sent but ended up at my house because the return address that you used is my address, not your address. Could you use a different return address?
Seller: Dear nulltype, We're sorry about this, we can't change the address at the moment because of the cumbersome policies on Amazon, but we'll change it when we have a new production facility. Please forgive us. You are free to use the packages. Sincerely,
———-
The packages continued to arrive after this.
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.
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.
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.
That damage itself might give her some weight in court but that is it's own whole 2nd career just pursuing that which is unreasonable to inflict on someone.
If she owed millions a lawyer would be worth it and would probably get lawyer fees. However this looks more like a case where courts will get mad about wasting their time.
"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
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...
i think their main use was automating reminders and alerts, since they probably couldnt find a way to blast SMSs to people without it being flagged eventually as spam
Anyway, in other articles similar to this that were in the USA (where the law about not having to pay for unsolicited packages applies) the people were getting several packages every day (If I recall it was dozens). So getting one or two things you didn't ask for would be fun, getting several of them every day would not.
(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 -
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.
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...
Yelp is a glorified BBB. Including the way they shake down businesses.
BBB has been around for over 100 years.
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.
Use whatever search engine you like.
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?
In the USA:
Basically yes, but with various incantations required depending on the state to make it illegal. The "too small stakes" part is uniform.
In my state, in the USA, it's technically abandoned property the moment it's left and you don't need to post a sign or make an attempt at contacting the owner.
After a certain amount of time, with reasonable attempts to give notice, you can start charging storage fees.
The law is written to work best for things like abandoned cars or furniture in mind, not nuisance mail, but there's jurisprudence establishing that there was broad legislative intent. The door tag thing might even fly. But for something like a door tag, damages would never be worth the filing fees even after hundreds of years of storage. It would have to be a real "fuck you" move because damages would be like hundredths of a cent against mid 2 figure filing fees.
In this case I think the subject of the article would actually have a case and real damages, in the USA, in my state.
But more importantly: the business owner has to either show up in small claims or pay a lawyer to do so. It's certainly a way to get a company to cut shit out for the cost of a filing fee, even if damages awarded are trivial. And in this case I think a judge would be very sympathetic.
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.
But that's vastly different from just dumping a bunch of garbage on someone's porch.
This is abandoned property. In some states you can charge storage fees for abandoned property.
Amazon told me walk about and contact different people around my neighborhood when UPS dropped a refrigerator off at the wrong house.
(let's nevermind that I use a wheelchair in an area with zero accessibility; blindly knocking on doors is dangerous.)
It took weeks of coercion from both myself and the manufacturer before Amazon lifted a finger; meanwhile the manufacturer themselves sent me out a unit for the sake of providing some kind of justice.
During the same period Amazon shipped me a quart of boat varnish that I had ordered. It arrived smashed in half with the entire contents spilled out of the cardboard box, obviously ran over or some such, presumably leaving its' contents all over the delivery vehicle. When confronted with pictures of the event they said "Oh , our apologies, but we offer no refund or guarantees on chemical/industrial purchases or deliveries that require hazardous shipments."
Lesson learned : don't buy Amazon.
It sounds like they handled this particular situation completely reasonably (modulo the least-effort job everyone does these days), and your expectations were off. If you're ordering stuff online, the table stakes include waiting and dealing with exceptions.
Once there's delays and problems with the delivery (like giving my product to someone else) it makes me not to want to buy from you again; cause I'm not sure when I'll get my product or even if I'll get it.
Gone are the days where individual employees went above and beyond to make sure every customer was taken care with the details making sense, because gone are the days where companies treated employees like humans rather than expendable cogs. I've had boxes of leaking oil paint left on my doorstep at 9PM - the package was able to be marked as delivered on the promised day, and therefore everything was right in their system.
Do I blame Home Depot (the vendor) for that, or Rustoleum (the actual shipper), or UPS (the delivery company)? All of them and none of them specifically - it's "nobody's fault". Instead I complained to Home Depot for a refund and 20% off the reship, cleaned up the mess myself, saved the remaining 3 gallons of paint that hadn't flowed out of the cans into a new bucket to use later, and didn't feel bad about getting that paint for free. That's the best I could make of the situation - screaming at the customer service drones wouldn't have gotten me a better outcome. That's life in the 2020's.
You can certainly eliminate the variability of delivery - go to a brick and mortar store with stock. But the same caveat emptor maxim applies. You'd still better inspect what you're buying, because otherwise there's a chance you'll get it home and it will be defective in some way and you'll have to return it and do the whole process over again.
As someone who used to only return things if there was a serious problem or if I earnestly changed my mind, this really bugged me at first. But now I've just accepted this is how things work. I'll even buy things on sale that I just might want, knowing I've got a month or three to actually decide (with my only cost being the work required to effect a return). Companies wanted this regime of no honor besides blindly their fully formalized procedures, and so I'll play my part.
Aside from the customs charge fight with UPS, where she's absolutely in the right, I don't understand why this is causing her stress. If she's a bogus return address, then no one is coming to get the items and there's no expectation on her to do anything in particular with the items. She can keep what she likes and throw out the rest.
Sounds like a great court case to me.
And is it a UPS yes/no or do they get more fine grained?
Walmart uses(or used) the same law to enable their security guards to restrain people inside of their store.
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.
Yes they can. It's not a valid debt, but they can certainly sell it to a collections company.
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...
https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revi...
Not even that long ago, you could probably place a call and speak to a human who knew how to stop this, or it possibly wouldn't have ever happened.
Amazon should be held legally responsible and pay for the customs fees as well as for her stress induced by this.
So I receive my free package of boxers and socks and lo and behold next month I receive another with a bill. I actually liked them so I paid for a while and then I called in and canceled when I felt like I had enough underwear. They kept sending them. I sent an email canceling, they kept sending them.
So I sent another email saying that if they send me more stuff I'll consider it a gift and keep it. They kept sending for a few months and eventually stopped. Never even heard from any collections agencies. If I had I figured I'd just show them my emails canceling the service.
It’s Tasmanian Syrup, on dry ice…
I assume the rest of your guess is correct though.
Sorry to derail. I believe the context is important and not generally well-known.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trying that site now:
Sorry, consumer.ftc.gov is down for maintenance. It will be back up shortly.
Of course the case is in Canada, so I don't know how their laws work.
The RCMP said she could open them...
Canadian equivalent of most senior Senator.
A call from a major public official works wonders in getting companies to see sense.
Seriously, how on Earth is that even legal?
She’s in Canada and it sounds like the packages were from US.
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.
Nothing about this story makes any sense.
> "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.
This is people buying stuff off of Amazon, and returning it in the mail. The vendor doesn't have an address in North America, and shipping it to a dumpster is harder than a random stranger. So they just have returns go to a random stranger.
If the product doesn't sell they don't want to continue paying fees to store the inventory in Amazon's warehouses and they don't want to pay the fees to have it shipped back to China so they put a random address in and tell Amazon to return the unsold product to there.
They have crates of stuff shipped from the factory directly to Amazon, and from here they presumably can’t simply tell Amazon “throw it all in the dumpster” if it isnt selling well - or maybe Amazon charges them fees for that. It’s now expensive or impossible for them to return it to where it was made, it’s not selling, and they are paying Amazon to store it.
So on the short list of bad options for a dropship seller, you make the call that it is cheaper to ship these unwanted things somewhere than to pay for them to sit in storage.
The incentives here are pretty deeply flawed. These giant online marketplaces make it really easy for sellers to have almost no skin in the game.
Because you can make someone else do it?
If it was so simple to re-sell returned things with a profit, I'd imagine plenty of companies would already have noticed, and would be providing "please send me your crap" addresses to these sellers who can't be bothered to handle returns, and pay a couple pennies to said sellers or something.
Amazon legal will fix this.
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.
Like maybe a processing fee or something. These abandoned goods shouldn't be her problem, except customs is insisting on her dealing with it.
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.
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.
A huge amount of trash has theoretical value, but you'll lose money trying to extract it.
Where do you live? I'm happy to start dumping my trash on your porch...
Not everyone is motivated by financial gain. Also to resell garbage products is a full time job that many wouldn't find worthwhile...
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.
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.